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BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management vs SolarWinds Service Desk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

BMC Helix Enterprise Servic...
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
25th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Service Desk
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

KV
Utilize comprehensive IT service modules while addressing configuration database issues
There are several areas where BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management could be improved. Currently, ServiceNow has an edge when it comes to the ease of discovering Configuration Items (CIs). In BMC Helix, there are issues with the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), such as duplicate entries and problems with reconciliation. The recently introduced dashboard tool in Helix, which replaced Smart Reporting, has several issues. Reporting has been a consistent problem in BMC, and it would greatly benefit from enhancements.
Rajendra Karad - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides superior visibility and efficiency with excellent analytics capabilities
What I appreciate the most about the product is that, as per the name given, it brings better visibility to the client in terms of their infrastructure, application, and performance. SolarWinds Service Desk is a quite matured product now, making it one of the best options on the market. The incident management feature is aligned to the ITIL framework. The asset management feature is also a very thoughtful framework they have implemented. Right from onboarding an asset till scrapping it, the complete lifecycle is cleanly maintained within the system itself. All the approval chains, their logs, and even the contract information have been made very easy for the users to maintain. The knowledge base feature is an out-of-the-box knowledge base, and additionally, we can integrate our own DMS. Machine learning is something that they have been following, and we can integrate an external DMS with that, which helps in searching SOPs and even the global knowledge base over the internet, allowing it to be searched within the same single window itself. Change management in SolarWinds Service Desk is linked with the service catalog, and since it also has a service portal, a self-service portal for users, introducing a service catalog that's integrated with the change management actually completes the flow and makes life easier for IT administrators.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The support of BMC is generally good and better compared to some competitors."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"There are several areas where BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management could be improved. Currently, ServiceNow has an edge when it comes to the ease of discovering Configuration Items (CIs)."
"The integration with other applications can use improvement because, for example, it was nearly impossible to integrate SolarWinds Service Desk with monday.com because we had to get an add-on from Zapier."
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Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management?
While I am not very sure about the pricing, I have heard that the license cost of BMC is relatively lower than its competitors.
What needs improvement with BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management?
There are several areas where BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management could be improved. Currently, ServiceNow has an edge when it comes to the ease of discovering Configuration Items (CIs). In BMC...
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management?
I use BMC Helix Enterprise Service Management ( /products/bmc-helix-enterprise-service-management-reviews ) primarily for IT service management. It supports modules like incident management, change...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Service Desk?
The industry standard practices that this product is already certified for show that there will always be room for improvement since it is a service-led product, so we'll keep on giving feedback wh...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Service Desk?
Instead of Traverse, we are now using SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, as we have replaced Kaseya Traverse with that. I recommend it to my customers. We are now dealing with SolarWinds Servic...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Service Desk?
I think the pricing of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is now comparative and suited to our business model, which is the reason we have moved to that. It has actually helped my customers' tec...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC Helix and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: September 2025.
869,160 professionals have used our research since 2012.