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BMC Helix ITSM vs Cherwell Service Management vs IFS Cloud Platform comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 7.1%, down from 12.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IFS Cloud Platform is 1.8%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BMC Helix ITSM7.1%
IFS Cloud Platform1.8%
Cherwell Service Management1.4%
Other89.7%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Ameet Darole - PeerSpot reviewer
Used for user ticket management, incident management, and event management
We had a manual event management process and a separate monitoring tool called Dynatrace. The alerts generated did not flow to the ITSM tool. With BMC Helix ITSM, the alerts flow and auto-route to respective technical support. If the alerts are resolved, the ticket will be automatically closed. So, the workload and automation are much better now. BMC Helix ITSM is a fast platform, so it is quite manageable. I would recommend BMC Helix ITSM to other users because it is a good solution. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Thobile Moeketsi - PeerSpot reviewer
Having everything in one location has significantly improved our efficiency and reporting
We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges. Even though it uses our Windows login, we still have to be on VPN. The product should be able to log tickets directly from system to system. We haven't got there yet and I'm not sure it's possible but it would determine the product's capability to integrate with other systems.
Thangaraj Ramasamy - PeerSpot reviewer
Has supported project management and business customization through strong modular flexibility
The cloud feature in IFS Cloud Platform is predominantly valuable, especially the enterprise asset management module, which IFS has very good business into, along with strong finance, project management, and supply chain management modules; these are the major modules that are performing well with IFS, and the cloud options along with user-friendly customizations for any technical developments are additional advantages. The integration of IoT with IFS Cloud Platform is performing well, enabling us to integrate with predominantly any third party through the standard inbuilt connectors that are readily available, and if we need to customize the integration, we can certainly do that too.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features I have found to be the activity logs and the other features where you are able to continuously address issues and are able to annotate notes inside to convey them to the customer."
"Improved our organization with better customer experience and reporting abilities."
"We reduced many paper processes to electronic driven forms. It helps us a lot in tracking and managing."
"The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM for us are CMDB and discovery."
"Smart IT and the phone app are easily the most valuable features in reporting and tracking ongoing issues."
"This product has helped us to maintain our OLAs (Organisation level Agreements) and SLAs (Service Level Agreements) by tracking incidents, requests, problem records, and change requests, all in the form of tickets."
"It's one of the top solutions on the market for ITSM capabilities."
"We use this tool for managing tickets, other employee related services, and reporting purposes."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable. It is also pretty stable, and it can be as scalable as you want."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"One of our favorite features is the "Info-Zone", which provides operational intelligence in flight and in context to guide both business users and support teams to productivity."
"Having a young talented programmer, during the six years of use, we were able to save around 75 000 EUR preparing simple modifications using customization rather than ordering them in IFS / Partner."
"A high level of ERP can be handled in IFS."
"Feature-wise, I like the way it provides inventory details...It is a stable solution."
"The most valuable feature is the distribution module."
"Individual user profiles that can be configured as templates to minimize data entry."
"I like the connectivity and interfaces. In V10, it's easy to modify the interfaces and layouts, but it's becoming more complicated in the cloud. IFS is excellent at asset maintenance and incident management. They have specialized modules for IFS that cover incident and asset management and everything else connected to finance. The reporting in IFS is also easy to use."
"The financial posting controls are quite handy. The user interface is really friendly, highly flexible, and pretty intuitive for end users."
 

Cons

"In User Group sessions held by BMC in India, I mentioned the challenges with vast documentation, making it difficult to find the right information quickly. However, we lack access to a sandbox for in-house development, which was very helpful for hands-on work with new features."
"The interface is somewhat dated as compared to technologies in use today."
"Maybe the upgrade process and the release between environments should to be more transparent for anyone to execute it."
"Working with numerous processes can be complex, and the processes are not always transparent in the solution."
"BMC Helix ITSM should have an easy-to-use user interface."
"Support could be better."
"From time to time, we had issues with stability, but I think that is our fault due to extra processes that we implemented to fit our business needs."
"They could be more responsive to feedback from their community board."
"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly. The shopping cart experience is also terrible - you submit and go straight to the cart, you can't continue shopping or see your overall cost."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"There are some stability issues."
"An area for improvement would be transactions, which can be tedious to complete as the process is very complex."
"I have seen that one of the areas that my company has identified for improvement might be the rental management capabilities within the solution."
"There should be some improvements in the predefined templates in IFS Applications."
"I'm a business analyst, so I do a lot of customer-facing work. I take calls from businesses I have to troubleshoot. One thing that bugs me is the error messages you get from IFS. If I get an error message, I have to dig to find the cause because, often, the error message doesn't precisely describe the problem. It'll hint about where the problem lies, but you have to work to find the root cause. It doesn't help in my situation. You expect an error message to point to the field or what is causing the issue."
"Customization needs to be improved."
"Aspects of HR and payroll could be better."
"The next version has already been released, and some of the technical things are a little bit behind the curve in development. This is specifically security, maintenance, security role maintenance, and creation. This is in their new product, called IFS Cloud."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you are looking for some kind of professional services form the OEM then you would have to purchase that."
"It is costly, but it is well worth it."
"Just make sure you really sit down and look at what you will be using per user, therefore you will not be surprised with a big bill. You do not want every user having every license, it really is not needed."
"It's a yearly subscription but there are a couple of customers who go for the monthly subscription."
"The cost is relatively high, especially for the BMC Controller application. However, the expense is justified by the standard and reliable features it offers. This product's reputation in the market is strong, providing assurance in terms of data and other considerations."
"There are licenses to use this solution."
"I am not sure the exact price we pay for the solution but I know it is in the high seven-figure amount annually."
"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. The solution is expensive."
"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"Pricing is an area that could be improved. They could be more competitive."
"IFS Applications is expensive software, but it's on par with SAP and Oracle. It's for large enterprises and government entities and not for small and medium-sized enterprises. They have one licensing model, but if you want to have a module-specific license, they provide component-based licenses. Unlike SAP and Oracle, it doesn't have different levels of licensing. It's one level of licensing."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"There are varying license levels that you can purchase."
"It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners"
"I consider it to be a well-priced solution compared to other mid-range or high-end ERP solutions."
"There's an additional yearly cost for support."
"Licensing is on an annual basis, with no additional costs."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Energy/Utilities Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise54
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix ITSM?
If we consider major players like Ford or BMW, their core focus is manufacturing products like cars. To ensure smooth...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix ITSM?
Currently, we are not utilizing the AI functionality in BMC Helix ITSM as we are still in the roadmap and development...
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix ITSM?
We use BMC Helix ITSM for the complete end-to-end ITSM suite, mainly for ticketing and service management. BMC Helix ...
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What do you like most about IFS Applications?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten since it is an extremely scalable solution that can be...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IFS Applications?
The product is reasonably priced. The costs are justified by the value provided, considering the comprehensive featur...
What needs improvement with IFS Applications?
When it comes to AI, I feel that is the area where we expect something more from IFS Cloud Platform. They are working...
 

Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy, BMC Helix IT Service Management
No data available
IFS Applications, Assyst, IFS Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
China Airlines, Electrolux Group, Babcock, Cimcorp, Sky, Multiplex, Veolia. 
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: September 2025.
868,288 professionals have used our research since 2012.