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BMC Helix ITSM vs ConnectWise PSA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

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 ITSM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (3rd)
ConnectWise PSA
Ranking in Help Desk Software
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Business Management Software (1st), Professional Services Automation (PSA) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 7.1%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ConnectWise PSA is 2.1%, up from 1.8% 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%
ConnectWise PSA2.1%
Other90.8%
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.
JonMcWilliams - PeerSpot reviewer
Very useful for ticketing and billing purposes
In this case, we have the ability to fire on tasks. An email can be sent, and it is being received into the Kaseya tool or Autotask. Autotask then can parse the email appropriately and route it based on the rules that we set up. In that sense, it's very dynamic, and I can immediately identify which client is making a support request. It can route it to the appropriate queue and then send out the appropriate notifications. As work is done on the ticket, you can also notify the person requesting support or other pre-designated contacts so that they're kept in the loop. ConnectWise PSA is making its updates, and its integration with Office 365 has been really good. I like the fact that the solution integrates with IT Glue. ConnectWise PSA is making improvements, and it's a little bit more dynamic. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The versatility and customizability of the product is what I like most."
"The standards and the framework that it follows are most valuable. It has an ITIL and out-of-the-box framework."
"With service requests, we have been able to give visibility to the business users."
"Automatic orchestration is the most valuable. The feature for designating some cases or incidents to the right PM for resolution, first call resolution, and change management are also important. The self-service feature and knowledge base resolutions are helping the customers in resolving issues rather than opening tickets."
"BMC Helix ITSM is a good product out-of-box, with a lot of functionalities built-in, so there is no need to worry—just plug and play."
"Smart Reporting makes it easy to create/publish views for tables, so our customers can easily create their own reports."
"The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM are the collaboration, integrated with the help of another solution called Entity. We can do all the integration and receive an automatic ticket with the help of email. We are able to receive SMS alerts to clients and end users. Every step of the ticket is generated and we are able to resolve and close them. It's very helpful to have the ability to inform the user with detailed information."
"In BMC, you can do absolutely anything. You can customize, you can configure, and you can customize and develop pretty much anything."
"The ease of reporting is valuable. We have a weekly management meeting, and we gather numbers from ConnectWise in preparation for that. It is helpful for measuring how we're doing in our performance."
"The most valuable feature is the management of projects from start to finish."
"The search function is really good. To have a single place where we have the account information stored is probably most valuable."
"The initial setup isn't too difficult."
"Contains every feature that a VAR or MSP would want."
"It's a nice ticketing system."
"I also like ConnectWise's ability to set up queries. I can set up all these different queries that look for specific things and end up with a list of results, like feedback from the client or the ticket status."
"It's a pretty simple web interface. The rules engine was really easy to set up, and it ingests emails very well."
 

Cons

"Integration could be better. If something doesn't work well with some tools and operations, then management becomes difficult, so you have to integrate other tools."
"Whenever you start exploring some new product features, you run into defects. It has been like this for the last six years."
"In the next release, I would like to see AI used for classification or categorization."
"Some parts of the solutions are using the old interface."
"There are some limitations or restrictions to using BMC Helix. For example, when we do some reporting, the reporting interface should be more user-friendly from my point of view."
"Encountered issues with scalability and stability."
"We found that there was numerous issues upgrading from 8.1 to 9.1 in that all our licenses were broken for almost a year and a half. We chased down a total of 14 hotfixes, patches, and service packs before things were finally resolved. During that time, said "fixes" also broke other things, so it was quite the sore spot with management for some time."
"They should add some of the bolt-ons into the initial setup, such as chat."
"Their reporting options aren't great. BrightGauge was something that we added on, and that enhanced the experience."
"The technical support of ConnectWise PSA is not very good."
"The speed could be better, and the reporting could be a lot better."
"If you've got 40 tickets that come in, that get generated, that don't get properly tagged with the company, you can't just check them all and reassign them to another company. You have to individually reassign each one of those tickets to a new company."
"Has a very outdated 90s interface and not all features are accessible via the mobile app."
"It would be nice if ConnectWise gave us more flexibility when using customized fields in the interface. You can set up a user-defined field, but those don't port over to tables. It's really inconvenient."
"A lot of times, it'll take a couple of moments for things to go through. If you're not patient about it, it may seem like things aren't working."
"The tracking inventory or the way it tracks the products is not very good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While purchasing, try to negotiate on per user licensing costs, associated maintenance, and purchase 20% more then what you think you should have. Bulk is always cheaper."
"BMC is a little bit cheaper than ServiceNow, but BMC doesn't have the same capabilities in its entry-level product at the moment. The basic version does not have the DWP features that most of our customers are requesting."
"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."
"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."
"It is costly, but it is well worth it."
"If Customer and IT agents are happy, that is one of the greatest ROI. However, one of the major factors is Leadership, because at the end they have to justify the cost."
"The solution's pricing should come down."
"It is not very expensive and not very cheap. It is somewhere in-between. Some of the features are more expensive. There are also additional costs. If you want to use most of the features, you need to pay more."
"The pricing of ConnectWise Manage is reasonable."
"We're paying $940 a month for 14 users."
"There are some different add-ons and benefits that are optional and come at an additional cost."
"The pricing is not based on my clients so much as it is on how many people I have accessing the system, and I think it's pretty good."
"I have one monthly license for all of the ConnectWise products I use, and it's $85 per user."
"The cost can be the main barrier. It's not a solution for a three person company. It just isn't going to be cost effective. Because ConnectWise Manage does have everything there, the licensing is a little bit restrictive as far as how they want to granularly assign licenses rather than having more of an all-inclusive package."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
37%
Performing Arts
9%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Comms Service Provider
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise54
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
 

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 operations, any arising issues, be it security concerns or issues within depart...
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 phase at this point in time. There isn't anything that I would suggest for impr...
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 ITSM supports our IT service management processes primarily for all incident, pr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ConnectWise Manage?
In our case, the solution is priced out by the user we have in the system. The pricing is not based on my clients so much as it is on how many people I have accessing the system, and I think it's p...
What needs improvement with ConnectWise Manage?
The technical support of ConnectWise PSA is not very good.
What advice do you have for others considering ConnectWise Manage?
In this case, we have the ability to fire on tasks. An email can be sent, and it is being received into the Kaseya tool or Autotask. Autotask then can parse the email appropriately and route it bas...
 

Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy, BMC Helix IT Service Management
ConnectWise Manage
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
IT Connexx, High Standards Technology Inc, Solvere One, MyIT, ConnectWise, Simpatico Systems, Fred IT Group, ECS, OneStop, K2 Technologies, Clark Integrated Technologies, Jmark, Geek on Wheels
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix ITSM vs. ConnectWise PSA and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.