Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

BMC Helix ITSM vs Espressive Barista comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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
7th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Espressive Barista
Ranking in Help Desk Software
16th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
15th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
AI-Powered Chatbots (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 9.8%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Espressive Barista is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Jim Lobao - PeerSpot reviewer
Has helped enhance our support ability, reduced our resolution time, and reduced our service desk costs
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human intervention. However, Barista does help us identify and address some of these areas, allowing my team to step in and create intents and responses to questions. When a user asks a question that Barista doesn't immediately understand, we can recognize the pattern, capture it, and link it to a common intent. This is highly beneficial for acquiring such data, but it's a reactive approach and still requires curation. Natural language processing still has some way to go. One of our challenges is that our internal employees haven't yet adopted a natural way of interacting with Barista. Getting people to be concise and to the point, rather than being verbose as if they were interacting with a human, has been an ongoing challenge. While they may feel comfortable being conversational in Slack, expecting a human-like response, Barista is a different entity. Barista isn't interested in their recent vacation; it just wants to know they're locked out of their account. So, some users may assume Barista understands their intent when they say, "I'm back from vacation and locked out of my account." Barista, however, may interpret this as a request for the holiday schedule. Therefore, we're gradually educating our users to adapt their communication style for better success with Barista. Conversely, we desire Barista to adapt its behavior based on the interaction, the language used, and the way people communicate. I wholeheartedly desire an AI that can continuously learn and adapt to our organization's evolving needs. This is the most challenging aspect, as it involves understanding our organization's terminology, procedures, and toolsets. We've made significant progress in this area. However, from an NLP standpoint, we still face challenges with our nearly 3,000 Slack channel users, each with their unique communication styles. People ask questions in various ways, and sometimes there are misunderstandings. They want to interact with us naturally. However, we still struggle with natural language processing. People don't always realize that the bot is a virtual agent designed to be concise and efficient. Sometimes, less is more. It's been a difficult transition for people to grasp that they're conversing with a virtual agent, not a human. They still expect human-like interactions, such as discussing their weekend or holidays or simply pasting screenshots of errors. However, the bot can't interpret screenshots. If they provide the error code and some context about the application, the bot can better understand the issue. So, the key challenge is bridging the gap between human expectations and the bot's capabilities in terms of natural interaction.

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 of BMC Helix ITSM are the service level management, configuration, and reporting tool."
"The solution is already aligned with the framework, so it is easy for us to proceed with any ISO 27K certification."
"Customer support is always fantastic and willing to help. No matter what time of day we have a problem."
"I like the single sign-on and that administrators can customize."
"The most valuable feature for our customers using BMC Helix ITSM is change management."
"Currently, the Service Catalog has the most value to it. Mainly, because we are able to offer IT functionality to non-IT people."
"The standards and the framework that it follows are most valuable. It has an ITIL and out-of-the-box framework."
"It's a very integrated solution."
"When it comes to neutral language processing and conversational AI, it's very good, very solid... We all have different ways of speaking or writing in English and the application does a very solid job of recognizing what's being asked regardless of how it's being asked."
"We have the ability to alter phrases, create new phrases, or enhance phrases, or change paths. From the dashboard, we are able to get a lot of information we need about what people are asking, where they are dropping off from conversations, and where they do not get the information they need."
"The most valuable feature is its scalability."
"With respect to its natural language processing capabilities, it recognizes things that you wouldn't think it would recognize. Even in cases where it doesn't, it's pretty easy to go in and make the adjustments that are needed."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"Our developers have used the Barista Control Center to extend the platform by adding content, and they've found it fairly easy to do and manage"
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
 

Cons

"There is a text editor that we use to enter our incident description or service request description, and it should be richer in terms of features."
"Its performance can be improved. Sometimes, there is a performance issue, and it is a little slow and difficult on the usage side. It would be beneficial for us if there is a lighter version of this solution. There is also a limitation on the number of columns and memory for extracting a report, and this functionality can be improved. We would like to have better integration and UI in this solution. The user interface should be easy to navigate. Its integration with other tools, such as SharePoint or Jira, can also be improved, which would be beneficial for us. In terms of new features, there should also be a mobile version. The desktop version is available, but the mobile version is not available, which is one of the challenges that our team has. For users who work on Remedy and who raise the ticket, it would also be very beneficial to have some chatbot features."
"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."
"Maybe it could be more simplified and easier to change the reporting point of view, like from a different vendor to another."
"Helix needs to enhance some of its functionality with the latest technology. For example, Helix could improve its chatbot automation to automate more use cases."
"They could be more responsive to feedback from their community board."
"SmartIT could include PR. This would help us greatly in bridging the gap between Remedy's views and SmartIT."
"The user experience could be better."
"Expressive Barista could improve by adding native integration with WhatsApp, one of the top communication channels in South Africa. When we're trying to sell Barista to customers, we have to tell them that the solution doesn't have out-of-the-box support for WhatsApp. We can develop it, but then we need to have a conversation about how much that will cost."
"What would make things easier is more detail, out of the box, about what is helping out of the box. We're struggling a little bit to get that data. We want more information about what Barista has brought in that the employees are using, out of the box. We want more visibility into the things that we ourselves haven't done the interaction for."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"Although they've done some work on their metrics dashboard, there is some fine-tuning to do for people that just want to go in there at a glance and see their metrics."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"My only comment would be if they wanted to use this as an IT service management tool, maybe they could think about Barista making tickets and having change management and problem management capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of BMC Helix ITSM could improve their price."
"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."
"We did not compare the price of BMC Helix ITSM to other vendors. However, it has a mid-range price."
"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."
"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 solution's pricing should come down."
"I am not sure the exact price we pay for the solution but I know it is in the high seven-figure amount annually."
"It's a yearly subscription but there are a couple of customers who go for the monthly subscription."
"The solution is affordable."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"The pricing isn't overly burdensome. It's going to be interesting to see how new models come in with new capabilities but, as it is, as a base system, it's pretty good."
"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Help Desk Software solutions are best for your needs.
858,038 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
49%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
5%
Retailer
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
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. The recent move to a new platform is bene...
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix ITSM?
I am currently working as a BMC Remedy developer. I have been working for over ten years on the BMC platform. My company uses BMC Helix ITSM for IT service management processes.
What do you like most about Espressive?
The most valuable feature is its scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Espressive?
Espressive has been very accommodating in trying to meet our needs and adapt to our current situation. User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant ...
What needs improvement with Espressive?
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human ...
 

Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix ITSM vs. Espressive Barista and other solutions. Updated: May 2025.
858,038 professionals have used our research since 2012.