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BMC Helix ITSM vs Freshservice vs N-able MSP Manager 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 May 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 10.4%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Freshservice is 3.8%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of N-able MSP Manager is 0.7%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Fairoz Gadad - PeerSpot reviewer
Development team is quick to address bugs or shortcomings in their product
BMC's technical support team needs to improve. Right now, the problem over here is we are not getting the exact answers on time. Their engineers are mainly based in the US or Israel, and we get comprehensive dedicated support. Some of the Indian customer service representatives are also outstanding. Unfortunately, in the past six months or seven months, I've been getting brand-new engineers. Either they're not entirely aware of most cases, or they don't know how to troubleshoot further. So for any product to be stable and work correctly, BMC must ensure that customer service is excellent. Even though if your product is a hundred percent, we'll have problems marketing it to our customers.
Trilochana Gouda - PeerSpot reviewer
Smooth incident management and easy to use while needing better escalation management
We are using Freshservice for the IT ticketing system for business users We use the ticketing system primarily, which is very easy to use for all users. Freshservice is helpful, especially in incident management. Incident management is very helpful, and the system is straightforward, making it…
Yazan Albaw - PeerSpot reviewer
N-able MSP Manager centralizes service management, automates ticketing, and enhances client communication for streamlined IT operations.
For improvement, there's a feature I've already requested from N-able that I'd love to see in future releases. When adding a client, there should be a way to add multiple contacts under each client. Currently, we have to manually enter each contact’s details one by one, including their name, last name, password, and other information. It would be much more efficient if we could import contacts in bulk, perhaps using an Excel sheet or another import method. Additionally, it would be highly beneficial if MSP Manager could integrate with multiple RMM solutions. At the moment, we're limited to integrating with just one RMM, Expanding this capability would greatly enhance the versatility and value of MSP Manager.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Initial setup is straightforward, and if you follow best practices, then future enhancements will be smoother."
"We reduced many paper processes to electronic driven forms. It helps us a lot in tracking and managing."
"The solution has good capabilities for analytics."
"The most valuable feature for our customers using BMC Helix ITSM is change management."
"The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM are the ease to use and integration."
"The solution is already aligned with the framework, so it is easy for us to proceed with any ISO 27K certification."
"It has the power to automatize several different tasks in the ITSM world."
"The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM for us are CMDB and discovery."
"What I have seen in Freshservice is there's no room for customization. Which works as an advantage in some cases and it works as a disadvantage in others. If you are someone that starts managing your IT services, it is a great solution, because there's no way to go out away from the direction of the system. You have to follow the process as it was intended for the designers of a solution because there's no room for customization or configuration."
"It's very handy and very easy to use."
"It allowed the development team to concentrate on the client’s requirements instead."
"The workflow and the change management process are valuable."
"Freshservice has automated a lot of our tasks, including ticket responses and call assignments, which has sped up our operations considerably."
"I do like the workflow automation capabilities, where based upon certain actions, it will automatically go and route tickets to a particular person. It is fairly user-friendly."
"It is a stable solution. My company hasn't faced any problems with the solution."
"The portal is straightforward for the end-user, but that's not the best part of Freshservice. Integration is the part that's interesting because it's easy to set up a process. It's extremely simple to integrate. In one week, you can add change management. It's incredible."
"This is a premier product and it has been around for a long time."
"The best advantage for us, since we use all N-able products, is that the MSP portal centralizes everything."
"I like that you can do all the things with it. You can patch, and you can run the scheduled tasks. You can remote in, upload files, and download files. You can log onto a computer PowerShell, or command prompt, without having to log into RDP. I also like its ease of use."
"I am impressed with the tool's integration with our mail system."
 

Cons

"Some parts of the solutions are using the old interface."
"There are plugins to the solution that have come onto the market, so the solution should also be updated in terms of administration to increase efficiency."
"Log in process is unnecessarily complicated."
"The product's customization capabilities, price, and technical support are areas of concern where improvements are needed."
"It needs a more organic workflow, so every field you create is labeled throughout the stack. BMC has a few products that they try to bundle together. Generally, that solution works. BMC should take a step back and think about the overall solution—not only ITSM but also CTI Integration along with chat. They have all that, but it's not an end-to-end holistic solution with the added reporting analytics."
"I would also love to see consistency across all consoles."
"I would like to see the BMC add advanced DWP features and customization to the standard package. Furthermore, BMC does not have any leverage for non-IT services, so it would be nice if BMC could integrate something like HR Change Management into ITSM itself."
"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."
"On the reporting side, when we were doing reporting, one thing that was a bit of a limitation was when you had a data list containing a list of changes that have occurred for the whole time and you had to fit the list onto a page. If the list went over the page, it would just truncate it at the page. You wouldn't get all your data. So, it didn't work. That was one big stand-out for me. What we tended to do was convert things into a more readable format, and then we had more targeted exception reporting, but it would be nice to have a full list of things that could be automatically generated and that can flow over pages."
"Their analytics need improvement."
"The ability to customize the user interface is a bit lacking, and the reporting is a bit lacking because they're very stringent upon what you can pull reporting-wise within Freshservice. They have a lot of built-in reports that are very nice, but when it comes to customizing these, they just provide you with certain data. When you try to build your own report wizard, you aren't able to go and select some of the data that is shown in some of the reports that come with Freshservice. This is something that we have brought up with our account representative, and we have suggested these as feature updates in the future. We're still waiting on them to go and implement something like that."
"Freshservice's technical support has issues with delays and translations."
"Some of the ways that tasks are reported on and shown can be better. You can't see tasks in your regular ticket list view. You can't see a combo view of tasks and tickets. It is a little bit difficult to get a solid overview of your list of things to do. You can only see them in separate views, instead of one single view."
"The most significant area for improvement is consistency across the different modules, as they are inconsistent. It makes me think the modules have different development teams with no consistent approach. From an end-user perspective, I can do certain operations in one module, such as instant management, but not in problem management, for example, and I don't see why that should be the case. It would be good to see more consistency in the development process."
"The reporting and management information (MI) are very limited, and stopped realistic and timely reporting on outstanding incidents."
"Freshservice could improve the delegation and workflow management features."
"What I would like to see is a simplified solution that is packaged better, where you can easily implement or turn on the functionality that you need."
"I'd like to see a way to import contacts in bulk using an Excel sheet or another import method."
"Its reporting is lousy and bad. It is not as good as it should be. There is too much work involved to get what you want. Most times, you have to call them to customize some stuff. I just don't like that part. They need to work on their reporting. They have a way to go."
"The tool needs to improve its customization of the user interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"If you are looking for some kind of professional services form the OEM then you would have to purchase that."
"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."
"I am not sure the exact price we pay for the solution but I know it is in the high seven-figure amount annually."
"The solution's pricing should come down."
"We did not compare the price of BMC Helix ITSM to other vendors. However, it has a mid-range price."
"BMC Helix ITSM is a very cost-effective solution."
"Our licensing fee for Freshservice is $2,500 a year."
"The solution has an annual licensing model."
"The pricing information is on their website. It's my understanding that their Pro Plan, for example, is around $89/month."
"It is good for the price you pay. It has different plans. If you need all features, you need to go for a higher plan. Currently, with the second tier plan, you cannot completely separate the group of agents. So, the agent in each group can see another person's ticket. You also cannot modify the rules based on the viewable, readable stuff and cannot have a custom role in this plan. If you want to do that, you have to go for a higher plan. It works in our case because it doesn't matter if the other group can see our ticket because it doesn't contain anything sensitive. We also didn't need the project or change management features. That's why we didn't go with a higher plan."
"I don't think it's expensive for the US or some European markets. Still, when I used Freshservice in Mexico, some customers found it a bit pricey, especially considering the platform's features. I think the pricing is fair for use in the European market, but it might be perceived differently in Latin America."
"The price of Freshservice could improve, it is expensive."
"Compared to other tools, Freshservice is affordable."
"There are some additional costs but not that many. For example, we have unlimited assets, which is something for which we pay extra. We also paid for additional orchestration. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing. They are right in the middle."
"I would rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten since it's not the cheapest one in the market."
"Don't get scared of the price tag because it's definitely worth it."
"I don't know the exact cost, but I know it's reasonable. Its cost of entry is not bad. I've had other organizations sign up for it. I don't know how much they paid, but it wasn't bad. You charge for every object. You charge for AV, and you charge for servers. There is a charge for everything or every object in that. I know we make money from it, but I don't know what it is."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
23%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
In User Group sessions held by BMC in India, I mentioned the challenges with vast documentation, making it difficult ...
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 comp...
What do you like most about Freshservice?
The solution has been very helpful engineering insights into the client's environment. We have been able to manage c...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Freshservice?
The solution offers flat licensing and appears to be cost-effective.
What needs improvement with Freshservice?
There is a need for improvement in terms of automatic escalation to the next level if an issue is not resolved. It sh...
What do you like most about N-able MSP Manager?
I am impressed with the tool's integration with our mail system.
What needs improvement with N-able MSP Manager?
For improvement, there's a feature I've already requested from N-able that I'd love to see in future releases. When a...
What is your primary use case for N-able MSP Manager?
At We Cybers, we utilize multiple N-able products, including RMM, EDR, and Passportal. N-able MSP Manager seamlessly ...
 

Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy
Flint
SolarWinds LOGICnow, SolarWinds MSP Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport
Longleaf Systems, ITproMedia, Choice Technology, Halski Systems, Allixo Technologies, Nettech, Concept Technology
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: April 2025.
852,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.