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BMC Helix ITSM vs IBM Maximo 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

BMC Helix ITSM
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (9th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (8th)
IBM Maximo
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (1st), Billing Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

BMC Helix ITSM and IBM Maximo aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. BMC Helix ITSM is designed for IT Service Management (ITSM) and holds a mindshare of 5.5%, down 11.2% compared to last year.
IBM Maximo, on the other hand, focuses on Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), holds 13.1% mindshare, down 29.1% since last year.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC Helix ITSM5.5%
ServiceNow14.2%
JIRA Service Management6.9%
Other73.4%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IBM Maximo13.1%
Oracle Enterprise Asset Management7.3%
IFS Cloud Platform6.6%
Other73.0%
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
 

Featured Reviews

KN
Senior Application Developer BMC at Balfour Beatty
Self-service portal significantly reduces resolution time and transforms service process with advanced features
We initially had a lot of tickets generated via the service desk through calls and emails. Now, we have almost moved out of email creations by introducing the DWP features on the Studio pages, with about 90% of the tickets coming in via our self-service portal. Recent upgrades offer different types of views for particular business lines, which was missing earlier. The new landing pages have allowed us to add banners, images, and internal videos, encouraging most customers to use these DWP self-service features. Resolution time has decreased significantly since implementing the self-service portal. Additionally, the availability of knowledge articles, chatbots, and the new Helix GPT feature has improved service processes.
Antony Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Java Software Engineer at GPA
Asset management has become streamlined and decision-making is now driven by lifecycle data
The best features IBM Maximo offers are that it is very simple to deploy on OpenShift using Ansible playbooks. It also has excellent support for integration, is simple to configure, and the asset register is very straightforward. Work management and managing inventory are seamless. In terms of integration support, I have used preventive maintenance, work generation, accurate work execution planning, tracking actuals, and I can easily integrate with other tools and systems. IBM Maximo Suite gives me a single place where service cycles are standardized and tied to compliance. IBM Maximo has positively impacted my organization as it has been a very useful tool. It reduced human error by moving away from pen and paper-based scheduling. It saved cost by minimizing unexpected downtime of assets, with approximately 50% of time being saved. We have also reduced overwork among staff by removing redundant information and smoothing task flows. It helps us scale our team without micromanaging small issues.

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 feature is the ability to have ITIL Out Of The Box (OOTB) functionality that can be readily customised to fit the specific needs of any given business organisation."
"It was a full-featured product. Based on my experience where I was responsible for Remedy, and for a later project where I worked on a very sophisticated implementation of BMC Remedy, it is full-featured and could do almost anything that you can think of in the ITIL portfolio."
"The main valuable feature is the flexibility of the product -- the ability of being able to make it do almost anything we need it to do to adjust to our business needs and to do it very quickly."
"It’s a great product, I would highly recommend it."
"The ease of installation and configuration is valuable."
"Helix is more lightweight than these tools. It's a traditional tool that was developed more than 10 years ago. Ease of use is the operative word."
"It has centralized all work orders and help desk ticket tracking."
"Initial, out-the-box setup was easy with no problems."
"It can be particularly useful for power line operations, enabling linemen in the field to gather information and send it across the country as well as different parts of the world."
"Provides great flexibility."
"Reliable, very configurable, and it's all integrated in the same database."
"The most valuable features of IBM Maximo are the overall power and interface, and there are a lot of different modules that we use that are helpful, and additionally, it's an integrated solution and it has a lot of capabilities."
"For some clients we have up to 89% downtime reduction of equipment that generates over 1.2 million euro growth in revenue because we don't spend that much money on downtime and repair costs."
"The Preventive Maintenance feature, especially in its inspection routines and KPI abilities, is valuable."
"The large range of configurability of the product is great, since everyone has a different way of doing things."
"Work order management and scalability enables the businesses' needs to be met."
 

Cons

"BMC Helix ITSM is difficult for us to customize, and most customizations require vendor support, which leads to extra costs."
"The search feature and the dashboard could both be improved."
"The first level is not so skilled. If you manage to go to second level they are good."
"BMC Helix ITSM could improve by having a cloud version. They are working on it which is a good thing because their competitors, such as ServiceNow, already provide cloud services."
"The Approval Central system needs to be refreshed."
"It has created more layers of bureaucracy."
"The biggest issue for our customers is the back office for the specializations through the second and third lines of support."
"They should add some of the bolt-ons into the initial setup, such as chat."
"Licensing costs for IBM Maximo are now more expensive relative to some of the cloud-based platforms that offer cheaper solutions and are more flexible in terms of fees."
"The solution is not stable. We can have one day when it is stable and another day it is not. Sometimes it crashes or becomes very slow, and there are times we are not even able to download all the databases. Without the database, we cannot work on that application. These are the small glitches, and stability issues we are facing."
"The pricing model of the solution has room for improvement as well as the after-sales support."
"IBM Maximo can be improved by providing developers with more documentation."
"It's quite reliable, but new versions often are not too stable. They bring in enhancements but they break other stuff."
"Many improvements are needed in the customer support service department because of delays in response, which are very costly."
"One way IBM Maximo can be improved is that the interface is not modern or particularly user-friendly."
"It's quite reliable, but new versions often are not too stable. They bring in enhancements but they break other stuff."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It's a yearly subscription but there are a couple of customers who go for the monthly subscription."
"We did not compare the price of BMC Helix ITSM to other vendors. However, it has a mid-range price."
"If you are looking for some kind of professional services form the OEM then you would have to purchase that."
"Please always get the latest quote from a BMC partner or from BMC. Check for the latest offerings."
"It is costly, but it is well worth it."
"The solution's pricing should come down."
"The price of BMC Helix ITSM is expensive."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low and ten is high, I rate the pricing a nine. The price is very high."
"Explore the possibility of using DB2. You will avoid the cost of SQL Server or Oracle licenses."
"You pay for what you get. There are lots of options depending on how you would like to implement Maximo."
"IBM has changed the licensing policy. As I understand now, they are going from a complex way of licensing to a more simple way of licensing."
"$USD700 per agent user."
"​Explore internal processes in order to evaluate the correct number of users in each Maximo module, then evaluate the different offers of pricing and licensing.​"
"IBM Maximo offers a licensing application, and you have to comply with the license."
"Where available, concurrent licenses can be more cost efficient and provide more flexibility."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise55
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise22
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BMC Helix ITSM?
Although BMC Helix ITSM is a strong enterprise platform, there are areas where it could be improved. One key area is usability and simplification of configuration, especially for new administrators...
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix ITSM?
My main use case for BMC Helix ITSM is validating and automating core ITSM workflows, such as incident, change, and service request management. I focus on ensuring that these workflows function cor...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix ITSM?
My thoughts on the pricing and licensing cost of BMC Helix ITSM are that it is flexible.
What needs improvement with IBM Maximo?
The only thing that I need from IBM Maximo is more simplicity. The application has been designed in a way that it is serving the enterprises. It needs to be simpler for the SMEs, or for the compani...
What is your primary use case for IBM Maximo?
There are different use cases for IBM Maximo that I work with mostly. We use it for complete asset management. Anything that comes into the asset repository, asset management, asset evaluation, any...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Maximo?
AWS is more recommended for IBM Maximo. You can go into Microsoft as well, but AWS is preferred. IBM also has their own cloud as well.
 

Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy, BMC Helix IT Service Management
Maximo
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., DTE Energy, Swedish Match, Projetech, Fingrid, East Coast
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.