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BMC Helix ITSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk 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 July 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 9.3%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 0.9%, up from 0.7% 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
 

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.
Jose Pedro Muñoz - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps standardize our workflow, track client tickets, and it's very flexible
Initially we used HPE Service Desk. Then, Remedy (IBM SmartCloud Control Desk) version 5. When selecting a vendor, the most important thing for us is the flexibility of the tool. It must be very flexible to change the workflow or to add new workflows for the clients. It must have stability and scalability as well.
Brendan Fisher - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, customizable, and modern
IFS is a very large and complex software, and implementation of IFS can be challenging and may lead to a difficult lengthy project. It can take between 12 and 24 months in some cases to deploy. I have found that not all clients are fully aware of how big the task is that they're undertaking when they make a decision to move to software like this. Companies need to be more aware of the complexity of an ERP implementation project and while I fully recommend moving to IFS, it is not easy and does require business change when adopting an ERP solution. New features are a difficult ask - I work across multiple industries and everyone would probably choose a different feature. Maybe BIM in Construction or Customs link-ups for importers/exporters.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's one of the top solutions on the market for ITSM capabilities."
"Resolution time has decreased significantly since implementing the self-service portal."
"It has centralized all work orders and help desk ticket tracking."
"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."
"It has the power to automatize several different tasks in the ITSM world."
"In general, for incident management, it's okay."
"Currently, the Service Catalog has the most value to it. Mainly, because we are able to offer IT functionality to non-IT people."
"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized. You have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them."
"The solution is very easy to work with."
"The solution has been stable."
"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."
"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."
"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."
"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."
"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten since it is an extremely scalable solution that can be used for various use cases with thousands of users."
"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."
"IFS has been completely rebuilt, modernized, and cloud-based so we don't need bulky software installations."
"The solution overall is very versatile and flexible, especially compared to other products."
"When it comes to financing, the solution has helped us to concentrate finance functions like accounting processes in one system. This includes about 70 internal entities around the world."
"A high level of ERP can be handled in IFS."
"What I like about IFS Applications is that it's easier to use and implement than SAP. I also like that the IFS Applications team is more flexible than the SAP team."
"IFS Applications' best feature is the user-friendly interface that has a .NET Framework application in the front end and an Oracle database and WebLogic middleware."
 

Cons

"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."
"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 documentation could improve in BMC Helix ITSM."
"The amount of software issues are still too big, even considering the complexity of the tool."
"They could be more responsive to feedback from their community board."
"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."
"Needs less infrastructure requirements."
"The tool needs greater customization flexibility, particularly concerning notifications and the progressive view web page. This is significant because it encompasses various aspects like incident management, problem management, change management, work orders, and tasks. Aligning the GUI interface with these functionalities requires more flexibility."
"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."
"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."
"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."
"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."
"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."
"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
"Sometimes from the sales perspective, clients don't always fully understand how large a task or a project they're getting involved in when they decide, "We're going to switch across to IFS." They could probably do a little bit more, maybe around preparing people for these projects."
"We would like to see AI-driven CSI functions built into the tool that would allow us to quickly tie our improvement goals to metrics and activities, so Assyst will suggest the next steps to help us get closer to our goals."
"The user interface can be improved. When you're clicking through the screens, there are some icons or symbols that really need updating and would be more useful and noticeable if they are aesthetically pleasing."
"It would be ideal if, in the future, the product could incorporate IoT and blockchain elements. We'd like to explore more of these types of features going forward."
"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."
"IFS Applications can improve the reporting capabilities and increase the speed of feedback time in the IFS Applications. This would help with the overall performance of the solution and provide better experiences for customers."
"Some kind of bot assistance, some kind of artificial intelligence to help people solve the problems, would be interesting."
"An area for improvement would be transactions, which can be tedious to complete as the process is very complex."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's pricing should come down."
"It is costly, but it is well worth it."
"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 price of BMC Helix ITSM is expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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 basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."
"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."
"Ask for all-inclusive pricing, as they are pretty flexible if you ask for custom models."
"The additional cost that comes with the solution includes the overhead of the people who are trying to fix the tool issues. These people are trying to reproduce the issue and report it to the technical support and testing with them which is huge. It is the cost of quality in the end."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"I consider it to be a well-priced solution compared to other mid-range or high-end ERP solutions."
"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."
"We pay for a license to use the solution, which is not very expensive."
"Licensing is on an annual basis, with no additional costs."
"It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
No data available
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

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...
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?
I am not able to recall much about batch. Documentation-wise, they need more. There is not much available online, and...
 

Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy
SmartCloud Control Desk
IFS Applications, Assyst, IFS Cloud
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
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: June 2025.
862,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.