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

BMC Helix ITSM vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL] 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
6.6
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (6th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (3rd)
OpenText Service Manager [EOL]
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
MEKKAB Raouf - PeerSpot reviewer
Excellent pricing with great change management and service management capabilities
We started with version 9.3, and now we're on 9.6 with the full solution, including the CMS. They have lots of options. They propose a full solution for technology and IT service management. We are a telecom company. We are a leader in the market, and therefore, we need to have all details about our own environment and assets. So far, Micro Focus answers all our needs. I'd advise new users to go directly to the SMAX solution, the last, last version of Service Manager. If they are a technical company or information technology company with engineers and developers, they can use it on-premise. If they don't have such competence in the company, they can ask for the solution on the cloud. It is easily available on Microsoft, Amazon, or Google clouds. I'd rate the product nine 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 most valuable features I have found to be the activity logs and the other features where you are able to continuously address issues and are able to annotate notes inside to convey them to the customer."
"Helix is stable."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"The digital workplace is appealing."
"It is suitable for the present circumstances, providing reliability and adhering to the necessary procedures. Having ITSM and proper knowledge is essential for our work to be acknowledged and effectively contribute to the team's efforts. Utilizing ITSM ensures that our work, especially in chat windows and events from application support, is duly acknowledged. This is crucial for handling high-level events (HLEs) and maintaining accurate records. The system facilitates easy tracking, enabling managers and higher-ups to gather data for appraisals and other purposes efficientl"
"The solution is already aligned with the framework, so it is easy for us to proceed with any ISO 27K certification."
"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."
"Our Change Management and Incident Management​ processes have been greatly improved."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is fine. It's a good solution for small accounts with minimal reporting. Micro Focus is a good option because you don't have to worry about the budget."
"It can adapt to any process in the organization."
"It's pretty well-structured in modules."
"Technical support is pretty good."
"It helps to register things, to see the changing parts, and to correlate incidents."
"The design has been revamped in terms of GUI. The current interface is quite easy to read."
"Service Manager's best features are flexibility and customizability."
"A valuable feature for us is that we have an ordered way to handle all the cases that we can handle with the infrastructure."
 

Cons

"The dashboard can be better."
"The interface isn't that great."
"Adding additional fields does not work very well."
"I have customers that always would like to adapt and personalize BMC Helix ITSM more."
"The interface is one major complaint about this product."
"Log in process is unnecessarily complicated."
"The initial setup of BMC Helix ITSM is complex because it has different integrations with other tools. Additionally, it needs to be integrated with the active directory and have different databases. The environment will dictate how difficult the process is."
"It's expensive, particularly in the emerging market where you see a lot of customers that have a budget crunch over issues."
"The solution does not interface well with other products and is difficult to implement."
"Their end-user interface and technical support features could be improved."
"The greatest issue for us is to understand the roadmap. We want to know whether we should upgrade now or should we wait three months."
"With the new version moving toward the codeless configuration is good, but it's losing flexibility."
"There should be some front desk provided or some options to let our users serve themselves, because we have about 5000 servers and 400 applications."
"Customization can be difficult at times because scripting is often required."
"Service Manager would be improved with access to automation."
"We aren't able to take emails that come in and turn them into tickets, especially when it comes to attachments. When an email has an attachment, like a screenshot, it is a very cumbersome process, and it does not work very well. I shouldn't have been paying technicians to cut and paste attachments from an email into the ticketing system. It should do that automatically. Other solutions are able to do that. This is something that needs to be improved. Test manager and knowledge management areas are probably amongst the worst parts of this solution. We try to use this solution for knowledge management, but it is not user-friendly. Therefore, it has limited ROI as you need to spend time to try and fully capitalize on the knowledge management system."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of BMC Helix ITSM is expensive."
"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 Helix ITSM is a very cost-effective solution."
"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."
"Please always get the latest quote from a BMC partner or from BMC. Check for the latest offerings."
"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."
"It is too expensive for a small business."
"We did not compare the price of BMC Helix ITSM to other vendors. However, it has a mid-range price."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is a little cheaper than other options. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee."
"I pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."
"The license is not cheap."
"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."
"I would say that identify your requirements and pay for the support to implement and test those requirements, and then hope that you did a good job because the cost of their service is fairly expensive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions are best for your needs.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
22%
Computer Software Company
19%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

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?
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 needs improvement with Micro Focus Service Manager?
The product's technical support services need improvement.
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Service Manager?
We use the product for infrastructure, profile, and incident management.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy
Micro Focus Service Manager, HPE ITSM, HPE Service Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
resultspositive, Globicon
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: June 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.