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BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps vs IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 3, 2025

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 Operations Manage...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
3rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
AIOps (7th)
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
Ranking in Event Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps is 10.6%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is 9.2%, up from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps10.6%
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus9.2%
Other80.2%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Rafael  Pinto Ferreira - PeerSpot reviewer
Impressive automation capabilities, predicts problems, and even find unseen vulnerabilities across your infrastructure
The biggest challenge is ensuring the customer has sufficient ITSM maturity to get the most out of the solution. BMC Helix is very sophisticated, and some clients lack that internal process maturity. There's sometimes a gap between the solution's capabilities and the client's readiness. We have to bridge that gap, bringing the customer up to the level where they can fully use all the features and benefits. Otherwise, they're investing in a powerful tool they don't fully utilize. It's crucial for vendors like us to assess client maturity before the project starts. We need to do the consulting work to show them the solution's potential and help them evaluate if it truly makes sense. Sometimes, the client might not be ready for the way BMC does things, for that level of automation and AI. BMC's automation is like nothing I've seen. You can even deflect 30% of IT service desk tickets with an intelligent chatbot – that's a number from BMC. Imagine the reduction in human agents! It's a robot doing the work, but in a way that feels human... that's the impressive part. You can integrate with WhatsApp, Teams, etc. It's game-changing.
Ahmed Salman - PeerSpot reviewer
Aids in network performance monitoring and management
I am working as a customer, mainly using IntelliQ and another product, IBM NetCool, Watson AI. These products are used for monitoring network performance and management.  The primary use case involves network performance monitoring, and it is compatible only with IBM DB2 IBM Tivoli NetCool…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product's initial setup phase is easy."
"The service operations monitoring features are valuable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that BMC Helix Monitor is an agentless tool, because of which you don't need to deploy agents on each and every system in your IT environment."
"BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps' predictive analytics positively impacted proactive problem-solving capabilities. It has been the most interesting part of the solution! It provides detailed analytics that gives you a deep understanding of your infrastructure and recurring issues/problems. It really predicts the problems."
"It is evolving more and more into artificial intelligence."
"BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps deserves a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is the event management capability."
"Probes are the best feature because they are well written which rarely requires you to write additional rules. These probes monitor activity within your environment."
"The biggest plus points for me are the configurability and scalability of the solution, as well as the multi-tenancy of the platform."
"It is customer-centric. Customers can access the event list from their location or desktop and view the event. There is no need to go and connect to any other server and run events to have a view of all the events happening in the environment. We get a good response from customers about this feature and the main architecture of NetCool. Its processing is very good. Deduplication and correlation functionalities are good in this solution as compared to other solutions. A big advantage of NetCool is that it also supports multi-layered protocols. We can receive multiple events from different protocols like UDP, HTTP, and those events can be captured in NetCool."
"The monitoring is the solution's most valuable feature."
"It's good for managed systems. The end query on the user interface is good. You can view lots of charts and graphs."
"OMNIbus is valuable for its compatibility and performance, as I haven't encountered any performance issues."
"IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus supports legacy protocols like CORBA, Huawei, and other telecom protocols, which I find beneficial."
 

Cons

"The solution's GUI and some patching-related information are areas with shortcomings where enhancements are needed, though I believe they are areas that fall under BMC's roadmap for the future."
"The initial setup of the solution is complex."
"The product must provide more information and dashboards."
"I feel that the tool's stability has some scope for improvement."
"The biggest challenge is ensuring the customer has sufficient ITSM maturity to get the most out of the solution. BMC Helix is very sophisticated, and some clients lack that internal process maturity."
"I would like for the next release to be more user-friendly and out of date. The next release should focus on the cloud, AI, and ML technologies."
"Its integration could be better. They should provide an easier integration for all the monitoring stuff, and it will make things easier for us. Currently, there is a complexity in integrating it with a vendor application, and we have to use another tool to integrate it with a vendor application. To integrate some applications with NetCool, I need to install an IBM tool on top of it. It would be good if they can provide an API or any kind of interface that we can leverage while developing a new protocol interface or application. We should be able to use an API or interface with NetCool. Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI. Whenever we do anything on the GUI, it takes time. They need to focus on the GUI part, especially the dashboard. They should focus on how users can effectively drill down from one box to another. The visual appeal of the dashboard is as important as the data and functionality."
"They could enhance the visibility to give us a unified view of our entire IT infrastructure."
"There should be an easier-to-understand model, more of a flat-structured model rather than different tiers of licenses which complicates licensing."
"The cost of the product is quite high. They should work to adjust their pricing models."
"The solution has limitations in database integration as it cannot integrate with databases other than IBM DB2."
"Areas that could be better include the fact that the solution is only on-premises, lacks AI capabilities, and support response times could be quicker."
"The solution needs to invest in the development of a knowledge base and use of AI services for providing event resolution and intervention directions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product’s price could be improved."
"BMC solution is cheaper than ServiceNow, its main competitor. So, I'd rate the pricing a seven out of ten, with ten being expensive."
"Its license cost is a little bit more than other solutions. Our customers expect a standard market price that is comparative to other products. For each and every NetCool OMNIbus component, we have to purchase a separate license. These components are not free with the product."
"You have to have the right level of budget to afford this solution."
"It is a costly solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
10%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
15%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps?
BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps' predictive analytics positively impacted proactive problem-solving capabilities. It has been the most interesting part of the solution! It provides detai...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps?
The pricing is on the higher end due to the extensive features and delivery quality. However, it is worth the investment.
What needs improvement with BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps?
From my perspective as a customer, especially from tool administration, what would be beneficial is having end-to-end visibility all on a single page. This is challenging to achieve with any tool, ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
I would rate the pricing for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus as three, where one is a high price and ten is a low price.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
Based on my experience and my colleagues' feedback, IBM can improve IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus in automation with respect to using AI, as it lacks considerably compared to other tools. The integrat...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
My current use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is for monitoring the networks.
 

Also Known As

BMC Helix Monitor
Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Grupo Moura, Goodman, Aspect, Telefónica Colombia, Fujitsu
Consolidated Communications, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Capgemini
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Operations Management with AIOps vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.