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BMC TrueSight vs IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 8, 2026

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 TrueSight
Ranking in Event Monitoring
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
51
Ranking in other categories
Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (28th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (30th), Cloud Monitoring Software (27th), AIOps (12th)
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact
Ranking in Event Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of BMC TrueSight is 7.7%, down from 9.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is 4.0%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
BMC TrueSight7.7%
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact4.0%
Other88.3%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

NikhilKalwint - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Specialist at ServiceIO
Has improved monitoring efficiency and supports fast issue resolution through responsive support and reliable automation
I work with BMC TrueSight and have been using it for eight-plus years BMC TrueSight brought a positive impact and benefits to our organization. The customization part is one of the advantages of the product, along with the monitoring capabilities. Automated root cause analysis and predictive…
Hennie Du Toit - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Specialist Architecture and Governance at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Event management strengthens with automation but needs better event flooding handling
Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that. Better root cause correlation and faster processing for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be helpful. If there can be more end-to-end functionality, such as observability tools built in natively, that would be great. With correlation, IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact has many functions, but we've built them custom-built. Functions such as automated logging, automated dispatching, and automated notification of engineers could be native in the tool.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It works irrespective of the operating system we’re running."
"The event management part of TrueSight Operations Management, in my experience, is probably the best in the market. You have endless flexibility. You can build your own rules, you have the MRL language, and you can implement any kind of logic on the alerts. It may be correlation, abstraction, or executing something as a result of the alerts. You have almost the whole range of options available for event management using the available customization."
"We're using native monitoring capabilities for all our server hardware, for visibility for applications, for URLs, for webpage response and accuracy, and for monitoring network throughput in a lot of particular instances. We're using lightweight protocols for pinging, for DNS, for LDAP."
"The tailoring of the knowledge modules has been particularly useful as I can streamline the agents to only report on critical events."
"BMC TrueSight Operations Management is a firefighter that will help you when problems come."
"The solution is stable, we have not needed to speak to the vendor regarding any issues, it has been operating very well."
"It has provided us with a single location to host all events to be viewed/monitored by our NOC, which has greatly helped them to streamline their processes."
"Allows reliable access to server hardware info, uptime statuses, current patching, and much more."
"The solution is great at being able to fetch almost any kind of file."
"The operational views and third party connections to fetch the data and to help engage on more activities are the most valuable aspects of the solution."
"This product allows us to make use of open-source products, including running Java code."
"It is easy to integrate with other models such as Oracle, other systems, external systems, and to reach events."
"The most valuable feature that comes with Netcool/Impact is the ISPF APA support. It is inherent to Netcool/Impact, so I can use the ISPF of any other product, which I can invoke and consume through Impact, and do integrations, which is great. I run the Netcool desktop application so I can integrate with other applications in the ticketing system. It's a great ability being able to invoke ISPF and integrate."
"I can recommend Netcool/Impact because it's the perfect solution when it comes to invoking ISPF APA and using ISPF integration throughout the rest of your other products."
"This product allows us to make use of open-source products, including running Java code."
"The stability has been very good for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact, rated around eight or nine."
 

Cons

"There are some small limitations with this tool in terms of reporting dashboards that fit all of the requirements of the individual customer."
"BMC's online documentation is often incorrect or incomplete."
"I would really like to see out-of-the-box support for monitoring uninterruptible power supplies."
"It would be better if the initial setup and deployment were more straightforward."
"We were somewhat limited in TrueSight due to some of the RBAC controls not quite being what we wanted as far as delegating out administrative privileges for implementation. But because we were able to turn requests around pretty well, that burden wasn't too heavy."
"The solution could improve its price."
"The solution is a little obsolete."
"Application performance management (APM) is an area with certain shortcomings in the solution that needs improvement. I"
"The stability of this solution is somewhat less than other similar products that I have used."
"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."
"IBM is not investing in the development of the on-premise version of this solution."
"Stability-wise, this product needs to be improved."
"Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that."
"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."
"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work."
"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work. Although, I don't think that there's much improvement that Netcool really needs to achieve in this area, because when we're talking GUI, Impact is able to integrate with any third-party system and it comes with ISPF APA. It's more beneficial than Netcool/OMNIbus in this respect, and it's quite easy to handle."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is moderately expensive."
"Consider scalability very carefully: how much you want to monitor and what components are very important. Then, depending on these two things, filter out unwanted metrics or attributes. If you do a good job at filtering the data, then your licensing costs will be manageable."
"BMC TrueSight Operations Management is not on the cheaper side, but its pricing is on a case by case basis. Its licensing model is simple and based on the number of devices."
"The price of BMC TrueSight Operations Management is very high. If there was more flexibility with the sizing of the licensing it would be helpful, especially during the pandemic. We have wanted to expend but the licensing cost is too high."
"Use conservative figures. In terms of hardware, monitored servers and also effort. The product is not cheap. But as with other products, you get what you pay for."
"The solutions are not the cheapest but are robust and stable. License model is rather complex and BMC do often change the model."
"We pay license fees of between $150 and $200 per asset. There is an enterprise software license fee, and then you pay a percentage for your maintenance, and then Premier Support. For example, if you buy a two-year license for the product, then the maintenance fee is added to that for two years at X percent a year. Then there's a small fee on top of that for Premier Support..."
"There is a big upfront cost when you buy the license, then there is annual maintenance. We look at, if I bought a license and paid for maintenance for five years, then average it out, what would be my monthly cost. We have had some of the competing tools come in around four dollars. This is coming in as a premium, which is why I don't have it deployed as I would like it. Therefore, we're in negotiations right now. If I can get it down to the four dollar range, I will triple my deployment in a year and a half."
"Licensing of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact depends on the number of nodes on the element that you are monitoring."
"The licensing is yearly, and although I'm happy with the pricing I do think it could be better."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise24
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC TrueSight Operations Management?
The solution provides visibility to our infrastructure, how it is, the resources we are monitoring, and quick updates when it has any problems. We have integrated it with ServiceNow to open instances.
What needs improvement with BMC TrueSight Operations Management?
There are some complexities with deployment that could be improved in BMC TrueSight.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal wit...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is our event management tool, specifically the umbrella fault management tool set. All of our events across the network correlate the data for us, and we have certain use ...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
We remain a partner with IBM Tivoli and continue using their products. We use IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact's AIOps functionality. We experienced some skills issues, but currently receive assistance fr...
 

Also Known As

ProactiveNet, TrueSight Operations Management
Tivoli NetCool Impact
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ensono, Transamerica, Boston Scientific, Park Place Technologies, inContact, TD Ameritrade, PNC Bank
Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC TrueSight vs. IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.