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Cherwell Service Management vs Clarity SM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

Cherwell Service Management
Ranking in Help Desk Software
26th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
28th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Clarity SM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
24th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
26th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Clarity SM is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Thobile Moeketsi - PeerSpot reviewer
Having everything in one location has significantly improved our efficiency and reporting
We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges. Even though it uses our Windows login, we still have to be on VPN. The product should be able to log tickets directly from system to system. We haven't got there yet and I'm not sure it's possible but it would determine the product's capability to integrate with other systems.
Türker Kara - PeerSpot reviewer
Quite good back-end architecture for end users but the API is very, very bad
Our company uses the solution for system, program, service request, change, and knowledge-based management.  We perform CMD authorizations and use a lot of integrations for our in-house or third-party applications. We also use Salesforce automations and Microsoft orchestrations.  We have about…

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 are problem management and change management."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable. It is also pretty stable, and it can be as scalable as you want."
"Scalability is very good. We have scaled to more users and more functionality."
"All the interactions and orchestrations of every problem, we can analyze what happens in the organization and which kind of incident we have."
"XFlow (Temperature) and Service Point together provided an extremely user-friendly and collaborative experience to the point of making it easy for all users of the product, whether end-users or analysts."
"We can search open and closed cases to find what we have done in other incidents."
"This product has so many adjustment possibilities for many different clients."
"As of late, I really like the BI functions."
"It helps when you have an incident or performing a problem change management process."
"The UI is very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly. The shopping cart experience is also terrible - you submit and go straight to the cart, you can't continue shopping or see your overall cost."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"The interface is pretty straightforward, but I think for some end-users a little more simplified user interface would help."
"Nowadays every person is used to an interface that is more user-friendly and this one is not so user-friendly maybe due to the fact that, if you need to let people customize everything, sometimes you lose out on a clean user experience."
"I would like to see the API cleaned up."
"There are some issues regarding the knowledge base and the configuration manager."
"We would like to see them integrate more of a service catalog, which is more of an Amazon-type fill in your bucket, then sign in, once you decide what you want."
"They need to improve the High Availability, and the native integration between CA Service Desk Manager, CA Process Automation, CA Service Catalog and CA Unified Self-Service."
"The SDM administration and customisation needS deep information about architecture and vendor support continuously."
"We just upgraded about a year and half ago and it was painful. We had the testing of the dev environment, and then testing of the production environment, so it was two weekends out of my life. And stuff broke."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"Pricing is simple, as it’s per concurrent analysts."
"The solution is quite reasonable compared to other solutions in the market."
"There is a subscripted needed to use Clarity SM. The price of the solution could be less expensive. ServiceNow is less expensive and BMC Helix is priced similar to Clarity SM."
"I don't see anyone other than large companies being able to afford this system."
"The pricing is based on a subscription model."
"I think pricing of this model is suitable for growing corporations."
"Clarity offers a perpetual license. Customers purchase the license once and then pay for maintenance. CA provides a subscription model as well. Both models are available for our customers."
"It is a bit expensive, but you definitely get what you pay for. It is worth it!"
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
15%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Also Known As

No data available
CA Service Desk Manager, Clarity Service Management, CA Service Management, Unicenter Service Desk, CA SDM, CA Service Catalog, CA Business Service Insight
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
Banco G&T Continental City of Perth, FEMSA, Fujitsu, Manpower, Muslim Commercial Bank - MCB, Punjab National Bank, Santa Clara County Social Services, Stefanini
Find out what your peers are saying about Cherwell Service Management vs. Clarity SM and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
862,514 professionals have used our research since 2012.