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Cherwell Service Management vs Freshservice vs ServiceNow 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 September 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.3%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Freshservice is 4.7%, up from 4.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 21.5%, down from 26.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow21.5%
Freshservice4.7%
Cherwell Service Management1.3%
Other72.5%
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.
Trilochana Gouda - PeerSpot reviewer
Smooth incident management and easy to use while needing better escalation management
We are using Freshservice for the IT ticketing system for business users We use the ticketing system primarily, which is very easy to use for all users. Freshservice is helpful, especially in incident management. Incident management is very helpful, and the system is straightforward, making it…
Nikhil Gohil - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables effective incident management and seamless workflow automation with valuable mobile accessibility
I haven't thought deeply about improvements for ServiceNow or what might be missing right now. There are so many modules and features in ServiceNow that I haven't explored them all, so it's hard to say what might be missing or should be improved. I suggest making the cost more affordable for smaller companies.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"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."
"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."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"I do like the workflow automation capabilities, where based upon certain actions, it will automatically go and route tickets to a particular person. It is fairly user-friendly."
"One of the things I liked about Freshservice was how easy it was to implement. While it doesn't have extensive customization capabilities, the available options are sufficient for certain sizes of companies. You don't need to customize your ticketing system much. Freshservice is a great solution because you can implement it very quickly. You can upload your catalog, and you're done in maybe a week or two."
"There is a nice user interface."
"The workflow and the change management process are valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Freshservice is you can assign downloaded tickets and the reports are useful."
"It has reduced the time to look up who is responsible for a service, and it has reduced the time to finalize a service request because it now goes directly to the person who is responsible for the service in that location. So, a service request is handled quickly and directly by the person responsible for it."
"We use the ticketing system primarily, which is very easy to use for all users."
"Depending on the size of your organization, is pretty standard and useful."
"I have found that sorting and grouping functions are particularly useful."
"The most valuable features of ServiceNow for me are its ticketing and reporting capabilities."
"I have definitely seen a positive impact of ServiceNow on our company and customer processes, including time savings and money savings."
"Discovery has reduced, on average, the time to build/deploy devices within our environment by one hour. This may not seem like much but it adds up over time. It also reaps additional time savings with its ability to capture changes through subsequent discoveries over the life of the device."
"It uses a common base of data and allows different types of records to pull from that same base of data."
"ServiceNow is a cloud-based platform, so people won't need to worry about investing on hardware to host it. Being on the cloud, it is available 24x7. It's scalable, stable, and multifeatured, with a straightforward setup and good technical support."
"The most recent addition of SAM Premium is a game changer for many organizations."
"It is easily configurable and has a good developer society online, available for any issues from the backend."
 

Cons

"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."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"We'd like better integration with other products."
"There is room for improvement in reporting for project management."
"Freshservice has issues around how assets get picked up, requiring a lot of parameter changes within to network to ensure the system discovers everything."
"Some of the ways that tasks are reported on and shown can be better. You can't see tasks in your regular ticket list view. You can't see a combo view of tasks and tickets. It is a little bit difficult to get a solid overview of your list of things to do. You can only see them in separate views, instead of one single view."
"The product should look at BCM or ServiceNow and see if there are features that would make nice additions. It would help them stay competitive."
"Not integrated with Google."
"There are some limitations in reporting. For example, I would like to have a report of conversations or replies."
"Asset management can definitely be improved because it doesn't pick up every single device on the network or every single piece of information."
"There should be fewer clicks and faster integrations between solutions."
"The interface requires an upgrade."
"I suggest making the cost more affordable for smaller companies."
"I find the way you need to attach things like screenshots and stuff is a bit gimmicky. I'm a casual user. I'll use it once every two months and only when I have an incident that I need to report. You don't get a lot of experience with it when you're just using it once in a while like that. Therefore, it needs to be more intuitive so that you don't have to re-learn how to do simple tasks as the way to do certain things just isn't obvious."
"The customer service of the product right now isn't very good. It's an aspect they really need to improve."
"I would like the reporting aspect to be better, including the graphs. It could have some way for us to easily to export to a csv or spreadsheet so that if a graph cannot be provided by ServiceNow itself, we would be able to use other applications to create them. Also, if there was a feature that enabled us to interact with end users directly from ServiceNow, like an instant-messaging type of feature, that would be great."
"The biggest complaint I have is that the ServiceNow search engine is not very robust."
"There is a need to learn scripting because as in the case of all the ITSM tools, scripting is needed for customization. If you're not very comfortable with scripting, then you may feel that you cannot do everything in ServiceNow without learning scripting."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"Freshservice's licensing costs are pretty good, and it has different categories of pricing based on what modules and features you choose, which gives a lot of flexibility."
"Our licensing fee for Freshservice is $2,500 a year."
"There are some additional costs but not that many. For example, we have unlimited assets, which is something for which we pay extra. We also paid for additional orchestration. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing. They are right in the middle."
"The price of Freshservice could improve, it is expensive."
"Its price is great. Its pricing is supposedly a lot less than ServiceNow and other alternatives."
"One of the key benefits of Freshservice is license management. Asset management has the possibility to keep track of licenses and that's very useful. The price of the solution is very good."
"The solution may be around 20,000 euros a year."
"I don't think it's expensive for the US or some European markets. Still, when I used Freshservice in Mexico, some customers found it a bit pricey, especially considering the platform's features. I think the pricing is fair for use in the European market, but it might be perceived differently in Latin America."
"The solution is expensive."
"It is fairly expensive."
"I am from Brazil. For Latin American markets, ServiceNow is very expensive as compared to other vendors, such as VMware."
"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"The CapEx version is great."
"ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's."
"The price of the solution is comparable to industry standards. For the features that we received, it is reasonable."
"There is an annual subscription to use this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Energy/Utilities Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Legal Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
19%
Educational Organization
9%
University
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise163
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Freshservice?
The solution has been very helpful engineering insights into the client's environment. We have been able to manage c...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Freshservice?
The solution offers flat licensing and appears to be cost-effective.
What needs improvement with Freshservice?
There is a need for improvement in terms of automatic escalation to the next level if an issue is not resolved. It sh...
Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into t...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
 

Also Known As

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport
AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow    
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: September 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.