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Cherwell Service Management vs JIRA Service Management 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 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 JIRA Service Management is 9.1%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 21.8%, down from 27.0% 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.
Karim Yousef - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently track and document projects with seamless tool integration
We are a management warehouse that provides services to different customers in different sectors. Primarily, we serve the banking sector and the military sector. We manage all the software delivery projects through tools such as JIRA Service Management or TFS Confluence is a great tool for…
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

"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"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 dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"Everyone knows how to use it, so there's no need to teach new members."
"This solution has helped us a great deal in project management tracking and forecasting."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its SLA, which everybody wants when it comes to a service-based offering."
"The tool's stability is very good."
"The links between the help desk and Jira issues and between Confluence and Jira issues are most valuable. I can write requirements in Confluence and link them to user stories in Jira and test cases. I can see my test coverage and all that kind of stuff. The integration between these three is very useful. It is pretty customizable, and it integrates well. There are a lot of add-ins and a lot of connectors to third-party products. In my last company, we used Test Royal for managing all the tests, and it integrated perfectly with that. For any issue or bug, we could see what tests have been run and the complete history of the tests."
"The tool is scalable."
"The initial setup is easy and straightforward."
"Its integration is most valuable. It is pretty open for integration."
"I like the incident module, which is useful for tracking your incidents and other things. It is a reliable solution."
"The solution has a user-friendly interface."
"ServiceNow gives us a lot for free: workflows, organizational structures, service portal, forms, reporting, disaster recovery, and so on."
"ServiceNow is great. You can download the data into Excel and you can basically create reports. It's very flexible."
"ServiceNow is easy to use."
"Will give us better control over asset management and technical debt once we can centralize all contract information."
"Flexibility is the most valuable feature of ServiceNow, that is, being able to modify it to do what we need it to do."
"I like the ease of use."
 

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."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"The interface could always be updated and improved."
"The reporting function of this solution, particularly the filters in the portal, could be improved."
"An improvement they could add is a better management dashboard. We only use the dashboard for the administration mode. We have a dashboard that reports the state of bugs or requirements. However, customers can only view requests that they made. We are not able to share a dashboard with our manager level customers to show them all of the requests in a quick dashboard."
"When you raise a ticket with Jira, there's no ability to see your other JIRA tickets."
"The licensing model could be improved. There needs to be a different licensing model for large numbers of employees, as it remains one of the main barriers to using JIRA Service Management across our entire company."
"It would be beneficial if we could turn comments into subtasks or other JIRA tickets directly."
"I would like to see the user interface changed, it is not very user-friendly, and it transitions workflows."
"At times you will need add-ons or additional software, so built-in features would be helpful."
"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."
"Vulnerability management could be improved. Also, integration with tools such as Microsoft Defender ATP needs improvement."
"Their user interface is old-fashioned and outdated, and it can be more friendly for the eye. They can improve the user experience."
"It's moving at a very fast pace. It is difficult for developers or engineers to keep up with it. That's the only issue."
"The interface is not user-friendly."
"Needs additional software titles and easier normalization."
"It's not user-friendly by default, but it can be customized to be customer-friendly."
"The user interface could be much improved, and the developer tools and sets can be improved greatly, they are lacking."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"Actually in Iran we don't have copyright or intellectual property, so we can use JIRA for free."
"I would suggest to always buy licenses through an Atlassian partner, so you can also rely on their expertise."
"We have paid $20,000 recently for a one-year license for our on-prem server."
"This is pricey solution. Should we move to using all cloud solutions in our business, we may move to different tools that have multiple functionality versus having a solution for each area. This would be too pricey and we would need to replace Jira with a different solution that also offers other features."
"Licensing can become quite expensive."
"The pricing is very competitive and I think that it is okay."
"It is one of the premium products on the market, but it is very costly, especially in the Indian market."
"The cost has recently increased. It might be around $20 to $25 per user license."
"The CapEx version is great."
"The pricing is on the high side, but if you look at the stability and option to work, it's kind of justified."
"Initially, the licensing model ServiceNow came up with was very good. But now, from a licensing perspective, they are changing their model day by day. It is becoming a bit expensive for customers."
"The cost is quite high."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten. The pricing for ServiceNow is based on a SaaS platform with annual contracts. However, it may not offer much flexibility for adjusting usage in the short term."
"ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's."
"There are licensing fees."
"The price could be a little lower for the solution. Many of my customers have issues with the licensing process, they have to make it easier and straightforward."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Educational Organization
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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

No data available
JIRA Service Desk
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
mgm technology partners, Telestream, Build.com, Zend Technologies, OfficeDrop, PGS Software, American Diabetes Association, NEPTUNE Canada
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: June 2025.
861,803 professionals have used our research since 2012.