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Cherwell Service Management vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus 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 April 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is 3.8%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 15.8%, down from 24.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow15.8%
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus3.8%
Cherwell Service Management1.7%
Other78.7%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Thobile Moeketsi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Sasria SOC Ltd.
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.
Mostafiz Miah - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Presales & Technical Lead at Elitbuzz Technologies Ltd
Automation has transformed daily request handling and now tracks every customer interaction
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus helps my team manage and resolve requests compared to previous methods as we previously managed things through paperwork and diaries. After deploying ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whenever any customer request comes, we provide the customer a product demo if they ask about the products. We then convert that request to a lead, which is converted to a demo, and then to the product POC, allowing us to follow up every stage of the requests. Everything can be tracked from ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whether at the closing stage or the initial stage. I use ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus daily in a unique way because previously everyone managed their own tracking system through their diary, but now everyone inputs data into this solution so that at the end of the day, we can get reports on how many leads we have taken care of and when they need to be taken care of. This information is visible from the ServiceDesk tool, and using the dashboard, we can easily identify it, providing an at-a-glance view. The best features ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers for my team include automating manual tasks, which allows whatever tasks we previously did manually to be converted into automatic tasks. Currently, they have also introduced Zia, a very helpful solution for us. Using Zia, we can search for anything, not only inside the tool but also outside, integrating it with ChatGPT and Teams, and it can integrate with other ManageEngine solutions as well as solutions such as Jira and ServiceNow. When we integrate our network monitoring solutions with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, it automatically raises an incident ticket and assigns it to the right team whenever any incident has occurred, which saves us time and reduces manual tasks. Previously, we had to communicate to the right people through mail or phone calls after an incident, but now the incidents are automatically converted and assigned to the relevant support groups along with the SLA. The integration with Teams allows us to raise tickets without logging into the portal, and we can see the ticket status and add comments through Teams, which is very helpful. Additionally, mail integration can automatically convert emails into tickets, adding further efficiency. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has positively impacted our organization, particularly in customer satisfaction. Previously, customers managed service requests, incidents, changes, and problems manually, but after integration, most of these processes are automated. This includes change requests that now follow a workflow based on organizational needs and ITIL best practices, making tracking incidents and requests much easier for end customers through scheduled reports.
MT
Manager of Security Engineering & Architecture at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Seamless data integration and advanced automation improve service delivery efficiency
I think that nothing needs to be improved with the product; you just need the user to commit and spend appropriate time to overcome that learning curve. Once that is done, the product itself is pretty wonderful. I've seen a very nicely built interface with ServiceNow, and I've also seen the ugliest version that feels outdated. ServiceNow does allow that team to exist. They should modernize their fonts and their layout, the UI friendliness. They did introduce AI, chatbots, and AI on the back end, so that's wonderful and extremely useful if you train it. If you don't train it, it's pretty useless. Assessing the impact of ServiceNow's automation on service delivery times is complicated. The engineers who operate on ServiceNow find it isn't straightforward because the data set is accessible by everybody. The problem is that understanding how to manage that data set requires an enormous amount of engineering skill set to run the product. I would not hand the key to the customer; I would highly recommend that ServiceNow take control of that. Instead of offering support for the software, they should offer administrative support for the software. They should provide professional service or some kind of support system that allows us to use their product at a faster pace. I'm sure they offer something, but it's often outrageously expensive, or they rely on another company to resell their product and offer professional service. It makes no sense in my opinion, and they should offer the team at the front to help customize the product to fit each company's needs, as every company has different demands and forms of submitting a request that need adjustment over time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"Implementing CSM has made us very efficient and we're now able to plan changes and the steps required for implementation."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"We use the solution every day and quite extensively."
"The tool is easily configurable and we can make any changes ourselves whenever we want."
"It is excellent from the service management perspective."
"It is good, and it meets our needs."
"The ticketing function is very straightforward and easy to use."
"I rate the solution a ten out of ten for scalability."
"We now have good visibility of our entire information system."
"This product is our helpdesk solution and we use it for call logging and management."
"The software deployment we find quite valuable - being able to deploy software to multiple endpoints without having to worry about getting in touch with the end users."
"The product is very robust, the solution offers very good customization, I can make very strong chains and format excellent business rules."
"The solution offers very good functionality and transparency."
"I would recommend this solution, it's really an excellent tool in comparison to the current market tools like SCP and a lot of other tools out there."
"ServiceNow is a very good platform, but do not build up things too fast."
"ServiceNow is a great product because you can do almost anything with it."
"ServiceNow is very easy to set up."
"Operations and maintenance costs have been reduced using this solution, and we have been able to deliver faster solutions to our customers and track progress using live data."
"We could have chosen many different platforms but for lack of a better word, it was the easiest to be able to move to, taking all of our existing processes and data from different sources."
 

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."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"They need to improve their mobile interface, as well as features regarding the extension of the mobile access to the end user."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"Agile delivery should be supported."
"We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges."
"The support from the actual manufacturer is poor."
"When I think of improvements the first thing that comes to mind would have to be the active management function."
"The service delivery could be improved."
"I'd like to understand more technical features due to the fact that I want to teach globally. I understand all the questions in the search engine. I want to find more technical information about the product."
"We'd like to have more integration into other platforms."
"ManageEngine needs to improve its handling of large volumes, as it cannot manage transaction volumes as effectively as ServiceNow."
"The solution, overall, is expensive."
"It needs more customization and the ability to generate reports based on custom feeds."
"Its reporting could be improved. The current list of predefined reports seems to be fine for most of the customers, but there should be some tools to allow us to create highly customized reports for measuring different KPIs. We should also be able to connect some kind of BI to it. We haven't yet implemented it, and we are currently evaluating it. We are looking for advanced integration options where we could integrate it with our SCCM and Azure environments as well as with other Office solutions. For direct communication with customers, we are looking for a chatbot or a similar feature."
"I don't know where that's going to end because at some point ServiceNow will become a marlock and people will turn away from a 'one solution fits all' and go more into the niches again."
"An area for improvement would be the accessibility of downloaded and compressed files."
"I have a problem with the way the solution's price is calculated."
"They can maybe improve the area of agile project management. They do have user storyboards and other things, but we kind of lean on Jira for that work."
"The setup was time-consuming and required a lot of internal resources."
"The interface can be a bit more intuitive."
"There are a few things that it needs to improve, like automation of most things out-of-the-box."
"I would say that for the things that I like to do, which is muck around in the underlying, I would say that it's going downhill."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"When I compared it with a similar product, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus was $2,000 cheaper."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"We use the cloud model, which is subscription-based, and each year, the subscription fees seem to go up, making it a more expensive solution."
"For 90 service agents and our need for a cloud solution with incident management and service request management, it annually costs around 12,000. If you need additional development or deployment support from the vendor, there might be an additional cost."
"Its price is very lucrative. It would be great if the price can come down, but overall, its price is great. It is half or maybe one-third of the price of other market leaders."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is much cheaper than many of its competitors. We pay about nine dollars per agent and one dollar per device. There are no hidden costs."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a reasonably priced product."
"The licensing is around $10,000 per year."
"The platform offers a free trial, by providing a free developer instance once you sign up."
"Some time ago it was expensive, but large companies have special contracts. It's enterprise prices, and we're talking about millions per year."
"While the option exists to pay for a monthly license, we are dealing with large enterprises and these typically involve multi-year licenses of ten or five years, at a minimum."
"In Tunisia, the companies find the licensing costs to be expensive."
"ServiceNow pricing is an art, not a science. The deal depends on how commercially savvy you are, which does make it something that is quite difficult to get right. It is most definitely an opportunity area for ServiceNow to improve and have more visibility around pricing of the different products within the platform."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license model is based on a number of fulfillers (active users who play some role within the ServiceNow functionality). Therefore, you can serve as many end-users as you want, without additional costs."
"The licenses are expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise169
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
The platform's most beneficial features are incident management, change management, request management, and asset man...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
Regarding pricing, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers three editions: Standard edition, Professional, and Enterpris...
What needs improvement with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
Currently, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a mature solution, and I do not think major improvements are needed, as i...
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
Tranter IT Infrastructure Services Limited, Sterlite Technologies, averda, Radiology Associates
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, ManageEngine and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.