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Clarity SM vs OpenText Service Manager [EOL] 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Clarity SM
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (24th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (26th)
OpenText Service Manager [EOL]
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

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…
Farah Ben Ahmed - PeerSpot reviewer
Is easy to set up, but customization needs improvement
Sometimes, customization is simple. The version we are using now has a nice interface Customization can be difficult at times because scripting is often required. I've been using this solution for ten years. Generally, it's stable, but sometimes we see behavior that we cannot understand. It's…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Modules of integrated ITIL managers."
"It has helped us to organize a lot of our assets, so we have configuration items to attach to our change management. We can have tickets for change management and set them aside for an approval process."
"Self-service interface means people can check their own tickets."
"Scalability is very good. We have scaled to more users and more functionality."
"It has given us the ability to automate a lot of tasks, things we couldn't do before."
"Time sheets are a powerful tool."
"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."
"It also provides the front end for the employees too. It's pretty basic, but it gives them the means to reach out to IT so they don't have to pick up the phones."
"It's mostly so reliable and has a lot of functionality. We're using a lot of HPE tools and we can do a lot with it. So, its functionality is the most valuable feature."
"It's easy to scale."
"Service Manager's best features are flexibility and customizability."
"Incident management is the most valuable because we're using it to manage tickets for an accounting system. With the reports that are available, it allows us to track and identify trends at the type and item level. It also helps us in managing the workload better than what we had in Remedy, which is what we were using before 2013."
"Service Manager gives us a single system where everything is centralized in one base."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is fine. It's a good solution for small accounts with minimal reporting. Micro Focus is a good option because you don't have to worry about the budget."
"Technical support is pretty good."
"Its flexibility and ease of customization are its most valuable features."
 

Cons

"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 CA products integrate well together but I would like to see better integration with third-party solutions."
"We went from 12.1 to 14, so there was a lot involved in it. The issues we had were migration issues, getting our information from one place to the next and making sure everything was as everyone needed."
"They should enhance the service desk manager's service point function to be more customizable."
"The product needs to have a better user experience in the interface and mobile functionality.​"
"​We would like to see them revamp, or rework, a lot of their configuration management database structures. We hear that is on the horizon."
"Right now, you have to create the Scoreboards individually for roles or users. If they could separate that functionality, and create the scoreboards separately, and then just link scoreboards to roles and users - that way you could reuse the same ones - that would be a huge benefit. I know, because they're a nightmare to manage at times."
"We would like the CMDB to be populated automatically. At the moment, everything is manually created."
"Service Manager is at the end of its life. The architecture, performance, and look are all way behind."
"Service Manager would be improved with access to automation."
"It, still, has a bit of more of improvement possibilities in the codeless part. But, I can see that they are working on it, so that's quite good as well."
"The greatest issue for us is to understand the roadmap. We want to know whether we should upgrade now or should we wait three months."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is not very great. It would be better if it had more features. When it comes to features, BMC tops the chart. When it comes to usage, people use BMC more."
"Customization can be difficult at times because scripting is often required."
"There's a lot of manual work, which is error prone and time consuming, in how the code gets transported from one system to the other."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is simple, as it’s per concurrent analysts."
"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."
"The solution is quite reasonable compared to other solutions in the market."
"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!"
"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."
"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."
"I pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."
"The license is not cheap."
"I would say that identify your requirements and pay for the support to implement and test those requirements, and then hope that you did a good job because the cost of their service is fairly expensive."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is a little cheaper than other options. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Micro Focus Service Manager?
The product's technical support services need improvement.
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Service Manager?
We use the product for infrastructure, profile, and incident management.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

CA Service Desk Manager, Clarity Service Management, CA Service Management, Unicenter Service Desk, CA SDM, CA Service Catalog, CA Business Service Insight
Micro Focus Service Manager, HPE ITSM, HPE Service Manager
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco G&T Continental City of Perth, FEMSA, Fujitsu, Manpower, Muslim Commercial Bank - MCB, Punjab National Bank, Santa Clara County Social Services, Stefanini
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Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: June 2025.
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