Clarity SM vs SolarWinds Service Desk comparison

Broadcom and SolarWinds are both solutions in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category. Broadcom is ranked #26, while SolarWinds is ranked #36. Broadcom holds a 1.2% mindshare in ISM, compared to SolarWinds’s 0.5% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

Clarity SM

Read 107 Clarity SM reviews

813 Views
634 Comparison Views

85% willing to recommend

SolarWinds Service Desk

Read 2 SolarWinds Service Desk reviews

275 Views
275 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Clarity SM

SolarWinds Service Desk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Clarity SM and SolarWinds Service Desk based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two IT Service Management (ITSM) solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Clarity SM vs. SolarWinds Service Desk Report (Updated: August 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Clarity SM vs. SolarWinds Service Desk

August 2025

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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

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

26th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

107

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (24th)

SolarWinds Service Desk

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

36th

Average Rating

9.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Clarity SM is 1.2%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Service Desk is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Service Management (ITSM)

Featured Reviews

Türker Kara

Application & Software Architect at Turkiye Finans Participation Bank

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…

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Rajendra Karad

Team Leader at Orient Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Provides superior visibility and efficiency with excellent analytics capabilities

What I appreciate the most about the product is that, as per the name given, it brings better visibility to the client in terms of their infrastructure, application, and performance. SolarWinds Service Desk is a quite matured product now, making it one of the best options on the market. The incident management feature is aligned to the ITIL framework. The asset management feature is also a very thoughtful framework they have implemented. Right from onboarding an asset till scrapping it, the complete lifecycle is cleanly maintained within the system itself. All the approval chains, their logs, and even the contract information have been made very easy for the users to maintain. The knowledge base feature is an out-of-the-box knowledge base, and additionally, we can integrate our own DMS. Machine learning is something that they have been following, and we can integrate an external DMS with that, which helps in searching SOPs and even the global knowledge base over the internet, allowing it to be searched within the same single window itself. Change management in SolarWinds Service Desk is linked with the service catalog, and since it also has a service portal, a self-service portal for users, introducing a service catalog that's integrated with the change management actually completes the flow and makes life easier for IT administrators.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The view it provides into who's doing the work."

"You can customize it and make it work to the client's needs."

"It has a good GUI interface."

"It's fairly easy to use, from a UI standpoint."

"The tool itself is valuable as a result of all its features combined. Therefore, I have found that there is no feature more valuable than another."

"Time sheets are a powerful tool."

"We can search open and closed cases to find what we have done in other incidents."

"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."

More Clarity SM pros

"The solution is very stable."

Cons

"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."

"The upgrade was pretty complex."

"The CA products integrate well together but I would like to see better integration with third-party solutions."

"When I am reviewing an incident, sometimes there is too much information on the same screen and it is difficult to discern what is of value."

"Improvements would include simplification in the user interface, being more expandable, better documentation. The user interface is fairly cluttered, and we can update it the way we need to, but it just seems dated."

"We would like more information about all the configurations that we have on our infrastructure side."

"The interface is pretty straightforward, but I think for some end-users a little more simplified user interface would help."

"The monitoring tool is in need of improvement."

More Clarity SM cons

"The integration with other applications can use improvement because, for example, it was nearly impossible to integrate SolarWinds Service Desk with monday.com because we had to get an add-on from Zapier."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is quite reasonable compared to other solutions in the market."

"I think pricing of this model is suitable for growing corporations."

"The pricing is based on a subscription model."

"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."

"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."

"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."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Performing Arts

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Comparisons

ServiceNow vs Clarity SM

Compared 53% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs Clarity SM

Compared 47% of the time

More Clarity SM Competitors

ServiceNow vs SolarWinds Service Desk

Compared 54% of the time

Samanage vs SolarWinds Service Desk

Compared 46% of the time

More SolarWinds Service Desk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Clarity SM

August 2025

Download Clarity SM product report

Buyer's Guide

IT Service Management (ITSM)

August 2025

Download SolarWinds Service Desk product report

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

No data available

Overview

Service desk capabilities, an integral part of the CA Service Management solution, can enable you to deliver efficiencies in IT service management to business consumers, power users and decision makers. Mobility and collaborative self-service capabilities provide a modern user experience for accessing services and performing tasks, which can help drive user adoption, satisfaction and productivity.

Learn More: https://www.ca.com/us/products...

Broadcom

Incident management consolidates, manages, and prioritizes incoming tickets.
Service catalog standardizes service request and fulfillment processes.
Fully integrated IT asset management compiles hardware, software, POs, and more.
Service portal for users to have a single place to submit tickets and requests.

SolarWinds

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Clarity SM vs. SolarWinds Service Desk

August 2025

Free Report: Clarity SM vs. SolarWinds Service Desk

Find out what your peers are saying about Clarity SM vs. SolarWinds Service Desk and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.

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See our Clarity SM vs. SolarWinds Service Desk report.

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We monitor all IT Service Management (ITSM) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.