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Device42 vs ServiceNow Discovery comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

Device42
Ranking in IT Asset Management
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management Databases (4th), IP Address Management (IPAM) Tools (5th), Data Center Infrastructure Management (4th)
ServiceNow Discovery
Ranking in IT Asset Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (2nd), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Asset Management category, the mindshare of Device42 is 5.5%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 5.4%, up from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Asset Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow Discovery5.4%
Device425.5%
Other89.1%
IT Asset Management
 

Featured Reviews

AHMEDKASSAB - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows us to determine the exact placement of assets based on the building maps and the room details
In my experience, I believe that the key concern is the pricing strategy of the solution. Instead, other solutions are much more cost-effective. Previously, Device42 has altered the pricing model to include a subscription fee which I see as very costly. They should change their pricing strategy and license scheme, conduct market research and ensure that they provide the right product in the market at the right price.
Ayobanji Iluyomade - PeerSpot reviewer
Service helps organizations with network discovery and IT infrastructure management but troubleshooting challenges remain
ServiceNow Discovery was adopted by my organization. We use ServiceNow Discovery for discovery and ITSM The most beneficial features of ServiceNow Discovery for maintaining my IT infrastructure are the CMDB top and discovery of network switches. The areas of ServiceNow Discovery that have room…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The pricing is reasonable."
"A big plus for Device42 was the auto-discovery. With it, we have updated devices, updated systems, and up-to-date systems."
"It has agentless discovery; you don't need to put agents on your servers. You can open one or two ports to discover all your infrastructure."
"The IP address tracking [is valuable]... We have a lot of different devices and some of them have many IP addresses, so keeping track of which ones are assigned where is very critical for putting new devices on the network and giving them new addresses. All of our devices are statically assigned, so if we don't keep good records then we could accidentally assign a duplicate, which would cause problems on the network."
"The continuous asset discovery is good because it means not having to manually input all the small data, such as IP addresses, leases, etc. It helps and saves us a lot of time."
"The asset inventory is great because previously we had devices all over the place. We have been able to do multiscans to find devices that we didn't know about, which was great."
"The REST API abilities enables us to run scripts that pull information from our servers about software, storage, etc. Anything we need is pushed through REST API to the Device42 server and reflected in the report it generates."
"The most valuable feature was the ability to look up the different assets and see the different attributes that each one has, as well as being able to compare them to other assets."
"The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB."
"The service management and operations management modules are valuable."
"I am impressed with the tool's incident problem change management."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"ServiceNow Discovery is useful for discovering the servers, like the servers of Windows and Linux, from the client network."
"Discovery enables us to get an accurate inventory that's updated daily. It eliminates human error and the need for people to update configuration changes manually. We have not implemented them yet but plan to set up alerts on CIs that are being audited to see if there are any changes."
"ServiceNow Discovery has played a vital role in improving service visibility through automated IT service management processes, including change and problem management."
 

Cons

"The architecture is a bit old-fashioned. Device42 is on one server, appliance, virtual machine, or guest. We are loading more into Device42 than it can hold. Overloading Device42 with REST API calls or tasks will directly impact every aspect because the server will be too busy to answer requests."
"If I want to delete an asset from a cabinet it does take a while. And if I'm doing it in bulk — say, for example, if we have one cabinet that has 20 servers in — if I want to remove all 20 servers, I have to do them individually, which is a bit time-consuming. If there were a way that I could just bulk-remove everything from there, that would definitely save some time."
"While the automatic IT asset discovery is great, the first time using it can be confusing when you are configuring the SNMP. I don't remember for sure but I don't think it said "SNMP community," it said "password". The first time I used it I was thinking about communities but the tool said "password," and when you say "password" in SNMP you are thinking about SNMP version 3. This is the only thing that is confusing, although there were some devices that were not included in the discovery."
"The breadth and depth of the solution's discovery of IT asset information means the system does most of the work, but they need to work on improving the database discovery part, especially for Oracle Exadata."
"For the iPhone, the device diagram cannot be downloaded. You have to go to each device and download the device diagram for that device. E.g., suppose there are a 1000 or 2000 servers. You cannot go to each server or device to download a device diagram for each device. There should be a one-click solution for downloading all device diagrams."
"Configuring rPDUs in the data center for Device42 required us to add multiple discovery jobs. The rPDUs were referred to the ISPDUs and daisy-chained. They would automatically assign a unique SMP port, but Device42 didn't allow SMP ranges, so we had to create a discovery job for each rPDU individually. We submitted a feature request to mitigate that."
"It would be nice for the agent to have an installer versus a single file across multiple systems."
"My biggest problem with the product is the upgrades. First, we have to do them manually and second, not this last time but the time before that, we actually had to build a new VM to deploy the solution again. We had to back it up and then restore it to the new version. That was inconvenient."
"In future releases, I would like to see more AI-oriented enhancements in the solution. It would automate most of the things that we have to do manually write the scripts and go on the teleservice, what to do. So if we have something in place and if we can train the module, then AI would be a good thing."
"ServiceNow ITOM is particularly not very strong in terms of monitoring capabilities. They do not have any monitoring tool."
"ServiceNow is very costly."
"The current limitation requires having mid servers or discovery servers in each data center for proper discovery, hindering the ability to discover assets across continents such as Asia Pacific and Europe."
"I feel that credential-less discovery could be improved."
"The initial setup could be made easier. We hired professionals to implement it, and they trained our employees for ongoing processes."
"Debugging is a bit tough in ServiceNow Discovery, so debugging should be made very easy."
"Application discovery could be improved. And, right now, ServiceNow needs to be coupled with another solution in order to verify information."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not involved in its pricing, but I have seen their plans during a discussion with the customer. For 500 servers, they were asking 50,000 USD. The cost of BMC Discovery was less than half. For the same thing, they were charging only 10,000 USD. Its pricing needs to be improved. As compared to other discovery tools, such as BMC Discovery and ServiceNow Discovery, its price is a little bit higher."
"It's in the top-three most expensive solutions in terms of cost, but it has all the features that are needed."
"We pay $100,000 per year."
"The product cost is low. It is quite cheap."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"Functionality-wise, Device42 is on par with industry standards, but price-wise, the solution is expensive. I'm rating the pricing for the solution as eight out of ten."
"On a yearly basis, our licensing is $10,000. However, our license is now nearly full with devices. We need the next bigger license with 5,000 devices, which will cost us $19,000. We pay for a set of licenses, a maximum number of devices, and a maximum number of IP addresses. We have the smallest amount of features, which is enough for us at this time."
"The problem with using other vendor, like BMC, is the pricing. The price is so horrible and nobody wants to pay this money."
"It's a bit expensive compared to other products in the market, but it's worth the money you pay because it's far advanced in terms of features, automation, and capabilities compared to other products."
"I would rate the product's pricing a six out of ten. We had availed some discount from the standard pricing. Even then, the tool's pricing is expensive. You have to pay some vendor service fees for the product's implementation."
"Setting up and licensing for ServiceNow can be expensive, especially for enterprise service management."
"The solution is very expensive."
"It's on a yearly basis. We renew our contract for three years at a time."
"The product is not cheap."
"ROI (Return on Investment) is good. ServiceNow don't disclose the price publicly. They'll assess your organization's needs and then come up with a price."
"ServiceNow Discovery has very broad pricing, so it becomes costly. It would be better if it had a pay-as-you-use licensing model because the total cost of ownership is quite high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Device42?
The product must provide AI features. It would be very useful if I could create datasets or queries from an AI interface.
What is your primary use case for Device42?
I use the solution for physical assets management, IT management, and application dependency mapping.
What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?
The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?
The pricing information for ServiceNow Discovery was requested but not provided.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?
A CMDB debugging tool to give indication about the errors that appear would be appreciated.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Computershare, Concur, Doosan, Fitch Ratings Inc., Fujitsu, HomeAway, Jasper Wireless, Mercedes-Benz, Square, Twitch, UCSB, Zayo Group Inc.
York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY
Find out what your peers are saying about Device42 vs. ServiceNow Discovery and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.