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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
9th
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 (6th)
ServiceNow Discovery
Ranking in IT Asset Management
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (2nd), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 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 5.3%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Asset Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow Discovery5.3%
Device425.5%
Other89.2%
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

"One of the most valuable features in my experience is the precise tracking of hardware devices and their locations registered in the solution. The solution allows to determine the exact placement of assets based on the building maps and the room details. This feature has allowed us to gain upper hand on the customers and provide them with a great satisfaction because they can visually see the arrangement of their assets within the organisation or building."
"The import/export for bulk operations is a valuable and good feature."
"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 auto-discovery is brilliant. You can have it scheduled to run on a regular basis, and the infrastructure is always getting updated within the platform. I would rate the asset discovery very highly. It's very comprehensive. It covers quite a lot of different methods for doing discovery and it supports a lot of different types of hardware as well."
"Previously, our company had a lot of issues keeping track of all the data centers and the inventory, as well as the purchase orders. All of these were managed by other tools. The good thing about Device42 is that it can be used for all this together. We don't need to spend time checking many other tools and files."
"The way the solution’s automatic IT asset discovery and inventory functionality works is you set up a discovery job, then you can schedule it to run. I schedule all of the runs daily at different times so nothing is interfering with anything else. It's nice to know that you can set up the scan, schedule it, and sit back. You can check them every day and make sure everything ran, making sure nothing had errors, then you're good to go. Anything new is going to automatically be discovered, which is nice. It takes some of the stress off because you don't have to know, "If this team opened new servers, we need make sure now it will automatically pick them up." It is one less thing to worry about. It gathers a lot of data points."
"They've also just created some new interactive dashboards. CEOs can see and interact with the data rather than scrolling through endless Excel worksheets to find what they need."
"The reporting part is valuable. You have classic reports, and you can also do advanced reporting. They also have the DOQL feature for queries. You can write SQL queries to get your data and create custom reports."
"ServiceNow Discovery is useful for discovering the servers, like the servers of Windows and Linux, from the client network."
"The biggest advantage of ServiceNow is the value that it brings."
"It's pretty robust, and it's agentless for the most part. So, you don't need to deploy agents, which makes it a lot easier to stand up."
"I would rate the stability of ServiceNow Discovery as nine, as we never had downtime."
"The most valuable feature is its integration with CMDB, as it collects all the data."
"We mostly use the solution's ITSM and ITOM capabilities in most workflows."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"It has been stable since deployment."
 

Cons

"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."
"If they could make it so their remote connector could do as much as 10,000 devices, that would be better."
"The reporting could be better. The Insights+ component is an improvement, but they even admit it isn't the greatest. The documentation on their website could also be improved, but Device42 is constantly changing, so the documentation would have to change almost daily."
"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."
"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."
"Since I was focused on deploying connectors and getting all the servers to be scanned, one of the biggest pains was when a job would fail, then the output (logging) was poor. For example, "Why did it fail?" In these cases, you get a generic error. It doesn't point you in the right direction and tell you why you got the error, which is really annoying. There have been times I asked, "Is there somewhere I can see a better log as to why is this failing?" That would be a really nice improvement."
"The product must provide AI features."
"The dependency mapping can be quite slow sometimes, if you've got a lot of things connecting to services. It can be very slow to build up the map."
"ServiceNow is very costly."
"Improvements could include implementing chatbots to simplify ticket creation."
"Discovery, while a bit pricey, integrates well with other tools and offers a centralized discovery solution. These aspects could be enhanced in the new release."
"In terms of improvement, I would like for it to be possible to use without coding. I would like a dropdown so that every customer can do it easily for himself and can understand it."
"It creates quite a bit of duplication, so that needs to be fixed."
"On the Software Asset Management part of it, I expect additional reconciliation and Discovery features there."
"The product should improve its customer interface, web interface, and front end. I would like to see the integration of keyboard chat with the solution."
"I am not seeing significant ROI beyond breaking even on what I spend."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"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."
"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."
"The product cost is low. It is quite cheap."
"The problem with using other vendor, like BMC, is the pricing. The price is so horrible and nobody wants to pay this money."
"It is an expensive product with a price that depends on the models that you wish to purchase."
"ServiceNow Discovery's licensing is not a very small investment, but it definitely pays off."
"There is a subscription for ServiceNow Discovery. It's expensive, but I think it's one of the best solutions on the market, so it's worth it."
"The price could be better. It's a bit on the pricey side."
"This is expensive, but it meets our needs."
"The solution is not inexpensive so pricing is rated a three out of ten."
"The product is not cheap."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Healthcare Company
9%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Healthcare Company
9%
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 Business15
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?
I think the price of ServiceNow Discovery is cheaper than BMC.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?
The areas of ServiceNow Discovery that have room for improvement are getting custom reports on the relationship between CIs that are not on the same table.
 

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.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.