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Freshservice 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
Freshservice delivers ROI through effective ticketing and asset management, improving efficiency and satisfaction despite cost concerns and measurement challenges.
Sentiment score
6.1
ServiceNow Discovery's ROI is inconsistent, with full benefits seen when combined with other services for operational efficiency.
Faster resolution means the average ticket resolution time decreased by roughly twenty-five to thirty percent since alerts are automatically converted into tickets and routed to the right team.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Automation has contributed significantly, resulting in reduced resource counts, which equates to savings in money and time.
Technical support manager at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
With using Freshservice, only two technicians are needed per one shift, but without Freshservice, for the same company size, we need about four technicians per shift, so it saved money and time.
Systems Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Freshservice support is fast and helpful, but some users face communication challenges, particularly with complex issues and translations.
Sentiment score
6.0
ServiceNow Discovery's support varies, with mixed experiences on responsiveness and effectiveness, improving with advanced support tiers and partnerships.
Ultimately, we saw a 77% reduction in average resolution times with a return on investment realized within 6 months.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
However, they have improved over the period of two years.
IT & Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Their documentation is also good, making setup easy without needing frequent support requests.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The 'follow the sun' model, where the time of raising the ticket and where it lands, plays a crucial role.
Manager, Solution/Service Delivery at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
This rating is because there are features on the tool that never worked and despite calling our support, there were no results.
IT Service Performance Manager at MTN
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Freshservice scales well with flexible licensing but has customization limits in large setups, supporting multiple departments effectively.
Sentiment score
7.4
ServiceNow Discovery is highly scalable, suited for large infrastructures, compatible with AWS and Azure, but requires careful cost management.
As our organization has grown and ticket volume related to AWS resources increased, Freshservice handled the extra load without any performance issues.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It offers global performance with multi-region data centers to ensure faster responses while adhering to strong security and compliance standards such as GDPR and SOC 2.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
Freshservice is easy to use for scalability.
IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would rate it as a nine on a scale of one to ten, indicating it is highly scalable.
Software Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Small companies will not be able to afford ServiceNow Discovery from the pricing perspective.
Manager, Solution/Service Delivery at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It receives this rating because it can be difficult to troubleshoot when the discovery is failing.
IT Service Performance Manager at MTN
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Freshservice is stable, reliable, with minor third-party integration and data import issues, excelling in high ticket volumes.
Sentiment score
8.0
ServiceNow Discovery is highly stable and reliable, with minor configuration issues not affecting its strong overall performance ratings.
The service runs smoothly most of the time, and performance has been consistent even when ticket volumes and AWS alerts are high.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Freshservice is quite stable as they host it on AWS.
IT & Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Freshservice provides a stable environment for our needs.
IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would rate the stability of ServiceNow Discovery as nine, as we never had downtime.
IT Service Performance Manager at MTN
That is not a mistake of the product. It is due to excessive security on the network.
Manager, Solution/Service Delivery at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Freshservice requires improved reporting, project management, automation, integrations, user support, and customization for larger organizations.
ServiceNow Discovery struggles with service mapping and integration, necessitating enhancements for usability, cloud capabilities, and easier licensing.
There's limited experience with the CMDB or asset management features.
IT Technician at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Asset management can definitely be improved because it doesn't pick up every single device on the network or every single piece of information.
IT & Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Reporting is useful, but the customization is still restricted, and it would be great to build more detailed reports that combine multiple data sources, especially for cloud-related operations.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
ServiceNow ITOM is particularly not very strong in terms of monitoring capabilities. They do not have any monitoring tool.
Manager, Solution/Service Delivery at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Improvements could include implementing chatbots to simplify ticket creation.
Software Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
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.
IT Service Performance Manager at MTN
 

Setup Cost

Freshservice offers transparent, flexible pricing that is often more cost-effective than competitors, appealing to various organizational needs.
ServiceNow Discovery is pricey but valued for advanced features, with potential discounts though standalone costs are high.
Switching from previous ITSM tools has led to a 50% reduction in licensing costs.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
The solution offers flat licensing and appears to be cost-effective.
IT Technician at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
The price was very comfortable for our organization to proceed with the migration from Freshdesk to Freshservice.
Technical support manager at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
ServiceNow is considered more expensive compared to other products.
Software Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I think the price of ServiceNow Discovery is cheaper than BMC.
IT Service Performance Manager at MTN
 

Valuable Features

Freshservice streamlines IT operations with automated ticket management, self-service tools, integrations, and analytics, enhancing productivity and efficiency.
ServiceNow Discovery integrates seamlessly with ServiceNow suite, enhancing IT operations through automated mapping, security, and cloud discovery.
The most valuable features include ticket routing, automation in triage, data control, and flat licensing.
IT Technician at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Incident management is very helpful, and the system is straightforward, making it easy to use for our enterprise-level company.
IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Overall, Freshservice provides cutting-edge AI automation for agents and end-users, effortless no-code workflows and ITIL-aligned operations, robust asset, incident, change, problem, and major incident management backed by the live CMDB, unified service desk with self-service and multi-channel support, and strong analytics reporting features, making it a powerful tool for any IT function.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
The workflows are beneficial as they allow tasks to be assigned to respective teams without the need for coding.
Software Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
ServiceNow Discovery helps with operations, audits, and allows people to assess how a particular change in infrastructure impacts other components.
Director, Information Technology at Gen™
ServiceNow Discovery has normal discovery of CIs, as well as horizontal discovery for understanding Service Mapping.
Manager, Solution/Service Delivery at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Freshservice
Ranking in IT Asset Management
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (5th), Project Management Software (9th), Cloud Management (12th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (5th), AI IT Support (5th)
ServiceNow Discovery
Ranking in IT Asset Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Server Monitoring (5th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the IT Asset Management category, the mindshare of Freshservice is 4.7%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 4.7%, down from 5.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Asset Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Freshservice4.7%
ServiceNow Discovery4.7%
Other90.6%
IT Asset Management
 

Featured Reviews

RF
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
Automation and AI have transformed our service delivery and have made IT support faster and more efficient
I always keep up with Freshservice's roadmaps and new features. Freshservice has been very good at listening to feedback and adding those feature requests into their next iterations. I wish they would offer more granular data export options for utilizing in Power BI, along with predictive analytics for capacity planning and SLA breaches to enable more proactive support management and reduce firefighting. While the dashboards are effective, some users find custom reporting limited compared to ServiceNow or Jira. I would also appreciate deeper integrations, especially for niche apps requiring development coding work to enable advanced orchestration. Native integrations for DevOps pipelines such as GitHub Actions and Jenkins, along with stronger API flexibility for complex workflows, would enhance functionality. Although the CMDB and asset management are solid, they do lack advanced dependency mapping compared to other enterprise tools. My wishlist includes automated impact analysis for changes and improved visualization of asset relationships, enabling quicker resolutions from an agent's perspective when alerts come in. I acknowledge that Device42 may enhance this, but it is an extra cost beyond what we already pay. While Freddy AI is excellent for triage and suggestions, some users desire more proactive automation, such as predictive ticket routing based on historical patterns and AI-driven capacity forecasting. Lastly, the pricing tiers might seem rigid for mid-sized teams, so a more granular add-on option for features such as Device42 or pay-per-use for orchestration workflows could be beneficial.
reviewer2759271 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Solution/Service Delivery at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Has supported enterprise needs well and addresses discovery across environments
Small companies will not be able to afford ServiceNow Discovery from the pricing perspective. Hence, they will not opt for ServiceNow Discovery as a solution, either as an ITSM solution or ITOM solution. It will not be affordable. I am specifically talking about the Middle East and Africa region. ServiceNow ITOM is particularly not very strong in terms of monitoring capabilities. They do not have any monitoring tool. They use event management from getting events from other tools. In that front, they had a roadmap for going for an open-source solution, but I have not seen that materialize. There is a lack of tools perspective for monitoring. Perhaps they do not have a plan because there are hundreds of tools available, and they prefer to focus on integration and event management.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Freshservice?
The solution has been very helpful engineering insights into the client's environment. We have been able to manage calls and incidence very efficiently which provides us with a clear understanding...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Freshservice?
Regarding cost savings, switching from previous ITSM tools has led to a 50% reduction in licensing costs, flexibility to scale for different business areas, which included service catalog items, ag...
What needs improvement with Freshservice?
I always keep up with Freshservice's roadmaps and new features. Freshservice has been very good at listening to feedback and adding those feature requests into their next iterations. I wish they wo...
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.
 

Also Known As

Flint
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport
York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY
Find out what your peers are saying about Freshservice vs. ServiceNow Discovery and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.