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Hornbill Systems Supportworks vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
646
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (1st), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Hornbill Systems Supportworks
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (34th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (32nd)
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (4th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (3rd)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
it_user1262703 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Desk Team Leader at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Excels in call logging and call flows but is limited in terms of scalability
I'd advise others to map their processes out before starting with the solution. Hornbill has recently generated a new version of its product and it meets some of the requirements that we would have been looking for. It's a bit more scalable, a bit more responsive to a customer-focused model for support, and they've improved a lot of things like process flow and self-service. In terms of rating the solution, it's difficult to grade. It really depends on the size of the organization that's trying to use it as that tool. One of the reasons why we're looking to shift is because we've grown quite a bit over the years that we've had it, which makes it difficult for it to meet our demands. However, for an organization the size of what we were when we started our journey with it, I'd rate it ten out of ten. Where we are now, with our company size and needs, I'd rate it six out of ten.
Mostafiz Miah - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Presales & Technical Lead at Elitbuzz Technologies Ltd
Automation has transformed daily request handling and now tracks every customer interaction
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus helps my team manage and resolve requests compared to previous methods as we previously managed things through paperwork and diaries. After deploying ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whenever any customer request comes, we provide the customer a product demo if they ask about the products. We then convert that request to a lead, which is converted to a demo, and then to the product POC, allowing us to follow up every stage of the requests. Everything can be tracked from ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whether at the closing stage or the initial stage. I use ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus daily in a unique way because previously everyone managed their own tracking system through their diary, but now everyone inputs data into this solution so that at the end of the day, we can get reports on how many leads we have taken care of and when they need to be taken care of. This information is visible from the ServiceDesk tool, and using the dashboard, we can easily identify it, providing an at-a-glance view. The best features ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers for my team include automating manual tasks, which allows whatever tasks we previously did manually to be converted into automatic tasks. Currently, they have also introduced Zia, a very helpful solution for us. Using Zia, we can search for anything, not only inside the tool but also outside, integrating it with ChatGPT and Teams, and it can integrate with other ManageEngine solutions as well as solutions such as Jira and ServiceNow. When we integrate our network monitoring solutions with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, it automatically raises an incident ticket and assigns it to the right team whenever any incident has occurred, which saves us time and reduces manual tasks. Previously, we had to communicate to the right people through mail or phone calls after an incident, but now the incidents are automatically converted and assigned to the relevant support groups along with the SLA. The integration with Teams allows us to raise tickets without logging into the portal, and we can see the ticket status and add comments through Teams, which is very helpful. Additionally, mail integration can automatically convert emails into tickets, adding further efficiency. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has positively impacted our organization, particularly in customer satisfaction. Previously, customers managed service requests, incidents, changes, and problems manually, but after integration, most of these processes are automated. This includes change requests that now follow a workflow based on organizational needs and ITIL best practices, making tracking incidents and requests much easier for end customers through scheduled reports.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The IQ Bot is unique. It is not available in another RPA tool that I am aware of, like UiPath or Blue Prism. IQ Bot converts unstructured data to structured data."
"RPA platform with a good accuracy rate, variable management, and OCR feature. It has a straightforward setup."
"When we compare other projects on other platforms versus Automation Anywhere, the technical support we are receiving in terms of efficiency, and even that they are giving us good price, this is what we are looking for."
"While our Automation Anywhere's implementation is in a premature stage, it has really decreased the workload on our service desk and we definitely see some ROI in the future from this product."
"With Automation Anywhere you can read and extract CSV data easily. You don't need multiple commands to read it."
"The graphical user interface (GUI) is very useful, since I don't know any coding languages. I have been able to be a developer with Automation Anywhere without knowing the technical background. I am a business user, and not needing the technical knowledge to use the system has been useful for me."
"Adding Automation Anywhere is a tremendous value-add in the long-term."
"We have started to see the ROI, as activities in which resources in my team would have taken four to five hours are now done in 30 minutes."
"We've definitely seen an ROI; we've had the system in place for eight years, and it's provided a solid platform for us to deliver our services during that period."
"It is quite user friendly to use and has a lot of very useful features that makes the analyst/technician's life easier."
"The solution's business process flow is quite strong. Its reporting is quite good. The standard, basic ITSM functionality like call logging and call flow, for example, are areas the solution really excels in."
"There are a lot of great templates that you can take advantage of."
"The platform's most beneficial features are incident management, change management, request management, and asset management."
"We not only handle tickets, but also requests from many departments. All are easy to manage."
"The auto-routing feature saves a lot of effort, where we used to spend a lot of time manually assigning things."
"I like the catalog features and workflow, and I also like the knowledge space."
"ServiceDesk Plus helps eliminate confusion of what hardware, software, and users are impacted during a DR or scheduled maintenance."
"I would very much recommend this solution; everybody can go for it, as it is a very easy tool for the technicians as well as for end users and is the best solution."
"This solution has provided a way to manage request tracking and resolution."
 

Cons

"On the document automation side, the document learning features are not as robust as one would expect them to be. When I am doing document automation and a document fails due to low confidence in populating a field, it requires manual correction."
"In a cost-sensitive industry like banking, where automation needs to prove clear ROI, a more flexible pricing structure would assist organizations in expanding automation more aggressively without feeling constrained by budget considerations."
"Although the UI and elements are user-friendly, it is still difficult for business users without experience to understand how to use Automation Anywhere."
"When we are moving from one version to another version, it's very difficult because most of the features stop working."
"Many clients use the Citrix environment but AA has very low functionality to automate a Citrix environment."
"The help Automation Anywhere offers during setup isn't great for smaller companies like ours."
"We have a challenge in our front office automation where capturing details from a table within a table does not happen in the existing AA Enterprise client version 11.3.4. The AA team tries various methods like using an Excel spreadsheet to capture the tables."
"The bot insides should come in the same package versus having it as a different bundle by itself. If we could have this product come with all the inside solutions altogether, that would help."
"It's worked well for us for a significant period of time. However, we are kind-of outgrowing it at the moment. We're struggling a bit with making it meet our requirements."
"Customer Service: I'd rate it as a 5/10 or 6/10."
"Its reporting can be improved. It can have better analytics reports. Even though they provide integration with another tool called Analytics Plus to get those reports, it would be quite helpful to have them on the fly and out of the box. A lot of improvement is required in change management and release management. Their change management module is quite simple, and they need to do a lot of work on the change management module. The release management is out only on the cloud. It is not available in on-premises deployments. In the next release, I would like it to have effective project management. They do provide the project management and contracts management modules, but these modules need a bit of improvement."
"I would like to see a clearer distinction between ManageEngine Cloud, ServiceDesk Plus, and ManageEngine Enterprise. That way, choosing the best one is better informed. Initially, I struggled to understand the difference, but I figured it out later."
"Security could be better. It would be better if ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus had really good defense products like BlackBerry. I can recommend BlackBerry for the defense part, but not the other things. For example, before we switched over to ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, we had issues with mobiles switching off cameras, and now it doesn't happen at all."
"We are deciding to cancel this product and move to Jira because Jira is a much better solution."
"I had some problem with user and group permissions in 2014, and I’m not sure if that is resolved now or not."
"I think asset management took a hit recently."
"The solution does not have an automated approach to integration with other ManageEngine products and third-party products."
"It needs more customization and the ability to generate reports based on custom feeds. At present, if you create a custom feed in any form, you cannot create a report based on those criteria."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Automation Anywhere is expensive, making it suitable only for enterprise organizations."
"We are interested in saving manual engineer man-hours. So far, we have saved $100,000."
"It is subscription-based. They have different schemes. The price depends on how you negotiate with the local partner or local representative in your country."
"The licensing cost is approximately $4,000 USD, which is a seed license."
"Our advice is that anybody interested in this product should negotiate product bundles in order to reduce the cost of installation and setup."
"The pricing for Automation Anywhere is reasonable."
"They are already coming out with a community license, which is really good. That's something that I wish to have."
"It's cheapest among the competition, although bargaining is a must."
"Our organization pays about $40,000 annually. There are ongoing consultancy costs and if we want to change anything, we're charged a day rate. Other than that, there are no other extra costs involved in working with the solution."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is much cheaper than many of its competitors. We pay about nine dollars per agent and one dollar per device. There are no hidden costs."
"It is cheaper than its competitors."
"It is cheaper than the competitors."
"The price of the solution is low. However, it still could be less expensive."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a reasonably priced product."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus' pricing is reasonable."
"Cost-wise, we're quite happy."
"The tool's price is okay and in line with other products, maybe even cheaper than some products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
No data available
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business157
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise538
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise20
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
Regarding pricing, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers three editions: Standard edition, Professional, and Enterpris...
What needs improvement with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
Currently, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a mature solution, and I do not think major improvements are needed, as i...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
My main use case for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is to record the day-to-day customer requests and incidents or any...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Supportworks
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Aylesbury Vale District Council
Tranter IT Infrastructure Services Limited, Sterlite Technologies, averda, Radiology Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Hornbill Systems Supportworks vs. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.