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IBM Maximo vs ServiceNow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM Maximo
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (1st), Billing Software (4th)
ServiceNow
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (1st), IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Maximo and ServiceNow aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Maximo is designed for Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and holds a mindshare of 28.8%, up 26.5% compared to last year.
ServiceNow, on the other hand, focuses on IT Service Management (ITSM), holds 23.9% mindshare, down 27.5% since last year.
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz - PeerSpot reviewer
A very strong and powerful tool in the market preferred by a variety of industries
I rate the technical support a seven out of ten. Three levels of support in IBM. The first one is a fixed level, while levels two and three are very good. Here, level one is not very good, as it takes time to go from level one to level two and from level two to level three. So, level one is of low capacity.
Somnath Kand - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom integration and reporting lead to efficient ticket management
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow. Although there are child incidents or tickets, tracking primary issues or bugs within enhancements is not present. The reporting features in the new portal could be more user-friendly. While it provides options to minimize chart and image sizes, actual implementation doesn't always reflect these changes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We can manage, organize, and track incidents, claims, jobs, tasks, preventive and corrective maintenance, locations, and assets."
"Reliable, very configurable, and it's all integrated in the same database."
"The most powerful features are the database and integration with CMDB."
"They have a real strength of tracking the asset itself along with the condition of the asset, the maintenance of the asset and who has access to the asset, etc."
"We were able to scale perfectly.​"
"Has a powerful audit combination that helps achieve high accuracy."
"The most valuable features are the ability to create work orders and preventative maintenance."
"There are not many enterprise asset management systems on the market and not many that have the categories that IBM Maximo has."
"I find the incident management part to be the most valuable. That's how the service desk tracks tickets."
"Overall, I rate ServiceNow 10 out of 10."
"It is robust and very user-friendly."
"I have found the workflows and integration the most valuable in this solution."
"Being able to have the required information for project management is valuable. I've got multiple people accessing it, and I'm tracking tasks with percentages done. It allows me to have detailed notes and provides the ability to attach documents. I have used a lot of project management solutions, and there were gaps in terms of what was available. ServiceNow has got all the features and functionalities. It is a solid solution. It is also easy to get into and use. It is certainly highly scalable."
"If you stick to the out-of-the-box solution, it's an easy setup."
"Easy to implement and consolidate different platforms and users with useful functionalities."
"This solution is a single-storage for our user community to submit help desk tickets."
 

Cons

"The pricing model of the solution has room for improvement as well as the after-sales support."
"It was very slow due to the lagging issues. So that was kind of frustrating, considering how slow it was while functioning."
"Areas for improvement include: an enhanced Service Catalog on Mobile; Agent intelligence; better dashboards for KPIs."
"​Maximo is a big system, so the initial setup is complex."
"This solution could improve by integrating or embedding finances, charts of accounts, and invoicing."
"Although you can create notifications with Maximo, the configuration and options could be improved."
"Initial setup is a longer process because Maximo is bigger and has more processes."
"The initial setup was complex, because it is a complex product."
"if I consider from the IT operations management side, ServiceNow is pretty premature on some things, especially the discovery, while the other tools like Micro Focus and BMC Remedy, those that have been in the market for quite some time. ServiceNow is evolving itself in the discovery piece of the future."
"There are sometimes challenges with the portal being a bit confusing for new users. The implementation of the portal and workspaces is quite different, and improvements in this area would be beneficial."
"Transparency in the pricing model needs to be improved."
"The high price is a huge barrier in Portugal."
"The solution could be made cheaper. Machine learning and artificial intelligence should be introduced in the next release."
"Compared to other products that I have been using, it is not as user-friendly."
"There are sometimes challenges with the portal being a bit confusing for new users."
"It would be nice if we could, with some specific access rights, move histories from one squad to another, as they generate dependencies or duplicate or flag them."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"IBM Maximo offers a licensing application, and you have to comply with the license."
"IBM has changed the licensing policy. As I understand now, they are going from a complex way of licensing to a more simple way of licensing."
"The concurrent user license is much more effective in management and cost-wise, as it is more suitable for maintenance management."
"You pay for what you get. There are lots of options depending on how you would like to implement Maximo."
"Explore the possibility of using DB2. You will avoid the cost of SQL Server or Oracle licenses."
"I do not know about the price of the solution. However, this has been an expensive project overall."
"Where available, concurrent licenses can be more cost efficient and provide more flexibility."
"​Explore internal processes in order to evaluate the correct number of users in each Maximo module, then evaluate the different offers of pricing and licensing.​"
"ServiceNow pricing is an art, not a science. The deal depends on how commercially savvy you are, which does make it something that is quite difficult to get right. It is most definitely an opportunity area for ServiceNow to improve and have more visibility around pricing of the different products within the platform."
"This is a pretty expensive product, so the licensing could be better."
"For the modules we use, we found it competitive. I can't think of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."
"It's sold as a less expensive solution, but it has to be highly modified. That's where you get into the cost."
"It is an expensive platform."
"The licensing expenses are excessively high."
"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"They could be more competitive with their licensing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
29%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Maximo?
It can be particularly useful for power line operations, enabling linemen in the field to gather information and send it across the country as well as different parts of the world.
What needs improvement with IBM Maximo?
Though I liked it a lot, I think it was lagging a lot. It was very slow due to the lagging issues. So that was kind of frustrating, considering how slow it was while functioning. The aforementioned...
What is your primary use case for IBM Maximo?
It can be particularly useful for power line operations, enabling linemen in the field to gather information and send it across the country as well as different parts of the world. With IBM Maximo,...
Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
 

Also Known As

Maximo
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., DTE Energy, Swedish Match, Projetech, Fingrid, East Coast
AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow    
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, IFS, Infor and others in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.