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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
27
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (1st), Billing Software (5th)
ServiceNow
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
224
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 16.0%, down 27.4% compared to last year.
ServiceNow, on the other hand, focuses on IT Service Management (ITSM), holds 16.6% mindshare, down 24.9% since last year.
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Maximo16.0%
Oracle Enterprise Asset Management7.8%
IFS Cloud Platform7.4%
Other68.8%
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow16.6%
JIRA Service Management7.6%
BMC Helix ITSM6.0%
Other69.8%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2796087 - PeerSpot reviewer
Développement Fullstack at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Asset workflows have become highly customizable and have delivered significant downtime savings
IBM Maximo can be improved by providing developers with more documentation. I think IBM lacks a lot of documentation and hopefully the community who uses IBM Maximo can help if other developers have questions, but we really need official documentation because what is available on the internet is not official and we don't have strong documentation from IBM. I would also note that around usability, we see some lack of real custom needs in the applications of IBM Maximo Mobile. For example, in applications such as inspections, we cannot really sort by specific field and the search or filtering methods are not very clear, making it difficult to easily find what we are looking for.
SP
General Manager at sPerception IT
Adopting flexible workflows with customized automation delivers measurable benefits
There are things that I would like to see improved in ServiceNow, such as the pricing, as it is a very costly solution compared to other tools. Additionally, its presence in the local market is very limited; in Pakistan, for example, I don't see any vendor or distributor of ServiceNow available. They need to increase their sales spectrum globally so people can easily access them and engage them for client meetings and more. From a functionality perspective, the features in ServiceNow are acceptable as, at the moment, the ITSM modules rank highly, being 13 plus Pink Elephant certified, which is a good aspect to have. When providing advice to users, I would suggest they consider making strategic decisions about their per user pricing since it is very high. In our region, people normally start with 5 to 10 users, but the per user price is quite steep. Moreover, ServiceNow does not charge based on data uploaded or downloaded, so they should reconsider their pricing and data policies to align better with the financial capabilities of the region.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its capabilities let us organize our work."
"We can manage, organize, and track incidents, claims, jobs, tasks, preventive and corrective maintenance, locations, and assets."
"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."
"The ability to configure and integrate it with other solutions for ERP."
"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."
"Reliable, very configurable, and it's all integrated in the same database."
"The Preventive Maintenance feature, especially in its inspection routines and KPI abilities, is valuable."
"It is configurable, where you can add extra fields to screens and to the database."
"I like the reporting aspect of it. It helps us know where we stand regarding the types of issues we're receiving... It also shows us trends. That enables us to possibly predict an issue that might come up in the future as well as what is happening right now. We will like that feature. With it, we can either avoid certain issues or know where we need to focus more regarding the service we provide."
"Straightforward tool."
"It enables us to meet SLAs, track issues across the environment, and report those issues."
"SPM and ITSM features are the most helpful."
"It's actually easy to understand."
"The solution is easy to use, simple to make queries, flexible to configure, integrates well, and supports all of our companies needs."
"The feature that I have found most valuable from ServiceNow is the ability to assign sub-tasks to different teams, including problem tickets and the regular and chain tasks."
"It's a straightforward and effective approach that minimizes the need for extensive explanations."
 

Cons

"​Maximo is a big system, so the initial setup is complex."
"IBM is a big company and they have a lot of products. Level One, the first level of tech support, is the one that is used to stop the tsunami. For everyone, it's always work to get past that."
"Initial setup is a longer process because Maximo is bigger and has more processes."
"It was very slow due to the lagging issues. So that was kind of frustrating, considering how slow it was while functioning."
"On a scale of one to ten, where ten is easy and one is difficult, I rate the setup process a two since it is very complicated."
"The initial setup was complex, because it is a complex product."
"You can get lost using the application"
"Areas for improvement include: an enhanced Service Catalog on Mobile; Agent intelligence; better dashboards for KPIs."
"It should enhance its offerings by providing the chance to obtain course certifications at an affordable fee."
"Service mapping could be less complicated."
"Creating service catalog forms could be made easier."
"ServiceNow's customization is not too agile in those cases; it takes a little bit of time."
"The user interface could be much improved, and the developer tools and sets can be improved greatly, they are lacking."
"The pricing of the solution could be better. It's a bit high."
"There are a few things that it needs to improve, like automation of most things out-of-the-box. For example, when it comes to cloud management, we are still going with manual intervention. Instead of that, if we had an out-of-the-box feature available, that would be great."
"There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is low and ten is high, I rate the pricing a nine. The price is very high."
"​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.​"
"You pay for what you get. There are lots of options depending on how you would like to implement Maximo."
"The concurrent user license is much more effective in management and cost-wise, as it is more suitable for maintenance management."
"Explore the possibility of using DB2. You will avoid the cost of SQL Server or Oracle licenses."
"ServiceNow is an expensive solution."
"The price is okay for us. It's reasonable."
"They could be more competitive with their licensing."
"The licensing expenses are excessively high."
"It is very expensive because it is a big organization. You have to pay for additional things."
"ServiceNow tends to be a little bit more expensive as compared to BMC Helix ITSM."
"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"The product cost is higher than that of other vendors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise166
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Maximo?
IBM Maximo could be improved if they added a comprehensive finance module, as that would make it a more complete standalone application. Currently, if you need specific finance software, you need t...
What is your primary use case for IBM Maximo?
My main use case for IBM Maximo is managing maintenance. I used it first as an end user, and later joined the implementation team. Now I'm administrating and implementing IBM Maximo. The transition...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Maximo?
There are many good implemented functions in IBM Maximo, but I see these two functions as the most valuable ones from my point of view. My advice to others considering IBM Maximo is that top manage...
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, Prometheus Group, Infor and others in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). Updated: January 2026.
880,954 professionals have used our research since 2012.