IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus comparison

IBM and ManageEngine are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #28, while ManageEngine is ranked #23 with an average rating of 4.0. IBM holds a 1.3% mindshare in HDS, compared to ManageEngine’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 66% of ManageEngine users who would recommend it.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

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652 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

ManageEngine SupportCenter ...

Read 5 ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus reviews

573 Views
556 Comparison Views

66% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

ManageEngine SupportCenter ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus are competing IT service management solutions. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus may hold an advantage in user satisfaction for pricing and features, making it a preferred choice for value-conscious buyers. In contrast, IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers robust capabilities but at a potentially higher cost.

Features: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is recognized for its extensive IT service management features such as asset management, incident management, and enterprise-optimized self-service portals. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus is known for its centralized support platform, streamlined help desk processes, and rapid adoption due to its straightforward design.

Room for Improvement: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk could benefit from simplifying its deployment process, reducing customization needs, and lowering initial costs. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus might improve by enhancing customization options, expanding scalability for larger enterprises, and broadening its feature set to compete with enterprise-level solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk's deployment can be complex, often requiring extensive customization and consultation, though it is well-supported with comprehensive customer service. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus is praised for its straightforward deployment with minimal configuration and effective customer support.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk typically involves a higher initial setup cost due to its extensive feature array, leading to a longer return on investment time. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus offers a more cost-effective alternative with faster ROI owing to its simpler pricing structure and lower entry costs.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus

December 2025

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Helped 881,114 peers since 2012

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 SmartCloud Control Desk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

28th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

ManageEngine SupportCenter ...

Ranking in Help Desk Software

23rd

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 1.3%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus is 1.3%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus	1.3%
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk	1.3%
Other	97.4%

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Klemen Muhvič

Computer System Engineer at Informatika d.d.

Has centralization and asset management features, and a helpful and knowledgeable technical support team

What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk.

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reviewer2650164

VP of IT at a aerospace/defense firm with 51-200 employees

Manual ticketing features hinder workflow, but cost-effective ticket management is ensured

We just use it because it's more trouble to rip it out than to replace it with a more expensive tool. I would not recommend this product to others. If budget is a concern, it might be suitable but it doesn’t excite. Hence, I would rate it a four out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."

"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."

"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."

"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized. You have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them."

"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."

"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

"The solution has been stable."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus works fine as a help desk software and is relatively inexpensive."

"The product teams are continuously on the products trying to improve them. If, for example, I ask for a change to be done in the software, the chances are in the next release it's going to be done and incorporated. It's this personal touch that I like."

"Their tech support has been talking to us about expanding features like integrations with Microsoft Teams."

"The product is very scalable and stable when used as a help desk once it is built out."

"We have found the reporting in this product to be very useful."

"The most valuable features are the ITIL compliance and billing."

Cons

"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."

"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."

"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."

"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."

"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."

"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"The product is very difficult to use and configure and requires specialists."

"The business model for the company is to sell low and charge for customization, education or expertise."

"There is no cloud-based version and it would be helpful if it were available."

"I would like to see some kind of project management or portfolio management in a future version."

"ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus could improve on workflow automation features."

"They're pretty good but there's always room for improvement. There should be more templates that users can utilize immediately."

"The tech support is terrible and that seems to be a part of their business plan."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."

"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."

"The licensing fees depend on different criteria, including options and sizing."

"ManageEngine products will always be the lowest cost in category as that is part of their business model."

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Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	3

No data available

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus?

ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus is cheap, around two or three on a scale where ten is the most expensive.

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What needs improvement with ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus?

ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus could improve on workflow automation features. Currently, everything is very manual, and there's no automated resolution of tickets. The emails ingested to create ti...

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What is your primary use case for ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus?

We use ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus primarily as a ticketing tool within our company.

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

January 2026

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

December 2025

Download ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus product report

Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk

No data available

Overview

IBM Control Desk on Cloud offer an access to a user friendly self-service, automated service management, and seamlessly-integrated, best-practice based service desk capabilities. IBM Control Desk provides the IT service management (ITSM) needed to simplify support of users and infrastructure. It also offers a unified IT asset and service management software provides a common control center for managing business processes for both digital and physical assets and enables control, governance and compliance to applications, endpoints and assets to protect critical data and prevent outages. Control Desk is IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)-compliant, accessible through mobile devices and integrates with social media and development tools.

IBM

SupportCenter Plus is a web-based customer support software that lets organizations effectively manage customer tickets, their account & contact information, the service contracts and in the process providing a superior customer experience.

ManageEngine

Sample Customers

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology

Brickman Group, SVP Worldwide, Chicago Tribune, Sodexo, Constellation, Lowcost Holidays, Telesur, PayEx, Quintiq, Moblize, Oman Air, Intelligent Hospital Systems

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus

December 2025

Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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