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IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk comparison

IBM and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #26, while SolarWinds is ranked #14 with an average rating of 9.0. IBM holds a 1.1% mindshare in HDS, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.5% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews
  • 499 Views
  • 484 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
SolarWinds Web Help Desk
Read 8 SolarWinds Web Help Desk reviews
  • 661 Views
  • 555 Comparison Views
85% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and SolarWinds Web Help Desk both compete in IT service management solutions. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk appears to have an advantage with its comprehensive features, while SolarWinds Web Help Desk is favored for ease of use.

Features: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers robust IT service management, extensive asset management, and high customization options. SolarWinds Web Help Desk provides an intuitive ticketing system, integration with third-party applications, and automated workflows.

Room for Improvement: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk can improve in ease of deployment, user interface complexity, and integration simplicity. SolarWinds Web Help Desk could benefit from enhanced asset management features, broader customization options, and more advanced reporting capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SolarWinds Web Help Desk is known for simpler deployment and responsive customer service, appealing to organizations seeking minimal downtime. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk requires more configuration, but offers detailed customer support and extensive documentation.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has a higher initial setup cost, justified by its advanced features and potential for long-term savings. SolarWinds Web Help Desk presents a more affordable setup cost with quicker ROI, making it ideal for budget-conscious organizations needing essential IT help desk functionalities.

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To learn more, read our detailed IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk Report (Updated: September 2025).
Buyer's Guide
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk
September 2025
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Helped 869,566 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
26th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SolarWinds Web Help Desk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
14th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Web Help Desk is 1.5%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SolarWinds Web Help Desk1.5%
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk1.1%
Other97.4%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps standardize our workflow, track client tickets, and it's very flexible
Initially we used HPE Service Desk. Then, Remedy (IBM SmartCloud Control Desk) version 5. When selecting a vendor, the most important thing for us is the flexibility of the tool. It must be very flexible to change the workflow or to add new workflows for the clients. It must have stability and scalability as well.
Read full review
GANESAN K - PeerSpot reviewer
Has supported daily operational workflows and improved approval management across departments
We actually do the reselling. We created a self-service portal for the customers, and this particular function does impact reducing IT staff workload overall. From technical standpoints, comparing SolarWinds Web Help Desk with TeamViewer, we need ease of configuration and ease of allocating, creating new fields or creating new layouts for many specific use cases. An organization can have a number of use cases when it comes to a ticketing tool. It's not a security solution; it's more of a service solution where you will be configuring the needed categories and needed fields for each department. On a scale of 1-10, I rate SolarWinds Web Help Desk an 8.
Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very easy to work with."
"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 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."
"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."
"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."
"The solution has been stable."
"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."
"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."
More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros
"Once installed, it runs like a charm and doesn't ever crash."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the assets management module."
"SolarWinds is scalable as far as adding devices and servers."
"SolarWinds supports case and incident reporting. This includes logging incidents and tracking them efficiently. Additionally, it is compatible and approved by the ITIL foundation and standards, meeting world-class standards."
"It has a pretty good search function. If you do the advanced search, you can basically search for anything in any field. If I do a search on the request field and just put in some terms I'm searching for, I can usually find the ticket that I'm looking for."
"The biggest advantage for SolarWinds Web Help Desk is the user interface; we were able to configure a different UI for administrators, employees, and HODs based on their hierarchy level."
"It is easy to use."
 

Cons

"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."
"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 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."
"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."
"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."
"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 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."
"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."
More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons
"The working part, the deployment part, and the configuration part was a little bit complex."
"The interface feels clunky to me compared to some other systems that I've used. I used ManageEngine Service Desk prior to this at my previous job and that had stuff like categories that we use that I don't see in SolarWinds."
"It would be good if there were training and tutorial videos on the Web Help Desk."
"We would like to see automation included in the next release. We would like to eliminate the L1, and L2 support, by at least 80%. To do this, we need automation with AI (Artificial Intelligence) in combination with ML (Machine Learning)."
"A little outdated compared to newer products that include protection and detection."
"This solution needs to have mobile application support added."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"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."
"When you compare with ManageEngine and ServiceNow, SolarWinds is reasonable."
"They charge by the technician. It costs $117 per technician per year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Retailer
16%
Performing Arts
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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What needs improvement with SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
Some features in the product are supposed to run. However, if they don't, it may require some time to configure or fix them, such as asset management. We have been struggling with asset management ...
See all answers
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
SolarWinds Web Help Desk is a case management system. Each user logs their concerns or problems into the portal, which are then assigned to one of our support engineers responsible for managing the...
See all answers
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
SolarWinds Web Help Desk could be beneficial for generating automated responses, such as ONIQ. Since we receive multiple cases from similar backgrounds, it would streamline the process if the syste...
See all answers
 

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Compared 18% of the time
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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
September 2025
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reportDownload IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report
Buyer's Guide
SolarWinds Web Help Desk
September 2025
SolarWinds Web Help Desk reportDownload SolarWinds Web Help Desk 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

SolarWinds Web Help Desk simplifies service management with unified ticketing, asset, knowledge, and change management. Key features include:

  1. Maintain asset inventory by managing the use, availability, and health of IT assets, and tracking this over time.
  2. Control change management, It regulates and manages change requests through automated approval workflows and panel voting options.
  3. Employs robust reporting and monitoring using a built-in reports and dashboards to track ticket status, technician performance, and customer support needs.
  4. Automate ticketing management that Automate service request management through ticket creation, assignment, routing, and escalation.
  5. Centralize your knowledge management, Leverage a built-in help desk knowledge base to create and maintain KB articles and promote end-user self-service for common issues.
  6. Meet your SLAs, it has "SLA breach approaching" notifications and date-specific SLA reminder alerts that help customize escalation and de-escalation workflows.
SolarWinds
 

Sample Customers

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
Instacart
Buyer's Guide
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk
September 2025
Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk
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