IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs TOPdesk comparison

IBM and TOPdesk are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #27, while TOPdesk is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.6. IBM holds a 0.8% mindshare in HDS, compared to TOPdesk’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 84% of TOPdesk users who would recommend it.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

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191 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

TOPdesk

Read 10 TOPdesk reviews

970 Views
497 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

TOPdesk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and TOPdesk are competing in the IT service management category. TOPdesk seems to have the upper hand due to its comprehensive feature set and customizable options.

Features: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk provides strong integration capabilities, robust asset management functions, and extensive connectivity which are necessary for enterprises requiring intricate system connectivity. TOPdesk stands out with its flexibility, ease of configuration, and all-in-one service management solution that supports both IT and facilities management.

Room for Improvement: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk could improve in user interface design, scalability for smaller businesses, and simplification of integration processes. TOPdesk could benefit from enhancing its reporting capabilities, increasing automation features, and improving integration with third-party apps.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers a detailed and structured deployment model, beneficial for complex environments, and is supported by strong customer service. TOPdesk is recognized for its straightforward deployment model focused on ease of setup and continued support, making it appealing for businesses requiring quick implementation and consistent assistance.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk typically requires a higher initial investment but offers robust capabilities that can justify this cost for businesses with heavy integration needs. TOPdesk provides competitive pricing with an emphasis on value through its features and flexibility, targeting a quicker ROI, especially for smaller to mid-sized businesses aiming for comprehensive yet cost-effective solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. TOPdesk Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. TOPdesk

April 2025

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Helped 850,236 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

27th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

TOPdesk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

14th

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Service Management (ITSM) (12th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 0.8%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TOPdesk is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz

Director of operations at Vetasi

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.

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Martina Peneva

People Technology Lead at Scandinavian Tobacco Group

Implement service management changes while addressing UI improvements

Topdesk's user interface makes it easy to handle requests and escalate them to other groups or reassign them when working on a single ticket. Additionally, the service management tool in HR allows for a change in delivering services, replacing email communication with ticket raising. The knowledge library enables the local HR to store and share relevant information and frequently asked cases, enhancing collaboration. The ticket system also facilitates escalating cases to other involved departments. IT, HR, and some other teams primarily use this system.

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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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"The most valuable feature of TOPdesk is the reports."

"The most valuable feature of TOPdesk is its ease of use if you have implemented it in the right way. If you're not implementing it in the right way, then it's very difficult."

"TOPdesk is overall very stable."

"It is an easy-to-use solution."

"Its ITSM approach is quite useful."

"When it comes to implementing new features, they listen to what their customers want via a suggestion forum that they have."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the incident management module."

"Change management is the most critical feature."

More TOPdesk pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

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

"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 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 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."

"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."

"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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"The solution's change management could be better."

"One of the disadvantages of TOPdesk is the reporting tool. It is very poor and not in real-time. You do not always receive the correct information."

"If I open a ticket on the infrastructure team, I can't move it to the financial team for them to manage the ticket."

"From a UI perspective, there is room for improvement. It sometimes takes many steps to do something simple, like creating or moving a knowledge item."

"The solution should be made more user-friendly."

"It is time-consuming to add new users."

"An operator is also a user but requires creating two different records."

"Change management implementation, facility management, and making reservations on assets can be improved."

More TOPdesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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 cost of the solution on a yearly basis is $20,000. Technical support is not extra. It's included in the yearly cost. Updates are also included. The solution is good at keeping its product up to date."

"TOPdesk's pricing is cheaper than Jira's."

"The solution is inexpensive compared to competitors."

"There are three fee options to choose from for a company and these options compared to market prices are very high. For example, if I use one of the first options for 10 assets, then it costs 20,000 Euros. If you went to competitors, then you pay less."

"The solution's pricing is reasonable and not expensive."

"Compared to other products in this segment, I think that they are priced well and not too expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Educational Organization

47%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about TOPdesk?

The most valuable feature of TOPdesk is the reports.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TOPdesk?

The solution's pricing is reasonable and not expensive.

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What needs improvement with TOPdesk?

From a UI perspective, there is room for improvement, as some tasks like creating or moving a knowledge item within the library require many steps instead of simple actions like drag and drop. This...

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Comparisons

ServiceNow vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 100% of the time

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ServiceNow vs TOPdesk

Compared 41% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs TOPdesk

Compared 24% of the time

Freshdesk vs TOPdesk

Compared 16% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs TOPdesk

Compared 11% of the time

GLPI by Teclib vs TOPdesk

Compared 9% of the time

More TOPdesk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

April 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

April 2025

Download TOPdesk 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

Excellent service management made easy : Happy customers are the goal of every supporting department. We understand. That’s why we’ve created a solution that helps you improve customer communication, manage workflows and keep track of assets. But above all: our software is simple and attractive. This not only makes it pleasant to use, but also quick to adopt. You’re looking to deliver excellent service from day one – and TOPdesk is here to help. TOPdesk delivers one integrated service platform for IT, FM, HR and other Service departments with a build Self Service Portal, asset management, reporting and integration platform( see also our TOPdesk Marketplace for selection of connectors). Some key features include : Call Management, Incident and Service Request Management, Service Catalogue, Asset & Configuration Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Project Management, Operations Management, Reservations Management, Stock & Order Management, Contract Management and SLA's, Survey Management, Self Service Portal, Form designer, Portal designer, Event & Action Management, Knowlegde Base, Report wizards, Resource Management, Barcode, CAD and Exchange integration TOPdesk helps you streamline your ITIL, Agile, Sox, KCS, ASL/BISL, GDPR compliance Result at our global customer base : 98% customer retention rate 99% of our implementations within budget and timeframe 90% up and running within 3 month NPS score of 35 (4500 cusotmers) 98% customer recommondation score 4,7 score at Gartner Peer Insights Our ecosystem consist of : 4500 customers across 45 countries > 300.000 daily users > 15.000.000 supported end-users 40+ partners What makes TOPdesk unique? • ITIL-based modules for all your service needs: from Ticket and Asset Management to Reservations Management • License based on end users or service agents, whateveris best for you • Unlimited number of assets or self service users • Easy to implement: get up and running quickly • Choose between on-premises or SaaS

TOPdesk

Sample Customers

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

City of Amsterdam, University of Edinbroughm, IKEA, KLM Catering Services, FloraHolland, BOVAG, PostNL, Total, Hilton, Oce, Canon, Agip, Compass Group, Serco, Danone, BMW, Eneco, And many more.

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. TOPdesk

April 2025

Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. TOPdesk

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