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IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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 Tivoli Business Service...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
13th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (13th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (15th), AIOps (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager is 4.9%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 6.8%, down from 18.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow IT Operations Management6.8%
IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager4.9%
Other88.3%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer847356 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Good technical support, and efficient for working with business data
We use this solution for working with data. The most valuable feature of this solution is the efficiency. This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate. We have been using this solution for fourteen years. The stability of this…
reviewer2755671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Significant enhancement in operations with powerful discovery and analytics, yet pricing structure poses challenges
ServiceNow IT Operations Management provides out-of-the-box dashboards. Along with the dashboard, it also provides the Operations Workspace, which is very useful for operations teams. There is a functionality called Performance Analytics, which we are also using to develop some dashboards for the senior leadership and operations team where they can perform trend analysis of alerts and events happening across the infrastructure and application landscape. These dashboards are really useful here. ServiceNow IT Operations Management's biggest plus point is that it is a platform. ITOM is just one module that ServiceNow IT Operations Management offers, but they provide seamless integration of ITOM with their other modules such as ITSM, where we can leverage the AIs for discovery, perform impact analysis, which essentially helps to enhance the overall IT operations and reduce the downtime and MTTR.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"TBSM is a rock, and our house would have crumbled without it."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the efficiency."
"The most valuable features of the solution are discovery, cloud governance, event management, and service mapping."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management's biggest plus point is that it is a platform, and they provide seamless integration of ITOM with their other modules such as ITSM, where we can leverage the AIs for discovery, perform impact analysis, which essentially helps to enhance the overall IT operations and reduce the downtime and MTTR."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management pays for itself because of how flexible it is, and it's a very strong tool."
"It helps streamline management and processes."
"The reason is it's cost-effective, number one."
"It includes a valuable feature called Discovery, that aids in application portfolio management, enabling visibility into IT infrastructure from top to bottom."
"It is a stable solution. I have not experienced any system outages during my time using the solution."
"It is flexible. You can tune it, more or less, as you want."
 

Cons

"This application should be made easier to use because it usually needs training and it is not easy to operate."
"Yes, Event Storms and other less traumatic triggers the JVM to hang requiring recycles."
"There are times the application has some performance issue, but it could be because of our network. There should be something done to resolve this."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management can be improved by focusing on adoption, as some companies still use other tools, and we had to onboard them initially, addressing challenges such as data migration and consistency, especially since we have 14,000 users in my group company utilizing this for multiple purposes, emphasizing workflows defined so that onboarding processes can be streamlined into a single tool."
"The pricing is high."
"Even though they call it low code there are a lot of customizations needed, especially from an ITOM standpoint."
"At times, it got cumbersome from the project management perspective. It could have been because of the way we were using it. I found Microsoft Project to be more extensive and robust than ITOM."
"There is room for improvement in service mapping within ServiceNow ITOM. When we have more time, we'll look to extend that and apply it to business-critical services like email."
"I would like more manual issues to have automated report-facing options."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management could be improved by providing more user customization options."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution offers yearly licenses and a subscription model for add-on features."
"I would rate the product's pricing a five out of ten since there are vendors who are cheaper."
"We obtained discovery licenses at about seven dollars Australian per unit, which we found to be reasonable and competitive."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a costly solution. I'd rate the price at ten, on a scale from one to ten with one being the lowest and ten being the highest price. Some clients do have a problem with the price, but most find that the solution is worth the cost."
"The solution is costly compared to the products offered by its competitors."
"It has different subscription models."
"There are additional costs, you have to pay more for everything."
"The pricing is high and may be excluding the small to medium-sized enterprise businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
Regarding pricing, while I initially felt the prices were high when we moved, I now see that it is reasonable considering that we are not just using an ITSM tool; we are improving processes and com...
What needs improvement with ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
ServiceNow IT Operations Management can be improved by focusing on adoption, as some companies still use other tools, and we had to onboard them initially, addressing challenges such as data migrat...
What is your primary use case for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
As an implementation expert and former CIO, I handled implementation from an IT best practice perspective for different companies.
 

Also Known As

Tivoli Business Service Manager, BSM
ServiceNow ITOM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

SSGC
servicenow, TransAlta, NATS, Symantec
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli Business Service Manager vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.