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IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact 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 NetCool Impact
Ranking in Event Monitoring
10th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (9th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th), AIOps (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is 4.0%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 8.4%, down from 20.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow IT Operations Management8.4%
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact4.0%
Other87.6%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Hennie Du Toit - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Specialist Architecture and Governance at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Event management strengthens with automation but needs better event flooding handling
Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that. Better root cause correlation and faster processing for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be helpful. If there can be more end-to-end functionality, such as observability tools built in natively, that would be great. With correlation, IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact has many functions, but we've built them custom-built. Functions such as automated logging, automated dispatching, and automated notification of engineers could be native in the tool.
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

"It is easy to integrate with other models such as Oracle, other systems, external systems, and to reach events."
"The stability has been very good for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact, rated around eight or nine."
"This product allows us to make use of open-source products, including running Java code."
"The most valuable feature that comes with Netcool/Impact is the ISPF APA support. It is inherent to Netcool/Impact, so I can use the ISPF of any other product, which I can invoke and consume through Impact, and do integrations, which is great. I run the Netcool desktop application so I can integrate with other applications in the ticketing system. It's a great ability being able to invoke ISPF and integrate."
"The operational views and third party connections to fetch the data and to help engage on more activities are the most valuable aspects of the solution."
"The solution is great at being able to fetch almost any kind of file."
"I can recommend Netcool/Impact because it's the perfect solution when it comes to invoking ISPF APA and using ISPF integration throughout the rest of your other products."
"This product allows us to make use of open-source products, including running Java code."
"The main and best thing about ServiceNow IT Operations Management is that it helps to organize user management tickets in an organized form."
"Before that, if a switch went down, we'd get 600 tickets; now, we get only one."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a stable product."
"The end-to-end ticketing process is most valuable in ServiceNow IT Operations Management because its notification feature is excellent in keeping all users informed on the next step compared to BMC. I also like that ServiceNow IT Operations Management is very user-friendly."
"It has been very useful for tracking. It has evolved a lot over time, and there is a single pane of glass where you can track and see everything."
"The solution allows you to subscribe to the all required ITSM modules, asset discovery and service mapping on a single platform, its guided setup provides easy implementation process and I found these features most valuable."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a stable product."
"The most valuable features of the solution are discovery, cloud governance, event management, and service mapping."
 

Cons

"IBM is not investing in the development of the on-premise version of this solution."
"Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that."
"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."
"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."
"The stability of this solution is somewhat less than other similar products that I have used."
"Stability-wise, this product needs to be improved."
"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work."
"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work. Although, I don't think that there's much improvement that Netcool really needs to achieve in this area, because when we're talking GUI, Impact is able to integrate with any third-party system and it comes with ISPF APA. It's more beneficial than Netcool/OMNIbus in this respect, and it's quite easy to handle."
"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 could be more prescriptive on how customers can leverage some of the benefits."
"Regarding ServiceNow, there is room for improvement in terms of customization, particularly in the area of self-customization."
"If you are new to using the solution, you will find the setup complex."
"I advise others not to customize a lot while using the solution."
"We are facing difficulties with service mapping of CIs from the end users, and are seeking help from third-party vendors."
"The discovery portion of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is not in-depth as what the customers are looking for, and the information that it gathers from the assets is a little more limited than what other tools provide."
"The pricing of some modules is higher because they are sold in packages. If we need something specific, we cannot take it individually."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact depends on the number of nodes on the element that you are monitoring."
"The licensing is yearly, and although I'm happy with the pricing I do think it could be better."
"It is moderately expensive. The pricing itself and the licensing options are depending on the model and the customization."
"The solution is costly compared to the products offered by its competitors."
"We obtained discovery licenses at about seven dollars Australian per unit, which we found to be reasonable and competitive."
"The solution offers yearly licenses and a subscription model for add-on features."
"The price of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is expensive."
"It has different subscription models."
"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."
"This solution offers good value but comes at a very high premium. Pricing could be reduced by 10 to 20%."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
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

What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal wit...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is our event management tool, specifically the umbrella fault management tool set. All of our events across the network correlate the data for us, and we have certain use ...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
We remain a partner with IBM Tivoli and continue using their products. We use IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact's AIOps functionality. We experienced some skills issues, but currently receive assistance fr...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
It is definitely high-priced compared to other products available in the same domain in the market.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
We don't use the orchestration part of ServiceNow IT Operations Management here. The CMDB part of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a little bit too complicated, and it is a bit slow at our co...
What is your primary use case for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
We are customers of ServiceNow IT Operations Management, using it for the ticketing systems and user management and change management. Change management and user management are the major use cases ...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool Impact
ServiceNow ITOM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
servicenow, TransAlta, NATS, Symantec
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.