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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
9th
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 (11th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (10th), AIOps (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is 4.6%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 7.3%, down from 18.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow IT Operations Management7.3%
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact4.6%
Other88.1%
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

"This product allows us to make use of open-source products, including running Java code."
"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."
"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."
"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 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 solution is great at being able to fetch almost any kind of file."
"Feature-wise, it is a very good tool, especially when it comes to upgrades; upgrades are seamless—you will not even notice an upgrade is happening, and mostly all these upgrades happen after office hours, making it seamless."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. A person just needs to join a team to access the network and that's all."
"The most important features of ServiceNow IT Operations Management are the discovery service mapping and orchestration."
"The main and best thing about ServiceNow IT Operations Management is that it helps to organize user management tickets in an organized form."
"ServiceNow IT Operations Management pays for itself because of how flexible it is, and it's a very strong tool."
"I like the solution due to the fact that it's scalable."
"You can improve integrations of the operation with the solution."
"The way this solution has helped us is that it improved our communication."
 

Cons

"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."
"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."
"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."
"Stability-wise, this product needs to be improved."
"The stability of this solution is somewhat less than other similar products that I have used."
"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work."
"IBM is not investing in the development of the on-premise version of this solution."
"I would like more manual issues to have automated report-facing options."
"The initial setup phase was hard and could be made easier."
"The tool can be improved by including more detailed information to assist new users."
"The product needs to add a workflow insight tool."
"There is room for improvement in the stability of ServiceNow."
"I believe that technical support could improve a bit. I would rate it a six."
"If you are new to using the solution, you will find the setup complex."
"We are facing difficulties with service mapping of CIs from the end users, and are seeking help from third-party vendors."
 

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."
"My customers pay for the ServiceNow IT Operations Management license annually. I'd rate the pricing based on value. ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a premium product as it has better features than competitors."
"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."
"It is expensive. It is around 10 Euros per server per month."
"This solution offers good value but comes at a very high premium. Pricing could be reduced by 10 to 20%."
"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 price of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is expensive."
"The solution offers yearly licenses and a subscription model for add-on features."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Retailer
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
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

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?
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 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: June 2026.
902,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.