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IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus vs SCOM 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 OMNIbus
Ranking in Event Monitoring
4th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SCOM
Ranking in Event Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Network Monitoring Software (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is 8.3%, up from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SCOM is 9.7%, up from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus8.3%
SCOM9.7%
Other82.0%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

SS
Senior Consultant AWS at Cognizant
Good GUI and accuracy in processing but needs automated incident management
There is a complex setup and configuration process. It requires experience. We've had integration capabilities. We have to assess the specific needs or objectives of the organization, including scaling of deployment, and integration points, before implementation. Then, we need to design the architecture, including server specification networks, configuration, and storage requirements. We also need to consider the environment setup, hardware, projecting, and virtual machines. We need to ensure that network settings, firewalls, and security protocols are configured to allow communication between the components. Once you have all of the requirements laid out, it will only take five to six hours to set up. It does depend on the level of connectivity. If you are connecting remotely, it may take a bit longer. I set it up for three environments: development, testing, and production. One person can set up the solution themselves. If you are doing a NetCool suite of products, it may take two to three resources. You may need to do some maintenance in terms of additional patching or upgrading.
AK
Assistant Manager at SMS group GmbH
Have integrated effective monitoring and seamless alerting with improved visualization capabilities
The most valuable feature of SCOM is its monitoring capability, and we have integrated SCOM with Grafana, which is a dashboarding tool. We have implemented and integrated this to create dashboarding of the SCOM monitoring system for the database, SQL, and the Linux servers we have configured in SCOM. We have created separate dashboarding for it, and the monitoring and creating rules and monitors in the management servers and management packs that SCOM provides are very useful for us. The alerting mechanism of SCOM has benefited our operations because we have modified the thresholds as per our internal requirements. We have configured threshold modifications for the CPU, memory, and especially for disk space. For routine disk space usage on the system, we have provided a separate threshold configuration.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Offers very good event/alert drill-down and statistical reporting capabilities."
"It is an easy-to-use solution."
"The monitoring is the solution's most valuable feature."
"It's good for managed systems. The end query on the user interface is good. You can view lots of charts and graphs."
"The most valuable feature is the event management capability."
"Probes are the best feature because they are well written which rarely requires you to write additional rules. These probes monitor activity within your environment."
"OMNIbus is valuable for its compatibility and performance, as I haven't encountered any performance issues."
"IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus supports legacy protocols like CORBA, Huawei, and other telecom protocols, which I find beneficial."
"This is a product that does more generally than any of the competing solutions."
"It works better than other products I’ve used – namely SolarWinds, which is cumbersome and error prone for web app monitoring. SCOM is not."
"The most valuable feature of SCOM is the capability of using classes within your management pack development."
"It discovers the components automatically, which is a fantastic thing. The discovery works in an automatic way, and it has a dynamic way of discovering the components, assets, and applications. It doesn't require any manual intervention."
"SCOM provides alerting capabilities and threshold settings, which are helpful for monitoring."
"The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location."
"This solution allows us to standardize all of the reports for monitoring the network, so it helps a lot for auditing purposes."
"This solution satisfies all of the requirements that we need for our Windows-based systems, so if you are using the Windows platform then this is an easy solution."
 

Cons

"The solution has limitations in database integration as it cannot integrate with databases other than IBM DB2."
"There should be an easier-to-understand model, more of a flat-structured model rather than different tiers of licenses which complicates licensing."
"Areas that could be better include the fact that the solution is only on-premises, lacks AI capabilities, and support response times could be quicker."
"Its technical support team takes longer to reply."
"The cost of the product is quite high. They should work to adjust their pricing models."
"They could enhance the visibility to give us a unified view of our entire IT infrastructure."
"I would like for the next release to be more user-friendly and out of date. The next release should focus on the cloud, AI, and ML technologies."
"Its integration could be better. They should provide an easier integration for all the monitoring stuff, and it will make things easier for us. Currently, there is a complexity in integrating it with a vendor application, and we have to use another tool to integrate it with a vendor application. To integrate some applications with NetCool, I need to install an IBM tool on top of it. It would be good if they can provide an API or any kind of interface that we can leverage while developing a new protocol interface or application. We should be able to use an API or interface with NetCool. Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI. Whenever we do anything on the GUI, it takes time. They need to focus on the GUI part, especially the dashboard. They should focus on how users can effectively drill down from one box to another. The visual appeal of the dashboard is as important as the data and functionality."
"The solution’s initial setup is difficult."
"Of course, price is always an issue with Microsoft and could be improved."
"The GI is difficult to work with and the reporting servers are also difficult."
"We didn't know the solution enough, and therefore, it took a while to set everything up correctly. There was a learning curve."
"SCOM is likely to be phased out in favor of more compatible tools like Icinga for application monitoring or when moving to cloud solutions like CloudWatch and Azure."
"The end-user components, including the dashboards, the administration console, and the web console, need to be improved."
"Stability and some performance issues exist and they need improvement."
"On-prem network monitoring is something that could be improved drastically."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is a costly solution."
"You have to have the right level of budget to afford this solution."
"Its license cost is a little bit more than other solutions. Our customers expect a standard market price that is comparative to other products. For each and every NetCool OMNIbus component, we have to purchase a separate license. These components are not free with the product."
"The pricing and licensing are fair."
"The platform is cost-effective due to our existing Microsoft support."
"There is a license needed to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"The pricing is good, and it's part of their system center suite."
"Our Enterprise Agreement includes the price."
"It is more expensive than the competition."
"Our licensing fees are approximately $30 per user, per month."
"I don't know the exact cost because it's managed by our sales team, but Microsoft is on the higher side."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
15%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Retailer
5%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise54
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
I would rate the pricing for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus as three, where one is a high price and ten is a low price.
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
Based on my experience and my colleagues' feedback, IBM can improve IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus in automation with respect to using AI, as it lacks considerably compared to other tools. The integrat...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
My current use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is for monitoring the networks.
What do you like most about SCOM?
The tool helps to monitor Windows servers. It offers alerts from a central location.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCOM?
I am not aware of the exact pricing as it is managed by my supervisor. As an academic institution, we receive substantial discounts.
What needs improvement with SCOM?
We believe that the dashboarding in SCOM needs to be improved or enhanced because it is not too expressive in reporting. We can work on deploying new ways of viewing things and modifying visualizat...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
System Center Operations Manager, SCOM 2012
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Consolidated Communications, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Capgemini
Dialog Telekom
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus vs. SCOM and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,310 professionals have used our research since 2012.