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IFS Cloud Platform vs SolarWinds Service Desk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IFS Cloud Platform
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
CRM (20th), Customer Experience Management (8th), Field Service Management (1st), Help Desk Software (12th), ERP (12th), Activity Based Costing Software (6th), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (2nd), Local Government CRM (8th), IT Asset Management (10th), License Management (2nd)
SolarWinds Service Desk
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
36th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of IFS Cloud Platform is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Service Desk is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Brendan Fisher - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust, customizable, and modern
IFS is a very large and complex software, and implementation of IFS can be challenging and may lead to a difficult lengthy project. It can take between 12 and 24 months in some cases to deploy. I have found that not all clients are fully aware of how big the task is that they're undertaking when they make a decision to move to software like this. Companies need to be more aware of the complexity of an ERP implementation project and while I fully recommend moving to IFS, it is not easy and does require business change when adopting an ERP solution. New features are a difficult ask - I work across multiple industries and everyone would probably choose a different feature. Maybe BIM in Construction or Customs link-ups for importers/exporters.
Rajendra Karad - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides superior visibility and efficiency with excellent analytics capabilities
What I appreciate the most about the product is that, as per the name given, it brings better visibility to the client in terms of their infrastructure, application, and performance. SolarWinds Service Desk is a quite matured product now, making it one of the best options on the market. The incident management feature is aligned to the ITIL framework. The asset management feature is also a very thoughtful framework they have implemented. Right from onboarding an asset till scrapping it, the complete lifecycle is cleanly maintained within the system itself. All the approval chains, their logs, and even the contract information have been made very easy for the users to maintain. The knowledge base feature is an out-of-the-box knowledge base, and additionally, we can integrate our own DMS. Machine learning is something that they have been following, and we can integrate an external DMS with that, which helps in searching SOPs and even the global knowledge base over the internet, allowing it to be searched within the same single window itself. Change management in SolarWinds Service Desk is linked with the service catalog, and since it also has a service portal, a self-service portal for users, introducing a service catalog that's integrated with the change management actually completes the flow and makes life easier for IT administrators.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The financial posting controls are quite handy. The user interface is really friendly, highly flexible, and pretty intuitive for end users."
"The solution overall is very versatile and flexible, especially compared to other products."
"The workflow of the solution is very good."
"IFS Applications' best feature is the user-friendly interface that has a .NET Framework application in the front end and an Oracle database and WebLogic middleware."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten since it is an extremely scalable solution that can be used for various use cases with thousands of users."
"The most valuable feature is the distribution module."
"I like the connectivity and interfaces. In V10, it's easy to modify the interfaces and layouts, but it's becoming more complicated in the cloud. IFS is excellent at asset maintenance and incident management. They have specialized modules for IFS that cover incident and asset management and everything else connected to finance. The reporting in IFS is also easy to use."
"IFS has been completely rebuilt, modernized, and cloud-based so we don't need bulky software installations."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"Sometimes from the sales perspective, clients don't always fully understand how large a task or a project they're getting involved in when they decide, "We're going to switch across to IFS." They could probably do a little bit more, maybe around preparing people for these projects."
"The CRM was shaky and although this improves in Apps 10, there is room for improvement."
"I have seen that one of the areas that my company has identified for improvement might be the rental management capabilities within the solution."
"IFS Applications is not robust enough to handle high-volume transactions, so it's not suitable for larger enterprises."
"It would be ideal if, in the future, the product could incorporate IoT and blockchain elements. We'd like to explore more of these types of features going forward."
"There should be some improvements in the predefined templates in IFS Applications."
"IFS Applications can improve the reporting capabilities and increase the speed of feedback time in the IFS Applications. This would help with the overall performance of the solution and provide better experiences for customers."
"Technical support could be improved."
"The integration with other applications can use improvement because, for example, it was nearly impossible to integrate SolarWinds Service Desk with monday.com because we had to get an add-on from Zapier."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I consider it to be a well-priced solution compared to other mid-range or high-end ERP solutions."
"IFS Applications are competitive in terms of pricing compared to other vendors, such as SAP, Oracle, and Epicor. They are generally cheaper, especially for licensing costs."
"It is better to buy implementation services from IFS than from partners"
"IFS Applications is expensive software, but it's on par with SAP and Oracle. It's for large enterprises and government entities and not for small and medium-sized enterprises. They have one licensing model, but if you want to have a module-specific license, they provide component-based licenses. Unlike SAP and Oracle, it doesn't have different levels of licensing. It's one level of licensing."
"Licensing is on an annual basis, with no additional costs."
"Ask for all-inclusive pricing, as they are pretty flexible if you ask for custom models."
"The pricing of the solution may appear to be expensive for smaller companies with only tens of users; however, for larger and mid-size industrial companies, IFS is able to win deals and the pricing is competitive in the market."
"There's an additional yearly cost for support."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IFS Applications?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten since it is an extremely scalable solution that can be used for various use cases with thousands of users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IFS Applications?
The product is reasonably priced. The costs are justified by the value provided, considering the comprehensive features and minimal need for customization. I rate the pricing a seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with IFS Applications?
I am not able to recall much about batch. Documentation-wise, they need more. There is not much available online, and the documentation availability is on the lower side compared to other products,...
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Also Known As

IFS Applications, Assyst, IFS Cloud
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

China Airlines, Electrolux Group, Babcock, Cimcorp, Sky, Multiplex, Veolia. 
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IFS Cloud Platform vs. SolarWinds Service Desk and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.