No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs ServiceNow vs SolarWinds Web Help 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is 3.7%, down from 7.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 12.6%, down from 23.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Web Help Desk is 1.1%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow12.6%
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus3.7%
SolarWinds Web Help Desk1.1%
Other82.6%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Mostafiz Miah - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Presales & Technical Lead at Elitbuzz Technologies Ltd
Automation has transformed daily request handling and now tracks every customer interaction
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus helps my team manage and resolve requests compared to previous methods as we previously managed things through paperwork and diaries. After deploying ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whenever any customer request comes, we provide the customer a product demo if they ask about the products. We then convert that request to a lead, which is converted to a demo, and then to the product POC, allowing us to follow up every stage of the requests. Everything can be tracked from ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whether at the closing stage or the initial stage. I use ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus daily in a unique way because previously everyone managed their own tracking system through their diary, but now everyone inputs data into this solution so that at the end of the day, we can get reports on how many leads we have taken care of and when they need to be taken care of. This information is visible from the ServiceDesk tool, and using the dashboard, we can easily identify it, providing an at-a-glance view. The best features ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers for my team include automating manual tasks, which allows whatever tasks we previously did manually to be converted into automatic tasks. Currently, they have also introduced Zia, a very helpful solution for us. Using Zia, we can search for anything, not only inside the tool but also outside, integrating it with ChatGPT and Teams, and it can integrate with other ManageEngine solutions as well as solutions such as Jira and ServiceNow. When we integrate our network monitoring solutions with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, it automatically raises an incident ticket and assigns it to the right team whenever any incident has occurred, which saves us time and reduces manual tasks. Previously, we had to communicate to the right people through mail or phone calls after an incident, but now the incidents are automatically converted and assigned to the relevant support groups along with the SLA. The integration with Teams allows us to raise tickets without logging into the portal, and we can see the ticket status and add comments through Teams, which is very helpful. Additionally, mail integration can automatically convert emails into tickets, adding further efficiency. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has positively impacted our organization, particularly in customer satisfaction. Previously, customers managed service requests, incidents, changes, and problems manually, but after integration, most of these processes are automated. This includes change requests that now follow a workflow based on organizational needs and ITIL best practices, making tracking incidents and requests much easier for end customers through scheduled reports.
MT
Manager of Security Engineering & Architecture at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Seamless data integration and advanced automation improve service delivery efficiency
I think that nothing needs to be improved with the product; you just need the user to commit and spend appropriate time to overcome that learning curve. Once that is done, the product itself is pretty wonderful. I've seen a very nicely built interface with ServiceNow, and I've also seen the ugliest version that feels outdated. ServiceNow does allow that team to exist. They should modernize their fonts and their layout, the UI friendliness. They did introduce AI, chatbots, and AI on the back end, so that's wonderful and extremely useful if you train it. If you don't train it, it's pretty useless. Assessing the impact of ServiceNow's automation on service delivery times is complicated. The engineers who operate on ServiceNow find it isn't straightforward because the data set is accessible by everybody. The problem is that understanding how to manage that data set requires an enormous amount of engineering skill set to run the product. I would not hand the key to the customer; I would highly recommend that ServiceNow take control of that. Instead of offering support for the software, they should offer administrative support for the software. They should provide professional service or some kind of support system that allows us to use their product at a faster pace. I'm sure they offer something, but it's often outrageously expensive, or they rely on another company to resell their product and offer professional service. It makes no sense in my opinion, and they should offer the team at the front to help customize the product to fit each company's needs, as every company has different demands and forms of submitting a request that need adjustment over time.
GANESAN K - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
Has supported daily operational workflows and improved approval management across departments
We actually do the reselling. We created a self-service portal for the customers, and this particular function does impact reducing IT staff workload overall. From technical standpoints, comparing SolarWinds Web Help Desk with TeamViewer, we need ease of configuration and ease of allocating, creating new fields or creating new layouts for many specific use cases. An organization can have a number of use cases when it comes to a ticketing tool. It's not a security solution; it's more of a service solution where you will be configuring the needed categories and needed fields for each department. On a scale of 1-10, I rate SolarWinds Web Help Desk an 8.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The edge we get from using ManageEngine is the price and scalability."
"Our experience with the product is as follows: Initial deployment and additional customization with logical application: Reliable."
"Even though I haven't been able to test other products and I've used a very old version of ManageEngine, I still think it met our requirements and that it has everything that we need to work as an IT department."
"Give them the chance to implement a demo and put in a short practice and you will see how easy and effective the solution is."
"The ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus SaaS model helped us because it was easy on our pockets but also easy to use, configure, and manage."
"I am enjoying the report features, they are quite good."
"The product is extremely user-friendly. It is easy to build the workflows and electronic forms."
"It offers robust project management capabilities. You can create projects, define staging environments, and set rules and regulations according to organizational standards."
"The most valuable feature by far of ServiceNow is the rapid development, how quickly you can actually go out and change things, adapt things, ready to fulfill the business needs."
"It is robust and very user-friendly."
"I find it to be very stable."
"It's serving our end-user community, making it simple for them to order products, get service from our incident help desk, and perhaps even helping everyone across the globe because we have to stay connected somehow, and ServiceNow does that for us."
"The feature that I have found most valuable from ServiceNow is the ability to assign sub-tasks to different teams, including problem tickets and the regular and chain tasks."
"I find almost all the features valuable. It can do nearly everything except make your coffee, as my colleagues always say. It's got pros and cons, like every software, but the good thing about it is that it has a very structured approach."
"Identifies better ways to license software or eliminate unused software to save money."
"ServiceNow is great. You can download the data into Excel and you can basically create reports. It's very flexible."
"Once installed, it runs like a charm and doesn't ever crash."
"SolarWinds supports case and incident reporting. This includes logging incidents and tracking them efficiently. Additionally, it is compatible and approved by the ITIL foundation and standards, meeting world-class standards."
"SolarWinds is scalable as far as adding devices and servers."
"It has a pretty good search function, and if you do the advanced search, you can basically search for anything in any field."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the assets management module."
"A person who is not in IT, but has some good ITSM knowledge will be able to configure it directly on SolarWinds, and Manage Engine."
"It is easy to use."
"SolarWinds is a very good application that provides you with a detailed monitoring capability of your network and assets."
 

Cons

"The solution needs to integrate with the telecom system in more depth. Currently, the feature is limited to the SMS level for notifications."
"I'd like to understand more technical features due to the fact that I want to teach globally. I understand all the questions in the search engine. I want to find more technical information about the product."
"The solution, overall, is expensive."
"The documentation could be improved."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus could improve by making asset management better. The professional version has asset management but it should be available in the free version, it would help my organization."
"I would like to see a clearer distinction between ManageEngine Cloud, ServiceDesk Plus, and ManageEngine Enterprise. That way, choosing the best one is better informed. Initially, I struggled to understand the difference, but I figured it out later."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus moves changes to the production directly. We need a local touch in support."
"They need to be more reactive. They play around the bush to get some time to provide you a proper solution."
"Currently, we are finding it a bit difficult to monitor the subscriptions that are being used. The reporting feature related to this can be improved."
"If you have a lot of users, a lot of developers on a single platform, probably not everybody knows what the other ones do and you have, of course, different quality and experience of the developers."
"When it comes to reference fields, there are some limitations where you aren't able to use them, like in relationship queries. In Remedy, when you click a menu, you get options directly, whereas here, if you use a reference field, it points you to a different form. So the UI experience totally changes for the end user."
"It became kind of complex to set it up without a general lack of knowledge of the particular feature-function capabilities. Features and capabilities could have been explained better to the end-users."
"The scalability needs improvement."
"The interface can be a bit more intuitive."
"To make ServiceNow better, they should reduce their pricing, especially because there's a lot of competition. Many customers have moved to ManageEngine because they cannot afford the license cost."
"The product’s standard user experience is not the best."
"The interface feels clunky to me compared to some other systems that I've used. I used ManageEngine Service Desk prior to this at my previous job and that had stuff like categories that we use that I don't see in SolarWinds."
"The program seems buggy to me. Not infrequently, when I click to add a Note, the Notes section disappears instead of opening a box to add a Note."
"This is a good solution, but the GUI is really old-fashion and needs to be updated."
"Dashboards need some amount of work to be done. Ease of customization is desired."
"A little outdated compared to newer products that include protection and detection."
"It would be good if there were training and tutorial videos on the Web Help Desk."
"This solution needs to have mobile application support added."
"However, it's a little outdated compared to newer products that include protection and detection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is much cheaper than many of its competitors. We pay about nine dollars per agent and one dollar per device. There are no hidden costs."
"The only issue for us is the pricing, which is quite high in comparison with the competition."
"It is above average. But it is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The licensing is around $10,000 per year."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"As compared to a lot of systems out there, it is more affordable."
"We use the cloud model, which is subscription-based, and each year, the subscription fees seem to go up, making it a more expensive solution."
"It is cheaper than the competitors."
"The license model is based on a number of fulfillers (active users who play some role within the ServiceNow functionality). Therefore, you can serve as many end-users as you want, without additional costs."
"The solution is expensive."
"The first impact for the customer is that it is expensive, but do not forget that it is a solution that includes infrastructure; a single cost, easy to justify."
"ServiceNow tends to be a little bit more expensive as compared to BMC Helix ITSM."
"Some time ago it was expensive, but large companies have special contracts. It's enterprise prices, and we're talking about millions per year."
"The pricing is reasonable and affordable, making it suitable for businesses ranging from small to large scale."
"It is fairly expensive."
"The pricing is on the high side, but if you look at the stability and option to work, it's kind of justified."
"They charge by the technician. It costs $117 per technician per year."
"When you compare with ManageEngine and ServiceNow, SolarWinds is reasonable."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Help Desk Software solutions are best for your needs.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Retailer
11%
Construction Company
11%
University
10%
Performing Arts
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise19
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise168
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
The platform's most beneficial features are incident management, change management, request management, and asset man...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
Regarding pricing, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers three editions: Standard edition, Professional, and Enterpris...
What needs improvement with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
Currently, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a mature solution, and I do not think major improvements are needed, as i...
Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into t...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
Areas of improvement can be enhanced regarding configuration. We had the deployment metrics and usability, ease of us...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
For Zoho, we did OP Manager, Audit Security, AD Security and Asset Management, Patch Management. These things we are ...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
We actually do the reselling. We created a self-service portal for the customers, and this particular function does i...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Tranter IT Infrastructure Services Limited, Sterlite Technologies, averda, Radiology Associates
AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow    
Instacart
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: March 2026.
885,444 professionals have used our research since 2012.