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OpenText Service Manager [EOL] vs ServiceNow 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

OpenText Service Manager [EOL]
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
48
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
224
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (1st), IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

MEKKAB Raouf - PeerSpot reviewer
Excellent pricing with great change management and service management capabilities
We started with version 9.3, and now we're on 9.6 with the full solution, including the CMS. They have lots of options. They propose a full solution for technology and IT service management. We are a telecom company. We are a leader in the market, and therefore, we need to have all details about our own environment and assets. So far, Micro Focus answers all our needs. I'd advise new users to go directly to the SMAX solution, the last, last version of Service Manager. If they are a technical company or information technology company with engineers and developers, they can use it on-premise. If they don't have such competence in the company, they can ask for the solution on the cloud. It is easily available on Microsoft, Amazon, or Google clouds. I'd rate the product nine out of ten.
Anil  Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Have reduced L1 dependency and improved incident resolution through AI-powered automation
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 price should be reduced by at least 40%. The setup of ServiceNow is sometimes complex when new updates or versions are released. When they introduce something new, they should provide training to understand the new features and their functionality. We sometimes get stuck and have to call them to learn about the changes in the latest version. They should communicate the changes made from older versions to new versions, which features are not available, which features have changed, and how to implement them. If the communication part was handled properly, it would benefit us.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is easy."
"The workflow engine that standardizes and globalizes the process steps. It drives people through the process by standardization and automation."
"Service Manager's best features are flexibility and customizability."
"Service Manager gives us a single system where everything is centralized in one base."
"A valuable feature for us is that we have an ordered way to handle all the cases that we can handle with the infrastructure."
"It gives us better understanding and control of service management."
"It can adapt to any process in the organization."
"Technical support is pretty good."
"What I like the most is the functionality, it's features are rich, and there is a high degree of compliance with IT standards."
"I think the technical support is pretty good. They can be a little bit slow sometimes, but overall I think they're good."
"The thing that I like most about it is the easy integration with the CMDB. I'm able to look at the CMDB for applications and develop my assessments and attestations based on the application and point them at that application owner. So, I can really automate the whole thing."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the possibility of the application development cap so that we can digitize workflows."
"Everything about the schema, including the design of ServiceNow, is great."
"I like the ease of use."
"I recommend ServiceNow due to its stability and good security."
"Straightforward tool."
 

Cons

"Service Manager is at the end of its life. The architecture, performance, and look are all way behind."
"Pure cloud-based native functionality is lacking."
"With the new version moving toward the codeless configuration is good, but it's losing flexibility."
"It, still, has a bit of more of improvement possibilities in the codeless part. But, I can see that they are working on it, so that's quite good as well."
"There's a lot of manual work, which is error prone and time consuming, in how the code gets transported from one system to the other."
"I think the best recommendation to Micro Focus would be to increase awareness and the marketing for this product."
"We aren't able to take emails that come in and turn them into tickets, especially when it comes to attachments. When an email has an attachment, like a screenshot, it is a very cumbersome process, and it does not work very well. I shouldn't have been paying technicians to cut and paste attachments from an email into the ticketing system. It should do that automatically. Other solutions are able to do that. This is something that needs to be improved. Test manager and knowledge management areas are probably amongst the worst parts of this solution. We try to use this solution for knowledge management, but it is not user-friendly. Therefore, it has limited ROI as you need to spend time to try and fully capitalize on the knowledge management system."
"The greatest issue for us is to understand the roadmap. We want to know whether we should upgrade now or should we wait three months."
"Direct support from ServiceNow is not very good. Most of the support comes from partners, and customers heavily rely on them."
"The high price is a huge barrier in Portugal."
"I would like to see more functionality in terms of custom workflows, not impacting the overall platform health."
"There are Virtual Task Boards in the tool in the latest releases. There are many of them in the Scaled Agile Framework. There is some room there for improvement. It's really quite promising but, at the same time, it could be improved and I believe it will be improved soon."
"Vulnerability management could be improved. Also, integration with tools such as Microsoft Defender ATP needs improvement."
"It's not very secure, it's web-based, and I prefer Remedy. Both the security and the web interface could be improved."
"The solution’s user interface could be improved and given a better design."
"The product’s standard user experience is not the best."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would say that identify your requirements and pay for the support to implement and test those requirements, and then hope that you did a good job because the cost of their service is fairly expensive."
"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."
"The license is not cheap."
"I pay for Service Manager on a yearly basis, and the price is reasonable - I would rate it five out of ten."
"Micro Focus Service Manager is a little cheaper than other options. You have to pay a monthly subscription fee."
"It is an expensive platform."
"The solution is expensive."
"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 price of the solution is comparable to industry standards. For the features that we received, it is reasonable."
"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."
"It has a higher cost compared to local/regional solutions."
"It is fairly expensive."
"The price is okay for us. It's reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Performing Arts
12%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise164
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Micro Focus Service Manager?
The product's technical support services need improvement.
What is your primary use case for Micro Focus Service Manager?
We use the product for infrastructure, profile, and incident management.
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 that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
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 ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Service Manager, HPE ITSM, HPE Service Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

resultspositive, Globicon
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    
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC Helix and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: October 2025.
872,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.