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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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
217
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.
Somnath Kand - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom integration and reporting lead to efficient ticket management
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow. Although there are child incidents or tickets, tracking primary issues or bugs within enhancements is not present. The reporting features in the new portal could be more user-friendly. While it provides options to minimize chart and image sizes, actual implementation doesn't always reflect these changes.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's mostly so reliable and has a lot of functionality. We're using a lot of HPE tools and we can do a lot with it. So, its functionality is the most valuable feature."
"The design has been revamped in terms of GUI. The current interface is quite easy to read."
"It gives us better understanding and control of service management."
"Service Manager gives us a single system where everything is centralized in one base."
"The solution is simple to set up."
"We can have all our requests and incidents registered in one system."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Technical support is pretty good."
"It's great for keeping everyone informed in the company - not just IT. Everyone becomes aware of change requests and incidents so the entire company is on the same page."
"You can have it installed and up and running within hours if you know what you're doing. Time to market would be one of the main things to consider."
"Change management is most valuable."
"If you stick to the out-of-the-box solution, it's an easy setup."
"The solution's initial setup process is easy."
"This solution is a single-storage for our user community to submit help desk tickets."
"We can keep track of incidences. There is a bucket where we keep all our information, and it enables communication between stakeholders. It helps us collaborate with each other."
"The look and feel is a valuable benefit for adoption."
 

Cons

"Service Manager would be improved with access to automation."
"Their end-user interface and technical support features could be improved."
"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."
"It needs good integration with the configuration database, that's lacking at the moment, It's not that good."
"The user interface is very clunky. It's only now beginning to be a web-based interface, but for now it's still very clunky."
"It needs to be easier to use for the end users because one problem we had was that we are handling different kinds of cases."
"Customization can be difficult at times because scripting is often required."
"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."
"They could improve license management, particularly when integrating different applications or toolsets."
"The contract module is quite rudimentary and doesn't support contract line items."
"We don't have a huge amount of password reset requests, but the minimum package of resets that ServiceNow offers is much more than we need."
"I would like to see Advanced Intelligent Automation."
"We can't update bulk tickets using a simple query language. Jira lets us update hundreds of tickets with one command. In ServiceNow, you need to select each task separately to close them. The dashboards could also be more user-friendly. Monday.com has better dashboards."
"The major area for improvement for our needs would be monitoring the metrics of the times to acknowledge and resolve issues and escalations."
"There are a few things that it needs to improve, like automation of most things out-of-the-box. For example, when it comes to cloud management, we are still going with manual intervention. Instead of that, if we had an out-of-the-box feature available, that would be great."
"I have a problem with the way the solution's price is calculated."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"HP Service Manager has moderate pricing."
"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."
"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."
"The license is not cheap."
"The price is okay for us. It's reasonable."
"The platform offers a free trial, by providing a free developer instance once you sign up."
"I know that it's not too bad because people continue to use it and they are happy to renew up their contract."
"It is fairly expensive."
"ServiceNow is an expensive solution."
"The licenses are expensive."
"The pricing is reasonable and affordable, making it suitable for businesses ranging from small to large scale."
"The solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
25%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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.
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

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, ManageEngine and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.