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OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB vs ServiceNow CMDB 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 Universal Discover...
Ranking in Configuration Management Databases
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow CMDB
Ranking in Configuration Management Databases
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Configuration Management Databases category, the mindshare of OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB is 8.6%, down from 11.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow CMDB is 22.8%, down from 35.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Configuration Management Databases Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow CMDB22.8%
OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB8.6%
Other68.6%
Configuration Management Databases
 

Featured Reviews

Prajwal Kewat - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Engineer at Hitachi Systems, Ltd.
The UCMDB Tool is easy to manage IT assets and is auto-discovery features; But for ease of use the tool proper it needs to be documented in detailed fashion.
Based on my experience with the UCMDB tool, I have faced challenges while discovering servers (nodes). We need to define the IP list for discovery in RTSM and run jobs. However, over time, whenever new assets are added, we must manually add the new IPs in RTSM and run the jobs again. From the agent's perspective, we need to provide the Data Flow Probe IP. This can be done in one of two ways: we install the agent at the server (node) level, define the IP of the Data Flow Probe, and then our Data Flow Probe will capture the data from the agent and send it back to UCMDB. This method allows us to eliminate the step of manually adding the IPs in RTSM. In a dynamic production environment where changes are continuous, we need to stay updated on new servers (nodes). Ideally, the auto-discovery feature should automatically detect the new CIs (nodes/servers) in the environment and notify the IT personnel. This process could be achieved without the need for agents, or with a one-time agent setup.
reviewer2782440 - PeerSpot reviewer
ServiceNow Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Automation features and integrated service mapping have streamlined incident and change management processes
There is probably room for improvement in ServiceNow CMDB. I'm so immersed in projects and solving direct customer issues that I don't think too much about potential improvements. Maintaining an accurate and up-to-date ServiceNow CMDB can be challenging due to incoming data from various sources, but ServiceNow has been developing small AI components to help with data discrepancies and deduplication recently. They have also improved integrations with other tools, providing many out-of-the-box integrations to different monitoring tools and CMDBs, which previously required coding experience for custom integrations. They are moving towards a more low-code or no-code approach, which is part of their goal as a company.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Large telcos with a history of mergers and acquisitions will benefit from this technology by discovering exactly which components are located where in their data centers, how they're connected and what their status is, facilitating consolidation and transformation of data center infrastructures as well as reducing mean time to resolution in case of incidents."
"It can discover various pieces from hardware, software, custom applications, and tie them together to create a map using ASM."
"It's a governance oriented tool with a very good data model."
"It can discover almost everything and creates relationship among discovered CIs, along with creating topology modeling."
"UCMDB is one of best discovery softwares available in the market; it can discover almost everything and creates relationship among discovered CIs, along with creating topology modeling."
"The product is easy to set up."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the discovery."
"This product discovers, maps and reports information about our configuration on a daily basis and is capable of being our source of truth for audit purposes."
"Almost all customers have reduced their response time, which is the most important benefit, and we have brought tasks that previously took more than 30 minutes or one hour of execution down to a few minutes."
"ServiceNow excels in integration and is considered the best tool in the market for this purpose."
"ServiceNow CMDB is just something that you could track everything on."
"It has improved our organization by bringing about quite a bit of automation so that we don't have to manually take inventory, and we can also quickly filter a query along different avenues to find out how many models we have in place."
"Portfolio management is very useful for us."
"Their support is very good and strong."
"ServiceNow CMDB is fully integrated and complete. ServiceNow has modules for everything an IT service company needs, and it's flexible."
"It has provided the ROI."
 

Cons

"You are lucky to get over the first level, then you are happy with the support."
"Improve the GUI and documentation."
"Mobile/iPad Apps version of the UCMDB Browser would be a step ahead, which should have features, like viewing CI information, ownership, etc."
"The implementation could be simplified."
"Improve the GUI and documentation."
"Making it simpler to set up and understand would be a big improvement."
"The implementation could be simplified. It is very complex and should be for a mature organization."
"When we work in an environment, the production environment continuously changes and at that time we should have knowledge about the new server (node). However, the auto-discovery part should automatically discover the new CI (node/servers) in an environment and inform the IT person."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"Pricing is all over the place. That is one of the comments I can make regarding pricing."
"When running large queries within the system, it does have a tendency to bog down the system. This is something that should be improved. I would also like to see the HAM Pro module beefed up a little bit and integrated better into the SAM Pro module, which seems to be pretty much on the roadmap. Its pricing is pretty complicated and always fluctuating. Its pricing should be improved."
"While ServiceNow CMDB is flexible and comprehensive, it's also difficult to implement and requires a lot of customization. In order to fully leverage ServiceNow CMDB, you need ServiceNow Discovery and some other ServiceNow solutions. It's expensive to purchase all of these. We're negotiating with ServiceNow, but we're thinking about replacing it with another CMDB solution."
"In general, the pain points are related to ServiceNow. There is a lack of development. ServiceNow is not a true configuration management tool."
"I would like to see them partner with some key scanning technology companies to give them a real end-to-end offering."
"There are areas that could be improved, but that's a longer discussion. It all depends on what you are looking to do with it and then it becomes an issue of how do you configure the CMDB accordingly."
"Because I'm an SME, the most important thing is the technical help that I can get, so better, more useful technical support would be good."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is competitive."
"Compared with other solutions, I would say that it's more expensive especially since we have an on-premise version and an older implementation."
"The market sees ServiceNow as the Ferrari in terms of pricing. It's at the very top, and its cost is very, very high."
"The product price falls on the higher side of the spectrum."
"In comparison to the cost of other solutions, you get value for your money with ServiceNow CMDB. It could definitely be cheaper though."
"It is always fluctuating. It seems to change every six months. Every time they come out with a new iteration, it changes. It is pretty complicated, and they should improve it."
"The product is pricey."
"It is really expensive. I don't know actually how much it costs, but in 2016, when a client decided to move from an old solution to ServiceNow and had to choose a supplier for ServiceNow, I had heard that it could cost $10 per hour, which is really expensive. I am not aware of any additional fees to the standard licensing fees. There is no standard ServiceNow solution. When a company wants to acquire ServiceNow, they already know which module they will choose. In a basic package, you would have Service Catalog, Incident Management, and Change Management. These modules are usually required in an IT company."
"I would like it to be cheaper. If you've got a large environment, it can get quite expensive quite quickly. You still get a return on investment, but everybody has a tight budget. In terms of licensing, everything is pretty much known upfront. Being SaaS-based, there are no real additional gotchas that we came across."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise23
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with ServiceNow CMDB?
I believe that related to the solutions in the Now Assist platform, we can put more autonomy on that. Some reconciliation can be automated. AI Assist is the current improvement now. I don't have an...
What is your primary use case for ServiceNow CMDB?
I primarily work with ITSM, HR, SPM, AI, Now Assist, CMDB, and CSDM modules, covering almost all of these areas. I use the integration with ServiceNow CMDB with all the processes that we have imple...
What advice do you have for others considering ServiceNow CMDB?
I help customers evaluate their CMDB health. We use the CMDB health to make that analysis, to see the relationships, what is missing with the processes they have, and any mis-ownership issues. So, ...
 

Also Known As

Micro Focus Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB, Micro Focus Universal CMDB, UCMDB, HPE Universal CMDB
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

China Merchants Bank, NNIT, Alfa-Bank, Sprint
Wayfair, Siemens, Allianz, Experian, Vitas Healthcare
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB vs. ServiceNow CMDB and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,668 professionals have used our research since 2012.