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SCSM 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

SCSM
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
10th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (11th)
SolarWinds Service Desk
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
35th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of SCSM is 1.4%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Service Desk is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

LuisSanchez3 - PeerSpot reviewer
Current setup enables smooth problem-solving but lacks comprehensive guidance and local support
More information about setup procedures and a more user-friendly front end would be beneficial. We need more information for setup processes. It is difficult to do the work independently, requiring us to hire external companies for maintenance hours to fix small issues that could be resolved faster in-house if we had better information. We have been looking for an upgrade version, but finding local service has been difficult. It has been challenging trying to get things done. Speaking with the Microsoft office, we found there are no local companies with substantial experience with SCSM. What we have now was installed five or six years ago. It has been difficult to change configurations and look for upgrades, even with all the manuals. Our office is considering moving away from SCSM and getting a service desk solution outside of Microsoft. For me, it has been a good tool to get help and solve internal problems in the office. It is a very good tool, but the difficulty in getting local service or more information is pushing us to look for another tool.
BENDER BENEDICT - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust solution to automate and manage incidents and requests
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. The add-on allowed us to integrate with Jira Cloud Service, but we couldn't integrate completely and can only integrate with the project. I would also suggest that the incident and request management be separated on SolarWinds Service Desk. The solution's incident and request management feature are one of the core reasons why we had to migrate to Jira Service Management. It was difficult to filter incidents and requests. They are all compiled together in a single dashboard, which is not convenient for most of the users, especially the IT support person.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution offers good productivity at a low price point."
"It is a simple solution that is easy to configure."
"The most requested feature from our customers is the helpdesk ticketing system."
"This product has helped our organization by allowing people to connect with each other."
"The solution is quite easy to integrate with other Microsoft products."
"We've been in contact with Microsoft technical support mainly. After doing the research ourselves and troubleshooting, etc., if we can't find a permanent solution, we contact Microsoft to help us fix the issue. Sometimes the issue never gets fixed even by Microsoft. It can sometimes require us to reinstall the solution. However, these are very rare instances."
"The support from Microsoft is good and we also have local support on the ground in Nigeria."
"The reporting is very good."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"We would like to see a web-based interface that works on mobile devices."
"Resources for understanding compliance and relative compliance need to be made available."
"The major issues with SCSM include its severe slowness, especially on the client side, and the lack of comprehensive reporting tools."
"Better integration with other services in Azure is needed because everything is moving from on-premises to the cloud, and as an integrator, we have to help our clients with the migration."
"The solution could be more simple. For example, it takes a lot of work to create reports. It runs on Microsoft SQL queries. Creating custom reports on ManageEngine takes less work from the administrator."
"They might be looking for additional functionalities that SCSM could integrate."
"My company had planned a few months ago to apply SCSM over the cloud in order to provide updates, like regular updates, but it had to be put through a few tools from Microsoft on the cloud, which was not easy."
"It's not too hard to compile stuff but it is hard to manage the solution. Even the design itself makes it difficult for management."
"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

"It is an expensive solution."
"Licensing can be complex and confusing."
"The license for SCSM is cheap."
"I would rate the pricing as two out of five."
"It is a lower price vs. other things on the market."
"The platform is competitively priced."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"It comes free with the enterprise agreement that we have, but the expense really is in having to buy another product to sit on top of it to make it work properly. You wind up having to buy additional support and additional product with their own support and maintenance costs on top of that."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
26%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
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 SCSM?
The solution offers good productivity at a low price point.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SCSM?
We acquired SCSM for free with our Microsoft Endpoint Manager purchase, and we only paid for the integration process.
What needs improvement with SCSM?
From an admin point of view, Intune has more features and is easier to manage compared to SCCM. SCCM is a little complex for the admin point of view. Although some engineers at Microsoft are good, ...
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Also Known As

System Center Service Manager
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Fibabanka, UMC Health System
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC and others in IT Service Management (ITSM). Updated: June 2025.
859,957 professionals have used our research since 2012.