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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)
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of SCSM is 1.7%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Service Desk is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
SCSM1.7%
SolarWinds Service Desk0.5%
Other97.8%
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.
Rajendra Karad - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides superior visibility and efficiency with excellent analytics capabilities
What I appreciate the most about the product is that, as per the name given, it brings better visibility to the client in terms of their infrastructure, application, and performance. SolarWinds Service Desk is a quite matured product now, making it one of the best options on the market. The incident management feature is aligned to the ITIL framework. The asset management feature is also a very thoughtful framework they have implemented. Right from onboarding an asset till scrapping it, the complete lifecycle is cleanly maintained within the system itself. All the approval chains, their logs, and even the contract information have been made very easy for the users to maintain. The knowledge base feature is an out-of-the-box knowledge base, and additionally, we can integrate our own DMS. Machine learning is something that they have been following, and we can integrate an external DMS with that, which helps in searching SOPs and even the global knowledge base over the internet, allowing it to be searched within the same single window itself. Change management in SolarWinds Service Desk is linked with the service catalog, and since it also has a service portal, a self-service portal for users, introducing a service catalog that's integrated with the change management actually completes the flow and makes life easier for IT administrators.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the reporting service. SCSM has a good reporting service and analysis service for analysis requests."
"It is a simple solution that is easy to configure."
"I've used SCSM a lot, and its features are valuable."
"The solution offers good productivity at a low price point."
"We use SCSM to manage all of our IT operations, including incident and service requests and problem management."
"It is quite scalable."
"This product has helped our organization by allowing people to connect with each other."
"SCCM provides remote tool functionality, which is not in Intune."
"The solution is very stable."
 

Cons

"Resources for understanding compliance and relative compliance need to be made available."
"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."
"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."
"Although some engineers at Microsoft are good, the support often lacks expertise, and response times are slow."
"Although some engineers at Microsoft are good, the support often lacks expertise, and response times are slow."
"There is no development with this product, and we had to go and buy additional ITSM solutions to sit on top of it. We had to buy products from companies like Cireson and Cased Dimensions in order to get the functionality that we need out of it. So, we're using Service Manager as an engine, rather than as a full-blown product. It is the engine, but we have other products sitting on top of it to make it work properly."
"Mobile application integration would be an improvement."
"Our office is looking for maybe getting out of SCSM and getting a service desk solution outside of Microsoft."
"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

"I would rate the pricing as two out of five."
"The price of the solution could be better. My organization has an enterprise annual license with Microsoft which provides us support."
"The platform is competitively priced."
"Licensing can be complex and confusing."
"It is an expensive solution."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"It is a lower price vs. other things on the market."
"The license for SCSM is cheap."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
26%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise14
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?
I am not sure about the pricing as I do not have experience with it.
What needs improvement with SCSM?
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...
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Service Desk?
The industry standard practices that this product is already certified for show that there will always be room for improvement since it is a service-led product, so we'll keep on giving feedback wh...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Service Desk?
Instead of Traverse, we are now using SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, as we have replaced Kaseya Traverse with that. I recommend it to my customers. We are now dealing with SolarWinds Servic...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Service Desk?
I think the pricing of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is now comparative and suited to our business model, which is the reason we have moved to that. It has actually helped my customers' tec...
 

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 SCSM vs. SolarWinds Service Desk and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
872,869 professionals have used our research since 2012.