ServiceNow Discovery vs Zenoss Cloud comparison

ServiceNow and Zenoss are both solutions in the Server Monitoring category. ServiceNow is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.1, while Zenoss is ranked #26. ServiceNow holds a 3.8% mindshare in SM, compared to Zenoss’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zenoss users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow Discovery

Read 42 ServiceNow Discovery reviews

3,827 Views
2,258 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

Zenoss Cloud

Read 8 Zenoss Cloud reviews

1,336 Views
361 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

ServiceNow Discovery

Zenoss Cloud

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

Zenoss Cloud and ServiceNow Discovery are two leading IT operations management solutions. Zenoss Cloud holds the upper hand in ease of deployment and customer support, while ServiceNow Discovery excels in features and overall user satisfaction.

Features: Users value Zenoss Cloud's real-time alerting, extensive monitoring capabilities, and ease of deployment. ServiceNow Discovery is praised for its comprehensive asset discovery, integration with IT Service Management, and robust feature set, making it preferable for users needing in-depth asset management.

Room for Improvement: Zenoss Cloud could improve its scalability, integrations, and feature breadth. ServiceNow Discovery needs enhancements in dashboard customization, speed, and system complexity. Both products exhibit areas for growth, but Zenoss Cloud’s improvements are focused on expanding integration capabilities, whereas ServiceNow Discovery should enhance user experience facets.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zenoss Cloud users report quick deployment times and responsive customer service. ServiceNow Discovery’s deployment is considered more complex and time-consuming, though its customer service is well-rated but not as prompt as Zenoss Cloud’s.

Pricing and ROI: Zenoss Cloud is highlighted for its reasonable setup costs and good ROI. ServiceNow Discovery, though more expensive, offers extensive features and higher ROI as perceived by users. Zenoss Cloud is framed as more cost-effective but ServiceNow Discovery provides higher long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow Discovery vs. Zenoss Cloud Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery vs. Zenoss Cloud

July 2025

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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

ServiceNow Discovery

Ranking in Server Monitoring

2nd

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (4th), Cloud Resource Discovery Services (1st)

Zenoss Cloud

Ranking in Server Monitoring

26th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Infrastructure (31st), Event Monitoring (14th), Network Monitoring Software (77th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (53rd), Container Monitoring (10th), Cloud Monitoring Software (39th), AIOps (25th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Server Monitoring category, the mindshare of ServiceNow Discovery is 3.8%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zenoss Cloud is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Server Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Ayobanji Iluyomade

IT Service Performance Manager at MTN

Service helps organizations with network discovery and IT infrastructure management but troubleshooting challenges remain

ServiceNow Discovery was adopted by my organization. We use ServiceNow Discovery for discovery and ITSM The most beneficial features of ServiceNow Discovery for maintaining my IT infrastructure are the CMDB top and discovery of network switches. The areas of ServiceNow Discovery that have room…

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ClaudiaChen

Cloud Architect - Senior Technology Architect at Telstra

Generates close to real-time alerts so users can resolve issues, but needs more integration and public cloud monitoring features

As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I find that the Discovery and scripting features are the most useful."

"Discovery enables us to get an accurate inventory that's updated daily. It eliminates human error and the need for people to update configuration changes manually. We have not implemented them yet but plan to set up alerts on CIs that are being audited to see if there are any changes."

"The most valuable feature is its integration with CMDB, as it collects all the data."

"They provide the ability to see into the Discovery tools I want. They offer the best tool view."

"The workflows are beneficial as they allow tasks to be assigned to respective teams without the need for coding."

"It's pretty robust, and it's agentless for the most part. So, you don't need to deploy agents, which makes it a lot easier to stand up."

"The biggest advantage of ServiceNow is the value that it brings."

"I like ServiceNow Discovery's overall structure and the way data comes in without creating a different dashboard or interface."

More ServiceNow Discovery pros

"The custom built integration is one of the most valuable features because you can see all the especially critical items."

"It's easy to use."

"The most valuable feature is the flexible discovery mechanism."

"Its Docker Container concept is mind blowing. It is the first monitoring tool which comes with Docker features."

"The product offers good documentation that helps with initial training."

"They have also accommodated many state-of-the-art technologies like Docker and ZooKeeper."

"What I like most about Zenoss Service Dynamics is that it monitors the devices and gives close to real-time alerts. For example, in case the device is not available, Zenoss Service Dynamics generates an alert so my team can resolve the issue."

Cons

"The manual pattern-matching process is not only time-consuming but also presents challenges during system upgrades, demanding revisits to ensure compatibility."

"Instead of AI, even GenAI should be introduced in ServiceNow Discovery."

"The solution needs to improve the cost of the solution. There are a few different solutions and they do act the same and have the same types of capabilities, however, the cost is quite high."

"In my opinion, it's quite slow compared to other tools, like Device42. Also, there are predefined fields in Device42 that are not available in ServiceNow. These are the basic things I think can be improved here."

"Its integration with legacy apps is one area for improvement. ServiceNow Discovery offers out-of-the-box reports, and though that's okay, allowing easier report customization would improve the solution."

"Technical support has not been helpful when we have come across problems."

"On the Software Asset Management part of it, I expect additional reconciliation and Discovery features there."

"In future releases, I would like to see more AI-oriented enhancements in the solution. It would automate most of the things that we have to do manually write the scripts and go on the teleservice, what to do. So if we have something in place and if we can train the module, then AI would be a good thing."

More ServiceNow Discovery cons

"It would be ideal if the product offered sound alerts."

"There was a problem with Zenoss and storage monitoring."

"As Zenoss Service Dynamics is more for network-centric devices and you want to monitor, for example, a server, its services, IP addresses, and interfaces, if it's a network and you're going to monitor multiple items, you'll be charged multiple times. This is what Zenoss Service Dynamics needs to improve to make sure that customers pay just one fee to monitor the entire server. What I'd like to see in Zenoss Service Dynamics in the future is a public cloud monitoring feature, particularly for the Azure public cloud. Another additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution is integration with the Azure public cloud because I know that there are some services from Azure that Zenoss Service Dynamics is currently unable to monitor."

"There is room for improvement with the administrative part. They introduced Control Center to manage things in Zenoss 5. The services that Zenoss provides remained the same, but the administrative part, since they introduced Docker, etc., has become a little complex"

"Now it is stable, but they should design threshold parameters in percentage instead of raw values."

"The AI aspect needs to improve."

"The inclusion of a feature to show a graphical view of the network would be a helpful improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product is not cheap."

"The pricing is determined based on the CIs."

"It costs a lot. It is probably close to over a hundred thousand. It's an expensive platform, but you can't compare ServiceNow's Discovery functionality to other discovery tools. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison of ServiceNow to a configuration management tool to an asset management tool because it does those things, but it's not those things."

"ServiceNow Discovery has very broad pricing, so it becomes costly. It would be better if it had a pay-as-you-use licensing model because the total cost of ownership is quite high."

"ServiceNow Discovery's licensing is not a very small investment, but it definitely pays off."

"Setting up and licensing for ServiceNow can be expensive, especially for enterprise service management."

"You need a subscription to ServiceNow Discovery, so you can use its features. You can also use specific plugins with the tool, and some of the plugins are free. I don't have information on how much my company pays for the subscription to ServiceNow Discovery."

"It's a bit expensive compared to other products in the market, but it's worth the money you pay because it's far advanced in terms of features, automation, and capabilities compared to other products."

More ServiceNow Discovery pricing and cost advice

"It depends on the customer, what he wants."

"It is very cost-effective compared to the tools I worked with in the past. The company is gaining a lot with respect to the cost factor. It provides agentless monitoring and in a very cheap way."

"The pricing depends on the environment, the number of services, and the size of the data center. It can go from $100,000 to a million dollars."

"There are additional costs you'll have to pay apart from the license fee for Zenoss Service Dynamics. I can't remember exactly how much my company is paying because I don't handle the finance part, but the cost is paid annually. On a scale of one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, I'm rating the solution three out of five."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Healthcare Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ServiceNow Discovery?

The solution can prioritize the discovery of IP ranges. The product automatically places all Discovery CIs into the correct class within the CMDB.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow Discovery?

I think the price of ServiceNow Discovery is cheaper than BMC.

See all answers

What needs improvement with ServiceNow Discovery?

The areas of ServiceNow Discovery that have room for improvement are getting custom reports on the relationship between CIs that are not on the same table.

See all answers

What is the best network monitoring software for large enterprises?

In my experience, I worked with many monitoring software, but the one that gave me the most functionalities of a large-scale company is Zenoss, due to its ability to monitor completely hybrid and a...

See all answers

Comparisons

Tanium vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 25% of the time

Lansweeper vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 19% of the time

Flexera One vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 7% of the time

BMC Helix Discovery vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Configuration Manager vs ServiceNow Discovery

Compared 6% of the time

More ServiceNow Discovery Competitors

Zabbix vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 26% of the time

Nagios XI vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 24% of the time

Nagios Core vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 10% of the time

SolarWinds AppOptics vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 9% of the time

Centreon vs Zenoss Cloud

Compared 7% of the time

More Zenoss Cloud Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery

July 2025

Download ServiceNow Discovery product report

Buyer's Guide

Zenoss Cloud

July 2025

Download Zenoss Cloud product report

Also Known As

No data available

Cloud Monitoring, Zenoss Service Dynamics

Overview

ServiceNow Discovery finds applications and devices on your network, and then updates the CMDB with the information it finds. Discovery is available as a separate subscription from the rest of the Now Platform.

ServiceNow

Zenoss Cloud revolutionizes IT infrastructure monitoring with a service-centric approach, prioritizing the overall health of services and applications. Harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AIOps), Zenoss Cloud offers end-to-end visibility across servers, networks, storage, and applications. Real-time monitoring, event correlation, and automated remediation ensure immediate insights and efficient issue resolution. The customizable dashboards empower users to tailor visualizations to their needs, while scalability accommodates diverse infrastructures. Zenoss Cloud guarantees improved application performance, reduced downtime, and enhanced IT efficiency, making it an ideal choice for businesses of all sizes, from small enterprises seeking simplicity to large corporations requiring advanced scalability. Experience unified monitoring and proactive management with Zenoss Cloud, a comprehensive solution that transforms IT infrastructure optimization in today's complex environments.

Zenoss

Sample Customers

York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY

2degrees, Rackspace, State of North Dakota, El Paso Independent School District, NWN Corporation

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow Discovery vs. Zenoss Cloud

July 2025

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