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ServiceNow vs SolarWinds Web Help Desk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

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
Ranking in Help Desk Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
228
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (2nd)
SolarWinds Web Help Desk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
19th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of ServiceNow is 11.7%, down from 23.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SolarWinds Web Help Desk is 1.0%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ServiceNow11.7%
SolarWinds Web Help Desk1.0%
Other87.3%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Hemanthreddy Vakiti - PeerSpot reviewer
Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Structured workflows have improved SLA compliance and now support prioritized incident handling
I think the licensing and pricing of ServiceNow is quite expensive compared to other tools. For large organizations, it is acceptable, but specifically for small and medium organizations to track incidents or change requests, ServiceNow is quite expensive. Sometimes performance can be slow when workflows and integrations are configured for complex tasks. For advanced customizations or advanced features which we rarely use, the documentation is not up to standard. The documentation needs to be improved for advanced customization features. However, the platform is stable overall and the features are quite good. The user experience and performance concerns I mentioned are areas I want to be improved. When many workflows and interactions are configured, performance is slow. For the features it is providing, it is quite expensive. If these performance features are improved, we can easily pay that price and get the return on investment.
GANESAN K - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Engineer at Safezone Secure Solutions Private Limited
Has supported daily operational workflows and improved approval management across departments
We actually do the reselling. We created a self-service portal for the customers, and this particular function does impact reducing IT staff workload overall. From technical standpoints, comparing SolarWinds Web Help Desk with TeamViewer, we need ease of configuration and ease of allocating, creating new fields or creating new layouts for many specific use cases. An organization can have a number of use cases when it comes to a ticketing tool. It's not a security solution; it's more of a service solution where you will be configuring the needed categories and needed fields for each department. On a scale of 1-10, I rate SolarWinds Web Help Desk an 8.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I think ServiceNow is highly stable. These kinds of tools are used in a big company, and I haven't seen any issues in terms of the core platform."
"It has an excellent capability to integrate different access points."
"ServiceNow has enabled us to rapidly deploy Application Managed Services for new clients, with the ability to configure, extend, and tailor our ITSM Platform to meet individual client needs."
"I prefer ServiceNow to the competition because of its ease of use, installation and configuration."
"ServiceNow reduces drastically the time to value and it is possible to completely get rid of flat files such as spreadsheets and powerpoints in less than a month for any Organizational process."
"We consider the integration capabilities of the solution with other tools to be a valuable feature."
"Being able to have the required information for project management is valuable. I've got multiple people accessing it, and I'm tracking tasks with percentages done. It allows me to have detailed notes and provides the ability to attach documents. I have used a lot of project management solutions, and there were gaps in terms of what was available. ServiceNow has got all the features and functionalities. It is a solid solution. It is also easy to get into and use. It is certainly highly scalable."
"Within our organization, we're not finding really any major issues with scalability and things of that nature."
"SolarWinds is scalable as far as adding devices and servers."
"It has a pretty good search function, and if you do the advanced search, you can basically search for anything in any field."
"The solution scales well; currently is working for 60 help desk technicians (IT and non-IT) for over 2,000 users."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the assets management module."
"Once installed, it runs like a charm and doesn't ever crash."
"SolarWinds supports case and incident reporting. This includes logging incidents and tracking them efficiently. Additionally, it is compatible and approved by the ITIL foundation and standards, meeting world-class standards."
"SolarWinds is a very good application that provides you with a detailed monitoring capability of your network and assets."
"It is easy to use."
 

Cons

"I'd like to have an offline mode. For us, we do a lot of workforce management."
"The customer service of the product right now isn't very good. It's an aspect they really need to improve."
"The solution could improve by being more stable."
"The solution has some built-in monitoring capabilities, so we escalate cases as they come, but sometimes the response to our requests is delayed."
"Change Management is the area I have found that this tool can be improved because there are so many fields which are missing, such as urgency of the customer request and how the priority is defined."
"With ServiceNow, you have to do a lot of manipulation ahead of time to get to what that end state is."
"The RPA needs improvement. That's a new area for them that they're just entering into now."
"We have had bugginess, but we're going to get too technical for me."
"However, it's a little outdated compared to newer products that include protection and detection."
"The program seems buggy to me. Not infrequently, when I click to add a Note, the Notes section disappears instead of opening a box to add a Note."
"This is a good solution, but the GUI is really old-fashion and needs to be updated."
"The technical team is not competent, or available, and they do not know the product."
"The working part, the deployment part, and the configuration part was a little bit complex."
"This solution needs to have mobile application support added."
"Dashboards need some amount of work to be done. Ease of customization is desired."
"A little outdated compared to newer products that include protection and detection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"While the option exists to pay for a monthly license, we are dealing with large enterprises and these typically involve multi-year licenses of ten or five years, at a minimum."
"The licensing cost is based on your partnership with ServiceNow and what you have selected for implementation. There is an annual license cost which is calculated based on your number of devices."
"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"It is fairly expensive."
"$230 per user."
"ServiceNow tends to be a little bit more expensive as compared to BMC Helix ITSM."
"It has a higher cost compared to local/regional solutions."
"I know that it's not too bad because people continue to use it and they are happy to renew up their contract."
"They charge by the technician. It costs $117 per technician per year."
"When you compare with ManageEngine and ServiceNow, SolarWinds is reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
8%
Retailer
11%
Construction Company
11%
Performing Arts
10%
University
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise171
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
Areas of improvement can be enhanced regarding configuration. We had the deployment metrics and usability, ease of use, and ease of access. These were the three functionalities we were looking for ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
For Zoho, we did OP Manager, Audit Security, AD Security and Asset Management, Patch Management. These things we are dealing with Zoho. We are not dealing with solutions such as Zoho Mail or Zoho P...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Web Help Desk?
We actually do the reselling. We created a self-service portal for the customers, and this particular function does impact reducing IT staff workload overall. From technical standpoints, comparing ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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    
Instacart
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.