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BMC Helix Discovery vs Device42 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.6
BMC Helix Discovery offers 314% ROI, streamlines audits, boosts efficiency, reduces costs, and saves administrators up to 80% time.
Sentiment score
7.0
Device42 enhances IT asset management with time savings and efficiency, despite some integration challenges, boosting cost-effectiveness and asset tracking.
BMC Helix Discovery has delivered a very good return, and we cannot stop using it at this moment.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
The TCO calculations based on five years and three years have yielded a remarkable ROI compared to on-premise workload, validating the business case submission to the customer.
Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.0
BMC Helix Discovery support is responsive and professional, but response times and technical effectiveness need improvement according to users.
Sentiment score
7.9
Device42 customer service is highly rated for quick, clear, and effective support, despite occasional reporting issues.
When opening a severity one ticket, they respond within four to six hours, which is commendable.
Systems Integration Specialist Advisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
The response has been satisfactory, though improvements could be made in response time and overall competence.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
They have quick SLA responses and provide support through call, email, and chat.
Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
BMC Helix Discovery offers flexible deployment, strong scalability, and effective integration, ideal for medium to large organizations.
Sentiment score
7.2
Device42 offers adaptable infrastructure management across industries, with global scalability and versatility, despite some vertical scaling limitations.
If you understand all the prerequisites shared by Device42, it is very much scalable and allows you to design your discovery solution without facing any challenge.
Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
BMC Helix Discovery is praised for its high stability and reliability, though minor early issues were quickly resolved.
Sentiment score
7.9
Device42 is reliable and stable, generally praised for performance, despite occasional uninstall challenges and support responsiveness issues.
In the past four to six years, I cannot recall encountering any bugs.
Systems Integration Specialist Advisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Device42 is stable and has been reliable for my organization.
Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

BMC Helix Discovery requires better management, integration, customization, automation, and IoT capabilities, addressing technical support and license issues.
Device42 users seek better usability, integration, pricing flexibility, performance enhancements, and simplified bulk operations and UI customization.
I would like to see a lower price and better technical support.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
It uses a Berkeley database, and the query language is not easy to master for performing complex queries.
Systems Integration Specialist Advisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I foresee areas of improvement for the agent-less solution, which could be very useful for those organizations that might not allow configuring an agent in their source machines for workload discovery.
Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

BMC Helix Discovery's pricing varies significantly, perceived as fair or expensive, with complex licensing and additional feature costs.
Device42's pricing varies, seen as cost-effective by some, expensive by others, with potential add-on and large deployment costs.
The price is about twelve per license per year, and the support is included.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
Compared to other competitors, it does not cost much, and I would recommend it from a cost perspective.
Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Valuable Features

BMC Helix Discovery offers agentless discovery, flexible deployment, and integration for efficient asset management and predictive IT operations.
Device42 optimizes infrastructure management with auto-discovery, application mapping, intuitive interface, asset tracking, and robust API integration.
This is very useful for compliance as it helps in audits by providing a comprehensive view of all assets and software.
System Administrator at Porto Editora
What we're looking for and trying to move towards is autonomous operations so that AI is implemented to suggest resolutions and to quickly identify faults or repeated patterns with no human intervention.
Technical and Business Consultant at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
The best aspect of BMC Helix Discovery is its flexibility. You can perform scanning at any time, and it provides substantial data for extraction.
Systems Integration Specialist Advisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Device42 has positively impacted my organization by providing granularity toward application discovery compared to other assessment tools, which is a differentiator since none of the other tools provide such granularity, leading to better decision-making for my migration to the public cloud.
Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
 

Categories and Ranking

BMC Helix Discovery
Ranking in IT Asset Management
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Device42
Ranking in IT Asset Management
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Configuration Management Databases (4th), IP Address Management (IPAM) Tools (5th), Data Center Infrastructure Management (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2025, in the IT Asset Management category, the mindshare of BMC Helix Discovery is 5.7%, down from 9.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Device42 is 4.6%, down from 6.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Asset Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
BMC Helix Discovery5.7%
Device424.6%
Other89.7%
IT Asset Management
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2729955 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Integration Specialist Advisor at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Flexible data discovery has streamlined processes and enhances efficiency
The best aspect of BMC Helix Discovery is its flexibility. You can perform scanning at any time, and it provides substantial data for extraction. If there is data it doesn't extract and you understand TPL, you can write your own patterns to pull the data out of it, making it very powerful from that standpoint. The query language is somewhat challenging to learn as it uses a Berkeley database. However, it has an excellent query building tool, and they have recently released a new visually-based version, which is very beneficial. Extracting data is straightforward through writing queries, running them, and pulling reports. The scanning process and credential setup are also easily manageable. Overall, it is an excellent tool.
reviewer2783919 - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Granular discovery has ensured confident workload migration and optimized cloud move group planning
Device42 offers the best features for workload assessment, particularly useful for cloud-to-cloud workload or on-premise data center workload, especially when planning for workload migration to the public cloud. For application and infrastructure discovery, Device42 has enabled me to know the number of machines running in the on-premise environment and has managed to capture complete utilization metrics or trends of their utilization. This has benefited me in right-sizing systems for my public cloud total cost of ownership (TCO) planning, providing me granularity to right-size these systems while planning a migration to the public cloud. Device42 has positively impacted my organization by providing granularity toward application discovery compared to other assessment tools, which is a differentiator since none of the other tools provide such granularity, leading to better decision-making for my migration to the public cloud. Device42 has improved my migration projects by providing granularity around system dependencies that gave me confidence knowing which systems communicate with each other parked in a particular move group. My move group planning became so robust that I am not leaving any system behind in the on-premise data center from my planning, which saves a lot of time and effort, leading to cost optimization—a value addition.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix Discovery?
I like the artificial intelligence and machine learning that it uses in the solution. Because once the solution discovers all the assets, all the infrastructure, and all the dependencies between se...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BMC Helix Discovery?
That's always a million dollar question regarding whether the solution is affordable or quite expensive; if you talk to the vendor, the pricing's great, but end users are always looking for a bette...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix Discovery?
Technical support from BMC is generally good. Resolutiion time is what's bothering me, as it's not always easy to get to the correct person or the right technical level needed to resolve the issue.
What needs improvement with Device42?
The product must provide AI features. It would be very useful if I could create datasets or queries from an AI interface.
What is your primary use case for Device42?
I use the solution for physical assets management, IT management, and application dependency mapping.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Discovery, ADDM, Atrium Discovery & Dependency Mapping
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Windstream Communications, News UK, Mercator Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR)
Computershare, Concur, Doosan, Fitch Ratings Inc., Fujitsu, HomeAway, Jasper Wireless, Mercedes-Benz, Square, Twitch, UCSB, Zayo Group Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Discovery vs. Device42 and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
879,259 professionals have used our research since 2012.