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BMC Helix ITSM vs ServiceNow vs Zendesk 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.5
Challenges in assessing ROI exist, but stability, automation, and improved processes offer value despite licensing and integration concerns.
Sentiment score
6.9
ServiceNow enhances efficiency, reduces costs, and improves ROI with automation and streamlined processes, providing long-term organizational value.
Sentiment score
7.3
Zendesk offers cost efficiency and improved productivity, with ROI influenced by alignment with operational needs and process integration.
The return on investment is good when implementing for ourselves and for other clients.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.3
BMC Helix ITSM support varies by tier, with premium offering quick service, while others face delays and inconsistency.
Sentiment score
7.0
ServiceNow's customer service is generally praised, but technical support experiences vary and rely on community resources.
Sentiment score
7.0
Zendesk receives praise for responsiveness and ease of use, but some users desire better chat features and human interaction.
There are issues with misrouting and a preference for email rather than direct communication via phone calls.
The support is exemplary and deserves a perfect rating.
Most of the support comes from partners, and customers heavily rely on them.
I have contacted them four to five times over the past two years, and they have been quite helpful.
The technical support provided by Zendesk has been very satisfactory.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
BMC Helix ITSM efficiently scales for large enterprises, offering flexibility and robust performance with some complexity in customization.
Sentiment score
7.4
ServiceNow is highly scalable, integrates well with systems, and offers flexibility, making it ideal for diverse organizations.
Sentiment score
7.5
Zendesk is praised for scalability and customization, although some face initial setup challenges and structural integration issues.
The product's scalability is adequate for us, yet its complex customization sometimes restricts extensive adaptability.
It is capable of vertical scaling with no issues.
Zendesk can scale from very small companies to very large ones.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
BMC Helix ITSM is generally stable and reliable, with high user ratings despite occasional architecture-dependent issues.
Sentiment score
7.7
ServiceNow is highly stable with minimal disruptions, often due to external factors, offering reliable SaaS performance and support.
Sentiment score
7.9
Zendesk is stable with minimal downtimes, reliable performance, occasional minor issues, and high reliability ratings, especially for smaller businesses.
Over the past five years, we have experienced no major issues or downtime during upgrades.
ServiceNow is already a stable tool.
ServiceNow is stable enough.
The stability has been quite reliable.
 

Room For Improvement

BMC Helix ITSM needs enhanced user-friendliness, customization, performance, integration, and support to address complexity and user concerns.
ServiceNow users seek improvements in interface, navigation, pricing, documentation, mobile functionality, support, updates, and third-party integrations.
Zendesk faces challenges with data management, flexibility, integration, user-friendliness, and customer communication, while users are dissatisfied with support and pricing.
BMC Helix ITSM is difficult for us to customize, and most customizations require vendor support, which leads to extra costs.
We lack access to a sandbox for in-house development, which was very helpful for hands-on work with new features.
Their customer support could make it a great solution, not just product support but also their relationship with partners and training initiatives in different regions.
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow.
There are sometimes challenges with the portal being a bit confusing for new users.
There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier.
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find BMC Helix ITSM costly, yet its robust features provide value, suggesting analysis and negotiation for cost efficiency.
ServiceNow's pricing is higher than competitors, suited for large enterprises but challenging for smaller companies due to cost complexity.
Enterprise buyers find Zendesk's pricing high but valuable, with costs varying by agent count and business needs for tailored solutions.
The pricing of BMC Helix ITSM and its implementation costs are quite high, including subscription and maintenance costs per year.
ServiceNow's pricing can be justified if more functionality is required.
ServiceNow is expensive for all regions.
It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.
 

Valuable Features

BMC Helix ITSM excels in flexibility, integration, automation, and reporting, enabling efficient IT service management and reduced resolution times.
ServiceNow excels in customization, integration, and user-friendliness, offering versatile workflows, ITIL processes, and strong community support.
Zendesk offers user-friendly ticket management, seamless integrations, multi-channel support, and robust security for efficient and productive customer service.
Resolution time has decreased significantly since implementing the self-service portal.
These features are crucial as we complete the implementation and maintain data accuracy in the CMDB.
ServiceNow provides a wide range of functionality, covering all the necessary modules, unlike Jira which is primarily for IT.
Automation capabilities are impressive, bolstered by a vast repository of out-of-the-box connectors and plugins that facilitate integration with various applications worldwide.
The most valuable features of ServiceNow for me are its ticketing and reporting capabilities.
It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of BMC Helix ITSM is 10.6%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 24.1%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 4.1%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Fairoz Gadad - PeerSpot reviewer
Development team is quick to address bugs or shortcomings in their product
BMC's technical support team needs to improve. Right now, the problem over here is we are not getting the exact answers on time. Their engineers are mainly based in the US or Israel, and we get comprehensive dedicated support. Some of the Indian customer service representatives are also outstanding. Unfortunately, in the past six months or seven months, I've been getting brand-new engineers. Either they're not entirely aware of most cases, or they don't know how to troubleshoot further. So for any product to be stable and work correctly, BMC must ensure that customer service is excellent. Even though if your product is a hundred percent, we'll have problems marketing it to our customers.
Somnath Kand - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom integration and reporting lead to efficient ticket management
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow. Although there are child incidents or tickets, tracking primary issues or bugs within enhancements is not present. The reporting features in the new portal could be more user-friendly. While it provides options to minimize chart and image sizes, actual implementation doesn't always reflect these changes.
JohanSkibdahl - PeerSpot reviewer
Automating customer support with advanced AI capabilities and seamless communication
Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls. It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. This intelligent tool can manage complex queries before users even realize they are interacting with a non-human. Additionally, we have integrated Zendesk with Datto and Klaviyo ( /products/klaviyo-reviews ), enhancing our workflows.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
23%
Educational Organization
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BMC Helix ITSM?
If we consider major players like Ford or BMW, their core focus is manufacturing products like cars. To ensure smooth...
What needs improvement with BMC Helix ITSM?
In User Group sessions held by BMC in India, I mentioned the challenges with vast documentation, making it difficult ...
What is your primary use case for BMC Helix ITSM?
I am currently working as a BMC Remedy developer. I have been working for over ten years on the BMC platform. My comp...
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 t...
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 ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
What do you like most about Zendesk Support?
I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
I am not currently aware of the exact pricing, but since we are still using Zendesk, it appears to be at a reasonable...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries. It would be advantageous to...
 

Also Known As

Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy
No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
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    
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: April 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.