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Espressive Barista vs Ivanti Neurons for ITSM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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

Espressive Barista
Ranking in Help Desk Software
15th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
AI-Powered Chatbots (3rd)
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
10th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Espressive Barista is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Ivanti Neurons for ITSM is 2.2%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jim Lobao - PeerSpot reviewer
Has helped enhance our support ability, reduced our resolution time, and reduced our service desk costs
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human intervention. However, Barista does help us identify and address some of these areas, allowing my team to step in and create intents and responses to questions. When a user asks a question that Barista doesn't immediately understand, we can recognize the pattern, capture it, and link it to a common intent. This is highly beneficial for acquiring such data, but it's a reactive approach and still requires curation. Natural language processing still has some way to go. One of our challenges is that our internal employees haven't yet adopted a natural way of interacting with Barista. Getting people to be concise and to the point, rather than being verbose as if they were interacting with a human, has been an ongoing challenge. While they may feel comfortable being conversational in Slack, expecting a human-like response, Barista is a different entity. Barista isn't interested in their recent vacation; it just wants to know they're locked out of their account. So, some users may assume Barista understands their intent when they say, "I'm back from vacation and locked out of my account." Barista, however, may interpret this as a request for the holiday schedule. Therefore, we're gradually educating our users to adapt their communication style for better success with Barista. Conversely, we desire Barista to adapt its behavior based on the interaction, the language used, and the way people communicate. I wholeheartedly desire an AI that can continuously learn and adapt to our organization's evolving needs. This is the most challenging aspect, as it involves understanding our organization's terminology, procedures, and toolsets. We've made significant progress in this area. However, from an NLP standpoint, we still face challenges with our nearly 3,000 Slack channel users, each with their unique communication styles. People ask questions in various ways, and sometimes there are misunderstandings. They want to interact with us naturally. However, we still struggle with natural language processing. People don't always realize that the bot is a virtual agent designed to be concise and efficient. Sometimes, less is more. It's been a difficult transition for people to grasp that they're conversing with a virtual agent, not a human. They still expect human-like interactions, such as discussing their weekend or holidays or simply pasting screenshots of errors. However, the bot can't interpret screenshots. If they provide the error code and some context about the application, the bot can better understand the issue. So, the key challenge is bridging the gap between human expectations and the bot's capabilities in terms of natural interaction.
Sanjay Mukhopadhyay - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution comes with a host of features for hyper-automation
The initial setup is a mix of complex and straightforward because it depends on which modules you are implementing for ITSM. There are a lot of complex workflows and SLAs around the workflow. We have to configure much more complex things than just Patch Management and Endpoint. For example, it might not take even two weeks to roll out APM for 10,000 assets, but it will take three months to roll out ITSM for 10,000 assets and an equal number of users. That's because the modules you were implementing require much more knowledge, and there are a lot of complexities and nitty-gritties inside the tool which need to be understood. ITSM skill sets are in demand because reaching an L3 certification is not easy. We have those certified skill sets. That's why we're able to roll out at a fast pace. With standard documentation available, it's very clear for a certified resource to understand step-wise implementation. For every step, there is a "build and test" approach. It's a continuous integration. You follow this process, so you don't suddenly realize there are many issues at the end of setup. You have to keep testing each module and process as you roll out. It's not complex, but you need to know the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"Its ability to recognize phrases has gotten smarter over time."
"When it comes to neutral language processing and conversational AI, it's very good, very solid... We all have different ways of speaking or writing in English and the application does a very solid job of recognizing what's being asked regardless of how it's being asked."
"We have the ability to alter phrases, create new phrases, or enhance phrases, or change paths. From the dashboard, we are able to get a lot of information we need about what people are asking, where they are dropping off from conversations, and where they do not get the information they need."
"The most valuable feature is its scalability."
"With respect to its natural language processing capabilities, it recognizes things that you wouldn't think it would recognize. Even in cases where it doesn't, it's pretty easy to go in and make the adjustments that are needed."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"The solution's technical support is excellent. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"Overall, the platform, in its abilities, is really powerful, especially now with AI as a part of hyper-automation."
"The solution's installation depends on its customization. It is easy."
"Ivanti Neurons allows me to adjust our workflow according to our needs."
"They allow us to automate ticketing processes and create requests more efficiently, improving our overall support operations."
"The solution is easy to use and has a user-friendly interface"
"Primarily, I believe the focus lies on discovery, workflow configuration, and automation."
"The main feature for us is incident management, as it assists me in knowing my assignments, because we have group assignments. When we go to the group assignment they can assign it to me there."
 

Cons

"What would make things easier is more detail, out of the box, about what is helping out of the box. We're struggling a little bit to get that data. We want more information about what Barista has brought in that the employees are using, out of the box. We want more visibility into the things that we ourselves haven't done the interaction for."
"My only comment would be if they wanted to use this as an IT service management tool, maybe they could think about Barista making tickets and having change management and problem management capabilities."
"Although they've done some work on their metrics dashboard, there is some fine-tuning to do for people that just want to go in there at a glance and see their metrics."
"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"There could be an improvement in the ability to easily integrate other systems without extensive development."
"Ivanti Neurons for ITSM's support model is not very strong. You should buy professional services. Its self-service portal and survey are extremely lacking. You cannot customize it, and it doesn't look very good. The solution does not have a strong community."
"We'd like more integration with solutions like SolarWinds."
"There could be an improvement in the ability to easily integrate other systems without extensive development."
"Configuration requirements are extensive, even in basic Service Desk processes."
"I have had to open a few support tickets with the HEAT Service Management. They are very good but there are some areas that they could improve on."
"The patching for non-Windows OSes such as Linux is poor."
"Sometimes I can't get the reports that I want until I go to the manager. They need to put more into the new reports. The standard reports are great, but there do not communicate as much."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"The solution is affordable."
"The pricing isn't overly burdensome. It's going to be interesting to see how new models come in with new capabilities but, as it is, as a base system, it's pretty good."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"I came to know from my team members that my company used to operate ServiceNow but shifted to Ivanti Neurons for ITSM due to its low licensing prices."
"The product is affordable for small businesses."
"The price is on the higher side. The support is included in the standard licensing fees."
"If you want to add more users who can handle support there will be additional fees. What we call our extensions, we need to pay more for. They tell us that we need to acquire more licenses or something like that. I think it's very expensive, because in terms the pula, our local currency, it's about 20,000 per license for each user. It is an annual fee."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
51%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Retailer
4%
Computer Software Company
13%
Government
13%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Espressive?
The most valuable feature is its scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Espressive?
Espressive has been very accommodating in trying to meet our needs and adapt to our current situation. User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant ...
What needs improvement with Espressive?
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human ...
What do you like most about Ivanti Neurons for ITSM?
I like Cloud Neurons. Since it's a cloud version, it's much easier to enhance productivity because it collects all the information automatically.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Ivanti Neurons for ITSM?
The price is on the higher side. The support is included in the standard licensing fees.
What needs improvement with Ivanti Neurons for ITSM?
There could be an improvement in the ability to easily integrate other systems without extensive development. iPaaS has been introduced to help with this, however, I have not fully explored it yet.
 

Also Known As

No data available
HEAT Service Management
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
AFS Group, Auckland Airport, Baylor University, County of Maui, Dis-Chem Pharmacies, Elia, Essentia Health, Government Research Laboratory, Groupe Webhelp, HSBC Africa, Midwestern University
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. Ivanti Neurons for ITSM and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.