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IBM Maximo vs ServiceNow 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Maximo
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (1st), Billing Software (4th)
ServiceNow
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
222
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (1st), IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Maximo and ServiceNow aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Maximo is designed for Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and holds a mindshare of 25.7%, down 27.0% compared to last year.
ServiceNow, on the other hand, focuses on IT Service Management (ITSM), holds 21.8% mindshare, down 27.0% since last year.
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz - PeerSpot reviewer
A very strong and powerful tool in the market preferred by a variety of industries
I rate the technical support a seven out of ten. Three levels of support in IBM. The first one is a fixed level, while levels two and three are very good. Here, level one is not very good, as it takes time to go from level one to level two and from level two to level three. So, level one is of low capacity.
Nikhil Gohil - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables effective incident management and seamless workflow automation with valuable mobile accessibility
I haven't thought deeply about improvements for ServiceNow or what might be missing right now. There are so many modules and features in ServiceNow that I haven't explored them all, so it's hard to say what might be missing or should be improved. I suggest making the cost more affordable for smaller companies.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is configurable, where you can add extra fields to screens and to the database."
"The incident management feature is good because it allows you to keep track of and classify issues."
"There are not many enterprise asset management systems on the market and not many that have the categories that IBM Maximo has."
"Its capabilities let us organize our work."
"The most powerful features are the database and integration with CMDB."
"The most valuable feature is asset management maintenance as well as asset management overall."
"Provides great flexibility."
"It can be particularly useful for power line operations, enabling linemen in the field to gather information and send it across the country as well as different parts of the world."
"What I like the most is that it's a common service data model and the fact that everything is available on one platform."
"It provides internal clients with greater transparency about their projects and deliverables."
"It's easy to integrate. For instance, yesterday we closed the integration with SAP for the IP business management module to manage the forecast of projects. We created an interface between ServiceNow and SAP to control projects for accounting and on the forecast of the project. It was really easy. We don't have any problems with ServiceNow at the moment. As a company, they are improving constantly."
"The Idea Portal and the PPM platform are most valuable. Their out-of-the-box dashboards and reporting are fantastic. I use them almost on a weekly basis. I have developed a couple of PMO dashboards for reporting. It is user-friendly. Everything is done through a navigation bar, and it makes things a lot easier that way."
"It's a straightforward and effective approach that minimizes the need for extensive explanations."
"I like the reporting aspect of it. It helps us know where we stand regarding the types of issues we're receiving... It also shows us trends. That enables us to possibly predict an issue that might come up in the future as well as what is happening right now. We will like that feature. With it, we can either avoid certain issues or know where we need to focus more regarding the service we provide."
"I have seen ROI from ServiceNow, as the client I mentioned earlier is achieving ROI for adopting this cloud-based technology."
"Makes ticket information easy to access."
 

Cons

"Vendor management needs enhancement."
"Initial setup is a longer process because Maximo is bigger and has more processes."
"Coding can be complex when customization is required."
"Areas for improvement include: an enhanced Service Catalog on Mobile; Agent intelligence; better dashboards for KPIs."
"I feel that the interface is a little too complicated with a large number of fields to enter."
"Revision management of file attachments."
"Although you can create notifications with Maximo, the configuration and options could be improved."
"Could use some alignment regarding some standards and the tracking of the IT assets. Even though they have all of the information (i.e. where are the assets, who owns the asset, etc.), they were not mapping it to different cyber standards."
"The challenge with ServiceNow lies in its expansive portfolio of services. It can be complex, and users may find it expensive and challenging to understand. There is a need for a configurator within ServiceNow that guides users on how to utilize the tool effectively. This configurator should provide insights into licensing, team requirements, and the best licensing model based on whether companies prefer ownership or consumption-based models."
"Service mapping could be less complicated."
"The visuals are the one area where there is opportunity for improvement."
"All the screens are similar. It's the same platform for everything and you need to familiarize yourself with it. In the past, you used to have one screen per application. Now, you have everything integrated into one. Everybody will manage the same screen and they need to navigate into the same screen as the Internet Explorer with a toolbar with the categories and look for the things you want to see or the models you want to use."
"They could improve license management, particularly when integrating different applications or toolsets."
"Time to respond from support could definitely be better, as the global support timing sometimes causes delays in interactions."
"A new user does need training or time to learn the solution before jumping in. It was very hard in the beginning to understand everything. I couldn't find the models I needed at the time."
"The installation and deployment of ServiceNow can be a bit challenging. One major issue I've encountered is that ServiceNow doesn't provide the same mobile responsiveness or features that we used to enjoy with other tools. For example, with Splunk, our response times were about five minutes, and we could manage alerts and incidents directly from our mobile devices."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​Explore internal processes in order to evaluate the correct number of users in each Maximo module, then evaluate the different offers of pricing and licensing.​"
"I do not know about the price of the solution. However, this has been an expensive project overall."
"Explore the possibility of using DB2. You will avoid the cost of SQL Server or Oracle licenses."
"IBM has changed the licensing policy. As I understand now, they are going from a complex way of licensing to a more simple way of licensing."
"The concurrent user license is much more effective in management and cost-wise, as it is more suitable for maintenance management."
"IBM Maximo offers a licensing application, and you have to comply with the license."
"The price of IBM Maximo could reduce, it is expensive."
"$USD700 per agent user."
"ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's."
"The solution is priced for medium to enterprises sized businesses. However, it is expensive compared to competitors."
"ServiceNow pricing is an art, not a science. The deal depends on how commercially savvy you are, which does make it something that is quite difficult to get right. It is most definitely an opportunity area for ServiceNow to improve and have more visibility around pricing of the different products within the platform."
"It is an expensive platform."
"The pricing is on the high side, but if you look at the stability and option to work, it's kind of justified."
"The pricing is reasonable and affordable, making it suitable for businesses ranging from small to large scale."
"We are happy with the pricing."
"For the modules we use, we found it competitive. I can't think of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
12%
Energy/Utilities Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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.
 

Also Known As

Maximo
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., DTE Energy, Swedish Match, Projetech, Fingrid, East Coast
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    
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, IFS, Infor and others in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.