Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
217
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 28.7%, up 26.7% compared to last year.
ServiceNow, on the other hand, focuses on IT Service Management (ITSM), holds 24.2% mindshare, down 27.4% 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.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Maximo is the best software for assets management."
"The most valuable features are the ability to create work orders and preventative maintenance."
"I have found Work Order management the most valuable feature. Additionally, it is a very robust and powerful solution."
"We are very thankful to have IBM integrated with our own Legacy cloud-based system"
"Preventive maintenance management."
"IBM Maximo is a very strong and powerful tool in the market…Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to correct maintenance."
"Reliable, very configurable, and it's all integrated in the same database."
"Primarily, we use it for incident management and change across the landscape. It is the virtual repository for our incident management processes. It gives us visibility about what's happening from the change management perspective across our CABs, including our enterprise CABs."
"ServiceNow was the first true enterprise to service management platform."
"The analytics - we like to keep track of how much work everyone is doing."
"Very good incident management, chain management and problem management features."
"If it is a high priority, they will respond very quickly. If it is a low priority issue, it might take some time, some three or four days. I would rate the technical support as a 10 out of 10."
"The thing that I like most about it is the easy integration with the CMDB. I'm able to look at the CMDB for applications and develop my assessments and attestations based on the application and point them at that application owner. So, I can really automate the whole thing."
"The Workflow feature is the most valuable."
"It is robust and very user-friendly."
 

Cons

"Areas for improvement include: an enhanced Service Catalog on Mobile; Agent intelligence; better dashboards for KPIs."
"The mobile solution has a lot of room for improvement, especially in geopositioning capabilities, tracking capabilities, and configuration capabilities, in order to let the tech operate online and offline.​"
"The standard reports that shipped with the package need to be enriched with more advanced reports, especially for the Inventory Management sections."
"The latest version is slow due to the power it requires."
"IBM Maximo can improve the financial support and financial application, to make it more similar to an ERP as opposed to an EAM. Overall they can improve the financial processes."
"It's quite reliable, but new versions often are not too stable. They bring in enhancements but they break other stuff."
"On a scale of one to ten, where ten is easy and one is difficult, I rate the setup process a two since it is very complicated."
"Initial setup is a longer process because Maximo is bigger and has more processes."
"We don't have a huge amount of password reset requests, but the minimum package of resets that ServiceNow offers is much more than we need."
"It's a little expensive compared to other tools."
"Vulnerability management could be improved. Also, integration with tools such as Microsoft Defender ATP needs improvement."
"I would like to see Advanced Intelligent Automation."
"Some enhancements to the self-service platform would be helpful. That part is still a little barebone... Also, the mobile app is not bad, but it's limited."
"The reporting, which also includes dashboards, needs to be improved, and there should also be the ability to turn on and off portions of Project Management. Currently, as soon as you install the new version, you've got to go back there and make all the tweaks. There should be just a configuration file that goes to the new version.  The Project Management module does not leverage the knowledge base the way it should, and there is no built-in ability to get to the articles. Resource management should be easier. It would be amazing if they can make resource management a little bit more graphical. There are other solutions that I've seen where resource management was a more visual experience."
"Where it could be improved is Discovery. This may sound odd since I just praised the value of ServiceNow Discovery, but improvements to its automatic detection, the breadth of devices, and the depth of devices covered, as well as keeping up with new technologies, are all essential."
"We are struggling with the scheduling part, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a ServiceNow issue. It could be the way we have configured it. We don't have it configured in a way where you can schedule a support call with our end users. We are looking for more automation in the box and the chat feature."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Explore the possibility of using DB2. You will avoid the cost of SQL Server or Oracle licenses."
"$USD700 per agent user."
"IBM Maximo offers a licensing application, and you have to comply with the license."
"You pay for what you get. There are lots of options depending on how you would like to implement Maximo."
"Where available, concurrent licenses can be more cost efficient and provide more flexibility."
"I do not know about the price of the solution. However, this has been an expensive project overall."
"​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.​"
"The price of IBM Maximo could reduce, it is expensive."
"I am from Brazil. For Latin American markets, ServiceNow is very expensive as compared to other vendors, such as VMware."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten. The pricing for ServiceNow is based on a SaaS platform with annual contracts. However, it may not offer much flexibility for adjusting usage in the short term."
"ServiceNow is an expensive solution."
"$230 per user."
"For the modules we use, we found it competitive. I can't think of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."
"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"It is fairly expensive."
"ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solutions are best for your needs.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
31%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Maximo?
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 needs improvement with IBM Maximo?
Though I liked it a lot, I think it was lagging a lot. It was very slow due to the lagging issues. So that was kind of frustrating, considering how slow it was while functioning. The aforementioned...
What is your primary use case for IBM Maximo?
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. With IBM Maximo,...
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, Infor, IFS and others in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.