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IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 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

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Ranking in Help Desk Software
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 0.7%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is 7.3%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps standardize our workflow, track client tickets, and it's very flexible
Initially we used HPE Service Desk. Then, Remedy (IBM SmartCloud Control Desk) version 5. When selecting a vendor, the most important thing for us is the flexibility of the tool. It must be very flexible to change the workflow or to add new workflows for the clients. It must have stability and scalability as well.
Anil  Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved problem-solving and has a user-friendly knowledge base
The primary benefit of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is its ease of use. It provides a simpler and more intuitive interface for creating semi-automated use cases and managing problem solutions. This simplicity makes it particularly suitable for less technical staff to use effectively. Additionally, its ability to interpret issues and offer solutions based on its knowledge base makes problem-solving faster. The deployment and use of all policies and user cases are seamless.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."
"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."
"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized. You have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them."
"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."
"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."
"The solution has been stable."
"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."
"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."
"It's stable."
"I like that ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has everything and can be integrated into a single product like SAP. It has also got operations, helpdesk, MDM, and everything integrated. Multiple products can be integrated into one product. You don't have to go for them separately. I also like that they have many partners in India who can come to the site and complete installations."
"It ensures the tracking of all costs for end-user issues."
"The product scales up effortlessly and you can easily add users."
"ManageEngine provides additional modules that we can integrate in the future."
"The strength is its pricing. It is easy to use."
"The software deployment we find quite valuable - being able to deploy software to multiple endpoints without having to worry about getting in touch with the end users."
"The most valuable feature of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is ticket management."
 

Cons

"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."
"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."
"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."
"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."
"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."
"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."
"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."
"ManageEngine needs to improve its handling of large volumes, as it cannot manage transaction volumes as effectively as ServiceNow."
"The GUI can be improved. In terms of functionality, the change management part could be improved significantly due to limitations in that area."
"There are some performance issues. The solution we used before this ran through a centralized server for remote control and it was much more responsive than this one is. There is a bit of a lag with the remote control option."
"I think that the tool should try to streamline the user interface even more because there are a lot of options that can be offered to users."
"I think asset management took a hit recently."
"The solution’s reporting could be improved."
"The timing reporting module, and how it's used is a bit difficult to understand."
"We should be able to monitor the performance of assets, not only documents. For example, printers. We should be able to monitor ink levels and get notifications when the ink is low. In another operation manager I use, they send me a notification when the device is off, or has something to perform."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."
"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."
"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."
"The tool's price is okay and in line with other products, maybe even cheaper than some products."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is much cheaper than many of its competitors. We pay about nine dollars per agent and one dollar per device. There are no hidden costs."
"The licensing is around $10,000 per year."
"It is cheaper than the competitors."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus' price is very reasonable."
"For 90 service agents and our need for a cloud solution with incident management and service request management, it annually costs around 12,000. If you need additional development or deployment support from the vendor, there might be an additional cost."
"The prices are attractive. Customer can use a subscription if they do not have enough budget."
"Cost-wise, we're quite happy."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
60%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Government
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
The platform's most beneficial features are incident management, change management, request management, and asset management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
The costing for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus ( /products/manageengine-servicedesk-plus-reviews ) is very flexible and is considered low-priced. Automox ( /products/automox-reviews ), a competitor,...
What needs improvement with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
The GUI can be improved. In terms of functionality, the change management part could be improved significantly due to limitations in that area. For instance, when assigning a ticket to a person or ...
 

Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
Tranter IT Infrastructure Services Limited, Sterlite Technologies, averda, Radiology Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,625 professionals have used our research since 2012.