IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs Samanage comparison

IBM and SolarWinds are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #27, while SolarWinds is ranked #21 with an average rating of 8.0. IBM holds a 0.7% mindshare in HDS, compared to SolarWinds’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of SolarWinds users who would recommend it.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

401 Views
197 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Samanage

Read 3 Samanage reviews

363 Views
238 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Samanage

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Samanage and IBM SmartCloud Control Desk are IT service management solutions. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has the upper hand due to its comprehensive features, making it a more robust solution.

Features: Samanage is known for streamlined processes, flexibility, and user-friendly design that simplifies task management and boosts productivity. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is known for substantial customization, a wide range of integrations, and enterprise-level asset management. The choice depends on whether ease of use or feature richness is more critical.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Samanage offers straightforward deployment with a cloud-based approach that simplifies setup and provides responsive customer service. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has more difficult deployment, but compensates with an extensive support network and advanced configuration tools. The choice depends on whether ease and speed of deployment or advanced configuration options are a priority.

Pricing and ROI: Samanage has a competitive setup cost model that assures a quick return on investment, making it attractive for small to medium businesses seeking cost-effectiveness without performance loss. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk requires a higher upfront investment but provides long-term benefits through its comprehensive features, appropriate for larger enterprises requiring robust solutions.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Samanage Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Samanage

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 847,862 peers since 2012

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Samanage

Ranking in Help Desk Software

21st

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (14th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (19th), License Management (12th)

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 Samanage is 1.1%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz

Director of operations at Vetasi

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.

Read full review

Moldir Shynggys

Application Security Analyst at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Great filtering feature and a good analytics dashboard

Samanage is our ticketing system and users email us with their issues which we're then able to prioritize. We are customers of Samanage The best feature of Samanage is filtering. It also allows us to create a solution for recurring issues. It's like having a stack overflow in the company. I like…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has been stable."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"The best part is the ability to keep records, especially incident records. It's easy to use the tool to store data and monitor it."

"The solution has a great filtering feature."

Cons

"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."

"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."

"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."

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."

"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."

"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 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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"The setting up process is not quite easy. It's quite difficult."

"The system shuts down about once a month which is frustrating."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"It is expensive."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Help Desk Software solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Construction Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

Earn 20 points

What do you like most about Samanage?

The best part is the ability to keep records, especially incident records. It's easy to use the tool to store data and monitor it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Samanage?

We mainly use it for incident logging. We'd like to add service request functionality, but we don't have the knowledge to configure the requests and the workflows properly. We'd like to integrate o...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Samanage?

I use it for incident recording based on your inventory.

See all answers

Comparisons

ServiceNow vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 100% of the time

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Competitors

ServiceNow vs Samanage

Compared 85% of the time

SolarWinds Service Desk vs Samanage

Compared 15% of the time

More Samanage Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

April 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

March 2025

Download Samanage product report

Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk

No data available

Overview

IBM Control Desk on Cloud offer an access to a user friendly self-service, automated service management, and seamlessly-integrated, best-practice based service desk capabilities. IBM Control Desk provides the IT service management (ITSM) needed to simplify support of users and infrastructure. It also offers a unified IT asset and service management software provides a common control center for managing business processes for both digital and physical assets and enables control, governance and compliance to applications, endpoints and assets to protect critical data and prevent outages. Control Desk is IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)-compliant, accessible through mobile devices and integrates with social media and development tools.

IBM

"Samanage enables organizations worldwide to deliver a superior service experience. Samanage’s IT service management software accelerates efficiency and visibility into services requested and delivered across an organization, making it easy to continuously streamline process improvement and greater productivity. The fully integrated service desk and asset management solution utilizes a SaaS/multi-tenant platform, allowing IT and other service providers to effectively manage and connect service requests to IT assets. The revolutionary user interface delivers an unmatched user experience and enables code-free customization, allowing customers to fully deploy a robust ITSM solution in days not months or years. "

SolarWinds

Sample Customers

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology

SXSW, PRA Group, Fandango, Inteva Products, Amherst College, Tensator

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Samanage

April 2025

Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Samanage

Find out what your peers are saying about IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Samanage and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Samanage report.

See our list of best Help Desk Software vendors.

We monitor all Help Desk Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.