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IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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 Tivoli NetCool Impact
Ranking in Event Monitoring
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (11th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (11th), AIOps (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is 3.9%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 11.7%, down from 18.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow IT Operations Management11.7%
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact3.9%
Other84.4%
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Hennie Du Toit - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Specialist Architecture and Governance at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Event management strengthens with automation but needs better event flooding handling
Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that. Better root cause correlation and faster processing for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be helpful. If there can be more end-to-end functionality, such as observability tools built in natively, that would be great. With correlation, IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact has many functions, but we've built them custom-built. Functions such as automated logging, automated dispatching, and automated notification of engineers could be native in the tool.
reviewer2755671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Significant enhancement in operations with powerful discovery and analytics, yet pricing structure poses challenges
ServiceNow IT Operations Management provides out-of-the-box dashboards. Along with the dashboard, it also provides the Operations Workspace, which is very useful for operations teams. There is a functionality called Performance Analytics, which we are also using to develop some dashboards for the senior leadership and operations team where they can perform trend analysis of alerts and events happening across the infrastructure and application landscape. These dashboards are really useful here. ServiceNow IT Operations Management's biggest plus point is that it is a platform. ITOM is just one module that ServiceNow IT Operations Management offers, but they provide seamless integration of ITOM with their other modules such as ITSM, where we can leverage the AIs for discovery, perform impact analysis, which essentially helps to enhance the overall IT operations and reduce the downtime and MTTR.

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 great at being able to fetch almost any kind of file."
"The stability has been very good for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact, rated around eight or nine."
"The most valuable feature that comes with Netcool/Impact is the ISPF APA support. It is inherent to Netcool/Impact, so I can use the ISPF of any other product, which I can invoke and consume through Impact, and do integrations, which is great. I run the Netcool desktop application so I can integrate with other applications in the ticketing system. It's a great ability being able to invoke ISPF and integrate."
"This product allows us to make use of open-source products, including running Java code."
"It is easy to integrate with other models such as Oracle, other systems, external systems, and to reach events."
"It is a product that is familiar for a lot of users."
"It is easy to use and simple to learn."
"It includes a valuable feature called Discovery, that aids in application portfolio management, enabling visibility into IT infrastructure from top to bottom."
"I like the tool's discovery feature."
"The asset management tools are very valuable."
"The most valuable features of ServiceNow IT Operations Management are ease of use, intuitive design, and ease of management, and its based on IT practices which are good."
"It is a stable solution. I have not experienced any system outages during my time using the solution."
"Our ROI since implementing ServiceNow ITOM has been significant."
 

Cons

"The solution is somewhat complicated. It's not exactly straightforward."
"Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal with that."
"IBM is not investing in the development of the on-premise version of this solution."
"Stability-wise, this product needs to be improved."
"For improvement, I'd say the dashboard and the overall GUI could use some work. Although, I don't think that there's much improvement that Netcool really needs to achieve in this area, because when we're talking GUI, Impact is able to integrate with any third-party system and it comes with ISPF APA. It's more beneficial than Netcool/OMNIbus in this respect, and it's quite easy to handle."
"I would like more manual issues to have automated report-facing options."
"I believe that technical support could improve a bit. I would rate it a six."
"When it comes to improvements, I think that my colleagues and I often have issues finding the correct screen and the search box does not work as intended."
"If you are new to using the solution, you will find the setup complex."
"The licensing model of the product is a bit rigid, and it can be a bit difficult to downscale if your needs change while also being expensive."
"The solution needs to add mobilization, where we can connect mobile devices or wireless devices to do wireless scanning and bring assets into the database."
"It should have better integrations with other solutions."
"There is a slower learning curve associated with the tool's scripting part. It is also not cheap."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing is yearly, and although I'm happy with the pricing I do think it could be better."
"Licensing of IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact depends on the number of nodes on the element that you are monitoring."
"My customers pay for the ServiceNow IT Operations Management license annually. I'd rate the pricing based on value. ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a premium product as it has better features than competitors."
"The price of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is expensive."
"It is moderately expensive. The pricing itself and the licensing options are depending on the model and the customization."
"The solution is costly compared to the products offered by its competitors."
"The cost of ServiceNow is much higher."
"The solution offers yearly licenses and a subscription model for add-on features."
"There are additional costs, you have to pay more for everything."
"I would rate the product's pricing a five out of ten since there are vendors who are cheaper."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
Better handling of event flooding in IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact would be beneficial. If there are massive issues with power, for example, and we get millions of events, then it struggles to deal wit...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact is our event management tool, specifically the umbrella fault management tool set. All of our events across the network correlate the data for us, and we have certain use ...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact?
We remain a partner with IBM Tivoli and continue using their products. We use IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact's AIOps functionality. We experienced some skills issues, but currently receive assistance fr...
What do you like most about ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
From my perspective as an asset manager, the most valuable feature of the solution is the configuration management portion, where I can actively add something to the database.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
It is definitely high-priced compared to other products available in the same domain in the market.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
We don't use the orchestration part of ServiceNow IT Operations Management here. The CMDB part of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is a little bit too complicated, and it is a bit slow at our co...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool Impact
ServiceNow ITOM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Claranet, Consolidated Communications, Telus, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Telekom Srbija, Bendigo Community Telco, Capgemini, Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB)
servicenow, TransAlta, NATS, Symantec
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli NetCool Impact vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management and other solutions. Updated: February 2026.
881,821 professionals have used our research since 2012.