ServiceNow vs. Remedy: Which ITSM Platform to Choose?
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ServiceNow and Remedy (renamed to BMC Helix ITSM) are two AI-powered IT management solutions, enabling enterprises to align their IT services with their business objectives.
According to Apps Run The World, ServiceNow has a 40.01% market share in the IT Service Management sector. BMC Remedy, on the other hand, has a market share of 16.7% (Source: enlyft). Collectively, they held 56.71% of the market share in the ITSM industry.
Both of these platforms indeed help you manage all aspects of the ITSM lifecycle, and choosing between them is often a dilemma.
This blog will help you understand ServiceNow and BMC Helix ITSM (Remedy), from their basic functionalities to autonomous AI agents, so you can make an informed decision on which one is the right choice.
Let’s get started with the basic overview of both platforms.
ServiceNow and Remedy: An Overview
ServiceNow is a cloud-first, AI-powered platform enabling organizations to automate, orchestrate, and optimize digital workflows.
These digital workflows include everything from IT services, operations, asset management, sales, services, and more.
It was introduced in 2004 by Fred Luddy with the vision of simplifying work experience for regular people. Fast forward to today, more than 8,400 companies, including 85% of Fortune 500 companies, are using ServiceNow.
Remedy is an IT service management solution launched in 1990 by Remedy Corporation to automate help desk processes and IT operations.
Initially, it was offered as an on-premise solution built on the Action Request System (ARS) with capabilities such as reporting, tracking, and resolving IT issues rapidly.
In 2001, Remedy was acquired by Peregrine Systems 2001 and then by BMC Software in 2002. It was renamed as BMC Remedy IT Service Management (ITSM), an on-premise ITIL-aligned process, including asset, knowledge management, service level, and more.
BMC modernized the Remedy into the BMC Helix ITSM, a cloud-based no-code/low-code solution. Today, BMC Helix ITSM is available in cloud, hybrid, and on-premises solutions.
ServiceNow vs Remedy: How are They Similar?
ServiceNow ITSM and BMC Helix ITSM (Remedy) are both ITIL-4 certified ITSM solutions with many overlapping capabilities. Here we have compiled a list of those capabilities to help you understand how they stack up against each other:
| Features | ServiceNow ITSM | BMC Helix ITSM |
| ITIL 4 Certified | Yes | Yes |
| Generative AI | Yes, Now Assist for ITSM allows you to leverage the generative AI capabilities. These capabilities include summarizing incidents, generating resolution notes, conversation summaries, and more. | Yes, it has BMC HelixGPT that enables natural language searches, conversation support, and more. |
| Knowledge Management | It has Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) v6 verified knowledge management capabilities that include creation, reviewing, categorization, and approval of knowledge articles to help users find answers to their queries more rapidly. | It also has Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS) v6 verified knowledge management to help users create, publish, review, or receive articles to resolve the issues they are facing. |
| Incident Management | Its incident management capabilities include identification, logging, and response to restore the services at the earliest. With configuration capabilities, it allows you to configure the incident form and other features, aligning with your organizational goals. | Helix ITSM Service Desk is a centralized platform handling the incident lifecycle from creation to final resolution. |
| Problem Management | It follows the ITIL processes and manages the entire problem management lifecycle. You can configure the forms, create a custom problem management model, prioritize problems, and more. | It uses BMC Helix ITSM change management processes to identify the root cause of problems and fix them following the best-recommended actions. |
| Self-Service Capabilities | It has a clean and simple front end to its IT support to allow users to assess the service catalog and knowledge base, work with incidents, participate in surveys, and more. Additionally, it offers self-service analytics capabilities to collect information about users’ activities. | BMC Helix Virtual Agent can be integrated with the Helix Digital Workplace Advanced to help employees browse the knowledge base, find procedures, and interact with virtual agents to find the answers to their problems on their own. |
| Change Management | It has dynamic approval policies, data-driven flows, and AI to improve the change velocity and success probability. | Helix ITSM change management application helps in assessing, evaluating, and implementing change management within the organization. |
| Drag-and-Drop Workflow Customization | It has a Flow Designer, an intuitive drag-and-drop interface to design workflows, automate approvals, or integrations without writing any code. | It has BMC Helix Innovation, which allows codeless application development and business process improvements. |
| Asset Management | ServiceNow has a standalone application, called IT Asset Management, that can be integrated with ITSM to have one platform for all the needs related to IT. | Helix ITSM Asset Management allows you to manage the IT assets lifecycle. |
| AI Agents | The ServiceNow AI platform has pre-built AI Agents ready to deploy, or it supports custom AI agent development using natural language instructions in AI Agent Studio. | BMC also has agentic AI powered by the HelixGPT. Additionally, you can also configure the existing agents by defining properties, adding tools, and setting instructions. |
| Release Management | It supports the entire journey of release management from planning, designing, building, configuring, and testing for both hardware and software releases. | It also supports release management across the stages from planning, building, testing, and deployment of software. |
| Service Level Management | It supports centralized SLA management with a visualized service timeline to make it easy to proactively manage them. Additionally, you can also configure SLA flows using a drag-and-drop interface. | Its SLA management capabilities are geared towards real-time insights, proactive issue detection, and automated reporting. |
| Mobile App | Yes | Yes |
ServiceNow vs Remedy: What’s the Difference?
Let’s find out how ServiceNow and Remedy are different from each other. We have compared these ITSM platforms on different aspects to help you choose the right ITSM for your business.
Deployment
As said earlier, ServiceNow is a cloud-first platform that supports cloud-based deployment options. It also supports the on-premises or sovereign cloud deployment options, which are reserved for government or highly regulated sectors with strict security protocols or operational requirements.
BMC Helix ITSM offers SaaS, on-premises, hybrid, or multicloud models, so you can choose an ideal deployment model specific to your business needs.
User Experience
User experience is the most important factor in the ServiceNow vs Remedy comparison. An ITSM platform with good experience is more likely to be adopted by a team. Additionally, it boosts productivity as users spend less time learning how to use the platform and more time working on it.
According to Gartner Peer Insights, ServiceNow scored a 4.2 rating in terms of user experience. BMC Helix ITSM has a 3.9 rating.
ServiceNow has consumer-like self-service portals enabling users to request IT services, track progress, and find solutions for level-one issues themselves. Also, ServiceNow’s portals are designed using a modular UI that emphasizes eliminating the complexities involved in IT services.
The introduction of SOW 8.0 (Service Operation Workspace) in the Zurich release further elevates the ServiceNow user experience. It streamlines navigation, integrates agent and end-user workspaces, and provides real-time AI assistance via Now Assist. In simple terms, users can enjoy a consumer-grade interface and instant AI-powered summaries, improving both efficiency and adoption.
BMC Helix ITSM also provides seamless and intuitive user experiences. It has a microservice-based portal that enables users to find the solution for level-one problems on their own.
Customization
Every organization has unique processes and workflows; thus, customization enables you to ensure that the ITSM tool you choose is in perfect sync with your business.
In this BMC Remedy vs ServiceNow comparison, we’re going to compare different customization opportunities available with each platform.
| Factors | ServiceNow ITSM | BMC Helix ITSM |
| Customization opportunities | ServiceNow has a wide range of customization possibilities. It allows the customization of ITSM solutions to meet your organization-specific needs without changing their baseline coding. | BMC Remedy also allows the customization of solution behaviors according to your business needs using the Developer Studio. It uses AR System Overlays to implement customization to objects without changing the original code. |
| User interface customization | With the help of UI policies, Flow Designer, and other capabilities, ServiceNow allows you to customize the workspace experience to meet audience-specific needs and deliver a personalized experience. Furthermore, it has WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), enabling users to make customizations and see the results immediately. | It allows you to customize Helix ITSM service’s color scheme, icon, company logo, and background to meet your organization’s needs. It also allows complex customization through the Developer Studio. |
| Customization guidance | It provides comprehensive guidance to promote business-smart customization. With best practices and recommendations for customization mechanisms, it reduces the customization complexities and technical debt associated with it. | BMC Remedy also provides guidelines around the customization of ITSM solutions. |
| Low-code/no-code customization | ServiceNow has been recognized as the leader in low-code or enterprise no-code development platforms. Its low-code customization capabilities are enhanced by the AI-guidance and guardrails to ensure safe customization. | Helix ITSM also offers you both codeless and code-based methods for customization. However, complex integration requires knowledge of programming languages. |
| Responsibility | Any customization made to ServiceNow is the responsibility of the user to maintain it. | Helix ITSM also doesn’t hold the responsibility of customization. |
Integration
Integration capabilities of ITSM software ensure that all the IT processes and infrastructure are connected, enabling informed decision-making.
Here is a detailed comparison of BMC Helix ITSM and ServiceNow ITSM to find out which one has better integration capabilities.
| Factors | ServiceNow ITSM | BMC Helix ITSM |
| Integration capabilities | It is known for its wide range of integration capabilities it offers. | Helix ITSM also enables the integration of the various systems with the platform. |
| Ease of integration | It has a simple process for the implementation of integration. Also, it guides for successful integration. It receives a 4.1 rating from Gartner for its ease of integration. | The ease of integration varies per the complexity of the integrated system. It receives a 3.9 rating from Gartner for ease of integration. |
| Technologies and methods | It uses different tools and technologies for integration, such as; • REST API • LDAP • JDBC • Excel, CSV, Email • SOAP | It uses the following tools and technologies; • APIs • Web services • C and Java APIs • LDAP • ODBC |
| No-code integration | ServiceNow allows integrations with various systems and platforms using GUI (Graphical User Interface) instead of coding. | It also has no code integration capabilities, with limitations. |
| Custom integration | It enables you to develop custom APIs to integrate ITSM with third-party applications. These custom integrations are highly customizable to tailor integration to specific business needs. | Helix ITSM also enables custom integration capabilities but lacks support REST API support. |
| Pre-built integration | ServiceNow has IntegrationHub, which has more than 200+ pre-built integration spokes that facilitate the seamless integration between ServiceNow and other systems | BMC Helix ITSM also has pre-built integration for integration with platforms such as Jira, AWS, Salesforce Service Cloud, etc. However, these pre-built integrations have limitations. |
| Integration support | ServiceNow offers support for integration. | BMC Helix ITSM also has a support system for integration. |
Automation Capabilities
Automation reduces the manual labor involved in IT services, ultimately reducing the operational cost. Here is a detailed comparison of ServiceNow vs BMC Helix ITSM automation capabilities to help you find out which one is better.
| Factors | ServiceNow ITSM | BMC Helix ITSM |
| Cognitive automation | It uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate essential business processes. | It also uses machine learning and AI, but it is more centered on predictive service management. |
| Auto classification | It automatically classifies the items based on predefined rules and criteria such as type, price, vendor, or any other custom criteria. | It classifies the incidents, tickets, and incoming emails automatically. |
| Routing | Using machine learning it can automatically route the requests to the correct group. | Helix ITSM also automates the routing of incidents to the right agent. |
| Change management | It integrates with DevOps to automate the change management process, eliminating the manual efforts, and scope of errors. Furthermore, it also automates the advisory board meetings with the CAB workbench to speed up the change management process. | It integrates with TrueSight Server Automation to automate the process of creating and approving change requests. |
| Virtual agent | ServiceNow has a virtual agent powered by generative AI that can automate the resolution of issues. It automatically routes the customer queries to chatbots that understand the issue and provide appropriate responses. | Yes, BMC Helix ITSM also has a virtual agent |
Scalability
As your business grows, the need for IT grows. Therefore, an ITSM tool should be engineered to be adept according to your business needs.
ServiceNow is a cloud-based platform that supports a range of deployment sizes. From Startups to large enterprises, ServiceNow can be used by all sizes of businesses. Furthermore, ServiceNow has modules (building blocks) that can be added as per the needs. This means you can start with the module you need, and add more modules as your business grows.
BMC Helix ITSM, on the other hand, is offered in four different categories according to system usage, such as compact, medium, small, and large. According to your usage, you can choose a category that best meets your needs. If your usage exceeds these categories, you can discuss with the Helix ITSM support team to seek help.
Price
Pricing is one of the most important factors to consider when choosing an ITSM tool. ServiceNow ITSM has three different pricing plans: Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. The pricing for each plan is estimated based on the business requirements. You can have discussions with a ServiceNow ITSM consulting services provider to get an estimate of the cost.
BMC Helix ITSM pricing is also determined depending on the business requirements. Remedy cost, they both have custom quote options specific to your business requirements.
ServiceNow vs Remedy: Which One to Choose?
The best ITSM solution for your business is completely subject to your requirements. For example, if you’re looking for an ITSM tool with on-premise deployment, then BMC Helix ITSM is the best option. The other way around, if you’re looking for a platform that has easy scalability and a modular architecture that supports your business growth at every stage, then ServiceNow makes the right choice.
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AUTHOR
Shubham
Service Cloud, Salesforce Managed Packages
With over 5 years of experience, Shubham specialize in curating solutions on Salesforce Service Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, Consumer Goods Cloud, Managed Packages, and ServiceNow ITSM. He designs and implements end-to-end service solutions that improve operational workflows and ensure seamless integration across enterprise systems. Shubham’s expertise lies in creating secure, efficient, and agile platforms tailored to unique business needs.
Cyntexa.
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