Top ServiceNow IT Service Management Alternatives

What do you think is the best tool for modern ITSM needs? IT leaders know the importance of IT service management and seek a comprehensive ITSM tool to manage all the complexities of internal processes and streamline workflows. Undoubtedly, ServiceNow, the legacy ITSM player, tops the ITSM wishlist. However, ServiceNow alternatives and competitors can also be a convenient solution for IT service management. 

While looking for comprehensive ITSM features and tools to simplify processes related to asset management, incident management, change management, problem management, and others, ServiceNow alternatives and competitors can offer solutions specific to your business needs. 

Our guide gives valuable insights into why you should consider ServiceNow ITSM alternatives and what top alternatives to ServiceNow can be better for your people, process, and operations.

ServiceNow is a legacy player in ITSM. It offers various tools and features, including the Virtual Agent, NLU, ServiceNow Studio, ServiceNow Agent Assist, ServiceNow Orchestration, etc., to facilitate comprehensive workflows and automate ITSM processes. It offers integrations to manage a wide variety of processes for business applications while also helping manage IT incidents and facilitating asset management, including HR, finance, legal, and facility management. 

The key strength of ServiceNow lies in its ability to help users customize workflows for various departments, automate tasks, and bring efficiency to IT operations. It is widely used for, 

• Enterprise Service Management 

• IT Operations Management 

• DevSecOps 

• SecOps

• Customer Service Management 

This means ServiceNow has multiple components to manage various departments, which can be complicated. When you aim to take control of your ITSM operations, ServiceNow increases the level of complexity for you to streamline ITSM tasks.

ServiceNow is the industry benchmark for IT professionals who want to manage IT operations. It has ruled across ITSM for over two decades, riding on its comprehensive cloud-native technologies, a suite of ITSM features and tools, and comprehensive ITIL standards. Although it is the leader in the ITSM space, ServiceNow has many drawbacks. In the AI-first world, where you want seamless flexibility and convenience on the implementation and adoption side, ServiceNow seems too complicated. 

A better approach would be leveraging ServiceNow alternatives and competitors to transform your service management without having too many complexities. Here are the reasons—

• Too pricey to own 

ServiceNow has a complicated licensing model. Enterprises with big budgets can use it. Apart from small business owners, enterprises sometimes have too much difficulty because of their user-based pricing, which means the cost is based on how many users or agents can use it. It becomes complicated as user counts fluctuate or various departments want to access it, leading to unpredictable expenses for CFOs.  

• Lengthy implementation and deployment 

ServiceNow has a wide variety of modules for each department to implement. Due to its comprehensive features and tools, customization becomes quite challenging. Leaders need to manage add-ons, integrations, and other necessary iterations, which take months or even years to implement and deploy. 

• Low-user adoption 

ServiceNow ITSM has a clunky user interface, which is difficult to tame. Besides, the Virtual Agent is not a centralized tool. The SVA and NLU are designed to be implemented for an individual department. This means each department might have a different interface to raise queries and get help. The multiple-module structure makes it challenging to remember the location and provide incident details for each field. This is quite a heavy load for users, which can only be overcome through training and skill development. Although the deployment occurs, user adoption can take up to years for full-scale applications. 

• Limited NLU capabilities 

ServiceNow provides limited built-in NLU capabilities for workflow automation across departments and services. It always seems like an add-on instead of a comprehensive feature. Additionally, its legacy architecture makes integration with NLU features quite challenging. This can be another challenge when getting advanced reporting capabilities. As a result, ServiceNow may deprive users of essential metrics and hinder performance improvements. 

• High cost of maintenance 

Developers are expensive for ServiceNow customization, integration, and other configuration tasks. It is not feasible to have in-house ServiceNow expertise, as finding someone with knowledge in legacy architecture is tough. Outsourcing to third-party services is also expensive. If a minor problem is detected in the system, it can take months to put it in the correct order.    

ServiceNow ITSM is a market leader. However, the pains of deployment, integration, implementation with virtual agents, etc., must be considered. The alternatives to ServiceNow ITSM encompass better features and ease of use for your service desks. Legacy architecture can be intimidating as developer expertise is too scarce. With this in mind, the AI-first approach should be your first strategy to leverage ServiceNow alternatives or competitors.

ServiceNow alternatives or competitors are a convenient tool for IT service management. We list here the ten closest ITSM tools that feature better tools and capabilities than ServiceNow to meet your ITSM needs in tandem with ITIL standards. 

Workativ 

As an alternative to ServiceNow ITSM, Workativ provides seamless integration support with ServiceNow and makes it easy for users to manage their own support queries through integrated self-service within business comms channels like MS Teams, Slack, and web widgets. Workativ provides a low-code solution for your teams to implement app workflows for every app your businesses use to streamline IT and HR support workflows. Workativ ensures IT leaders leverage the power of Generative AI or LLMs to automate and simplify mundane and repetitive cross-functional processes and free agents to focus on critical service desk management tasks. With Workativ, IT managers can easily follow ITIL best practices and keep IT and HR support aligned with business objectives. 

Key features: 

GenAI-powered conversational AI platform: Workativ powers its chatbot builder with Generative AI. Its conversational AI platform is purpose-built to provide engaging and context-aware conversations that you can use for service desks and deflect tier tickets with a personalized and scalable chatbot. 

App workflow automation: With Workativ, IT managers can use a no-code builder to create simple, complex workflows for cross-functional activities. Integrating with chatbots or using pre-built workflows from the marketplace is easy. 

Knowledge AI: Knowledge management becomes a breeze with Knowledge AI, turning your knowledge bases into Generative AI chats for user queries. Users no longer need to use individual dialog for every workflow. Knowledge AI helps answer all queries by understanding the intent and context of user queries, thus reducing tier-1 queries for service desks. 

Shared Live Inbox: Your service desk can resolve more issues by leveraging a Shared Live Inbox that uses AI power to automate communications and coordination and prioritize tickets based on emergencies. Service desk agents can harness AI capabilities to automate response and summary generation, thus speeding up the pace of issue resolutions with ease. 

Live agent handover: GenAI-powered Workativ Assistant works better with LLM engines to understand user queries and know when to transfer a call to an agent. It quickly creates summaries of user queries and helps agents get instant context of the case. 

Pros: 

• Provides ease of use for workflow implementation for ITSM needs 

• Highly customizable workflow builder to create personalized workflows based on HR and IT support needs 

• Enhanced self-service portal for auto-resolutions of routine queries 

• Automated ticketing through MS Teams, Slack, and web widgets 

• Intuitive UI to work around use cases and implement them easily 

• Simplified knowledge management for user interaction 

• Unified platform for service desk management 

Cons: 

• Workativ’s help articles are missing. Active Integration support can eliminate this pain. 

• WhatsApp alerts or integration can be of great importance for updates. 

Pricing: 

Starter starts at $1530, and Professional costs $2250. Enterprise price is based on custom needs. 

Jira Service Management

One of the best alternatives to ServiceNow ITSM is Jira Service Management or Jira Service Desk. Its built-in AI engine helps automate workflows to manage customer and employee support queries. With the self-service portal, service desks can reduce tier-1 repetitive support and ticket volumes for agents. 

Key features: 

Service desk tools: Jira Service Management offers integrated tools to support request management, asset management, incident management, and problem management based on standard ITIL practices. 

Self-service: Jira Service Management’s out-of-the-box knowledge bases enable users to find relevant answers and deflect tickets. Employees can work at ease without needing support from human agents. 

AI-powered virtual service agent: Atlassian Intelligence powers virtual service agents to automate support interaction within Slack, automate mundane workflows, and free up agents to focus on the most pressing issues.

Pros: 

• Advanced reporting and analytics to identify areas of improvement and enhance collaborations with stakeholders to improve crisis strategies.

• Enhanced SLA tracking to implement for every use case and transform user experience

• Easy sync between Jira Service Management chat and MS Teams and Slack to improve problem resolutions 

Cons: 

• It is counter-intuitive and needs users to develop a deep learning curve to work with the tool.  

• It is only a niche product for those who have already used Atlassian and have minimal ITSM needs.

• Limited capabilities of reporting with a free plan 

Pricing: 

• Free plan available 

• Standard costs $63

• Premium costs $143

• Contact sales for Enterprise products 

Freshservice

You can choose Freshservice as another top choice for ServiceNow alternatives or competitors. Freshworks is behind this AI-powered ITSM tool, designed to streamline repetitive IT support and simplify IT operations. Its AI-driven virtual agent, Freddy, is a self-service bot that aims to deflect tickets for ITSM and ESM and relieve customers, employees, and agents of the burden of resolving issues. 

Key features:

AI-driven service desk: Freshservice provides excellent service desk support for ITSM with a modern service management solution that emphasizes incident, problem, and knowledge management. 

Unified service catalog: Freshservice allows you to apply business rules and deploy your workflows for simple tasks like password resets and complex tasks like employee onboarding. 

Smart alerting: Freshservice provides a comprehensive alerting system through Freddy AI, which provides a single pane of glass for all devices and assets and helps route calls to the right team without creating any noise.  

Pros: 

• All ticket communications can easily be integrated into one centralized channel like MS Teams and Outlook to get everyone notified about the calls.

• Its ticketing system is a comprehensive solution to support on/offboarding, projects, changes, etc. 

• Freshservice has a free trial to let users explore its features and solutions for ITSM operations.

Cons: 

• Some advanced features need a steeper learning curve to implement workflows, requiring users to get adequate training and development.

• Freshservice has limited customization options, and some constraints hinder users from using elements specific to their business needs. 

• Reporting features have some limitations, which take time to  

Pricing:  

• Starter costs $19

• Growth costs $49

• Pro costs $95

• Enterprise costs $119

InvGate Service Desk

InvGate service management is a modern tool that meets your service management needs. It is a no-code platform that provides adequate features and tools to meet the best practices of ITIL. Its AI-driven ticket management system empowers agents to simplify issue resolutions and improve IT service delivery, making it a better choice for ServiceNow alternatives. 

Key features: 

Advanced ticket management tool: InvGate has comprehensive tools to empower agents and facilitate service management efficiency for IT support or IT help desk. 

Modern UI for ITSM efficiency: It features an intuitive UI that helps agents understand its features and components and work on the requests with the highest priority. 

Custom dashboards: InvGate has a custom dashboard that users can edit to combine critical data points, offering greater visibility to stakeholders and bringing performance efficiency. 

Pros:

• User-friendly UI for both agents and users to take complete control of the platform and harness its full potential 

• It combines all information in one place through its self-service portal and enhances communications. 

• Enhanced integration capabilities to sync with MS Teams, Zapier, and emails for centralized coordination for ticket management 

Cons: 

• Implementation of some workflow functions is rather challenging to set up

• Outage issues can occur due to network congestion and stall service delivery 

• Lacks CMBD concepts

Pricing: 

Starter costs  $17

Pro costs $40

Contact sales for Enterprise package 

Ivanti Neurons for ITSM

Ivanti is known for its comprehensive tools and features, including virtual agents, AI, voice automation, and self-service, which streamline IT service management processes and enhance user experience. 

Key features: 

AI-powered chatbots: Ivanti provides AI-driven chatbots to drive proactive self-service auto-resolutions. 

AI ticketing: Ivanti Neurons for ITSM provides comprehensive AI features to automate ticketing workflow, reduce manual efforts, and improve SLAs. 

IT asset management: Ivanti offers out-of-the-box processes to consolidate IT asset information and manage assets throughout their lifecycle. 

Pros: 

• Extensive customizable workflows to manage ITSM communications 

• Real-time visibility for all assets for rapid incident management 

• Detailed reporting and analytics tools to carry out improvements 

Cons: 

• Complicated setup that needs significant time to launch 

• Needs a steep learning curve to tame the modules and features 

• Expensive and buggy for some users 

Pricing: 

Contact sales for custom packages 

SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds is another powerful alternative to ServiceNow ITSM. SolarWinds combines purpose-built ITSM features and tools to help your service desk team auto-resolve tasks like onboarding and incident management easily. 

Key features:

Incident management tool: SolarWinds allows you to take control of managing IT incidents using powerful automation. 

Comprehensive catalog: SolarWinds sets you up and running in minutes using its comprehensive service catalog for onboarding, hardware troubleshooting, etc. 

Problem and change management: With AI-powered algorithms, you can detect problems before they occur and tackle them quickly. 

Pros: 

• Offers a very intuitive ticketing system 

• Ease of implementation of workflows 

• Comes with powerful asset management and notifications 

Cons: 

• Poor customer support 

• Lacks advanced automation features 

• Complicated SLA logic 

Pricing: 

Contact sales for pricing

HaloITSM

HaloITSM costs less than what ServiceNow can charge for IT service management. This is its added advantage, making HaloITSM a better alternative to ServiceNow ITSM. HaloITSM is built to provide comprehensive IT service delivery through knowledge management, incident management, and SLA management. 

Key features: 

Modern and intuitive UI: HaloITSM's intuitive user interface allows its users to get up and running in minimal time. 

Convenient configurations setup: From the system administration point of view, you can manage your configurations and implement workflows as and when needed. 

Self-service portal: HaloITSM, a ServieNow alternative and competitor, provides a user-friendly self-service portal to auto-resolve service desk queries. 

Pros: 

• ITIL designed service management for organizations 

• Comprehensive service catalog to keep everyone updated 

• Powerful CMDB/configuration management  capabilities 

Cons:

• Limited UI customization 

• Access issues for remote workers after every upgrade 

• Little detailed documentation 

Pricing:

Contact sales for pricing 

TOPdesk

Built to offer extensive ITSM for incident, asset, problem, and change management, TOPdesk offers effortless IT services as an alternative to ServiceNow. Its ITSM software has powerful tools for agents to enjoy free time and focus on every critical issue. 

Key features:

Incident management tool: AI-driven capabilities help assign tickets and update everyone via email. 

Self-service portal: TOPdesk allows customers to register and solve issues using integrated knowledge bases. 

Handy service catalog: TOPdesk’s catalog makes picking up a relevant category easy and escalates the problem for faster resolution. 

Pros:

• Effective customer support 

• Straightforward ticketing configurations 

• Simple reporting and analytics customization 

Cons: 

• Not the right fit for large and medium organizations 

• Configuration difficulties in setting up automated workflows for email alerts 

• Inefficient ticket categorization based on parent and child link 

Pricing: 

Contact sales for pricing 

BMC Helix ITSM

BMC Helix ITSM incorporates AI-powered insights to elevate ITSM teams’ capabilities to resolve service desk queries. Layered with Generative AI features, BMC Helic ITSM provides new insights and comprehensive knowledge resources to help streamline IT services. 

Key features: 

Omni-channel service desk: BMC Helic ITSM brings a service desk where your people are through omnichannel integration for your people and agents.

ITIL-4 certified ITSM: The BMC service desk features ITIL-4 best practices to empower agents to resolve issues rapidly using rapid incident correlation, automated ticket routing, etc. 

Dynamic integration:  BMC Helix ITSM acts as an iPAAS to enable seamless integration with hundreds of third-party tools and simplify automation.  

Pros: 

• Follows containerized architecture to enable products available across the cloud, hybrid, and on-premise 

• Rapid application development with third-party APIs

• Rapid ticket deflection support 

Cons:

• Expensive compared to other ITSM tools, as per many users 

• Clunky UI for setting up rapid configurations 

• Slow service delivery 

Pricing: 

Contact sales for pricing 

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus 

ServiceDesk Plus solves the broader purposes of service management, with greater emphasis on incident management, IT asset management, and enterprise service management. It integrates the power of ChatGPT and other Generative AI capabilities to infuse intelligence and automate IT services. 

Key features:

Kanban-based ticket management: Kanban views help centralize ticket summaries and improve agents’ efficiency.

Predictive intelligence: ServiceDesk Plus uses ML-based predictive engines to automate triage for rapid resolutions of tickets. 

Self-service portal: ServiceDesk Plus has Zia, an AI-powered virtual agent that automates responses through Generative AI knowledge and accelerates resolutions.  

Pros:

• Multi-channel ticketing via web forms, emails, MS Teams, and service desk self-portal 

• ITIL-4 compliant tools and features 

• Advanced reporting capabilities 

Cons: 

• Lengthy configuration time for third-party software packages outside of ManageEngine 

• Potential for challenges while setting up advanced feature deployment 

• Frequent workaround for bug fixes 

Pricing: 

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has multiple pricing categories. Contact sales for custom packages. 

Our guide touches upon various ServiceNow alternatives and competitors so you can evaluate the best option for ITSM. When you evaluate, it is essential to confirm that each tool has enough features and tools to enable you to implement business cases according to your needs, meet your budget, offer usability for implementation, and offer excellent customer support. ServiceNow ITSM always comes to mind as a top ITSM player. Being a small or medium-sized business, you must not forget the complexities of connecting with the right developer resources and other constraints. 

Check our list and decide if any of the ITSM platforms meet your business expectations.

Workativ provides seamless integration for a GenAI-powered chatbot with your existing ITSM tools and automates ITSM workflows using advanced knowledge management capabilities and Generative AI search. Our no-code platform is easy to work with for workflow deployment and leverages the best benefits of streamlined workflows and expedited user experience.  Want to know how Workativ makes ITSM an easy process for your service desk teams? Schedule a demo today.

What are some well-known examples of ServiceNow ITSM alternatives?

There are many ServiceNow alternatives and competitors. However, some of the most popular alternatives to ServiceNow include Workativ, Jira Service Management, Freshservice, InvGate Service Desk, etc. 

Why is it essential to consider alternatives to ServiceNow ITSM?

ServiceNow ITSM is a comprehensive platform that offers multiple modules and features to manage ITSM, including ESM, which requires in-depth expertise for implementation and tailored experiences. Also, ServiceNow comes with a heavy price tag for small businesses.  What features are best to have within ServiceNow alternatives?

When considering ServiceNow alternatives, look for easy implementation, no-code flexibility, a self-service portal, dynamic reporting and analytics, and support for ITSM, including ESM. Workativ provides a GenAI-powered chatbot to simplify IT and HR support. 

What is the best way to evaluate alternatives to ServiceNow?

Sign up for free trials. It allows you to explore the product fundamentally and ensure that its features help you meet your business use cases. Workativ offers a free trial. You can check our free bot for IT and HR support queries. 

Do alternatives to ServiceNow ITSM meet ITIL standards?

All ServiceNow ITSM competitors follow the best ITIL standards and practices to improve service delivery and user experience through effective SLA compliance. However, Workativ indirectly helps you meet ITIL standards through chatbot integrations.