BMC Helix ITSM vs Freshdesk vs Spiceworks comparison

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8,391 views|4,725 comparisons
86% willing to recommend
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3,344 views|2,007 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
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1,183 views|617 comparisons
86% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between BMC Helix ITSM, Freshdesk, and Spiceworks based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC and others in Help Desk Software.
To learn more, read our detailed Help Desk Software Report (Updated: April 2024).
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"BMC Smart IT is somewhat rigid, but they have a powerful backend that supports our complex need for extension versus customization. Between extension and customization, you can achieve complex business processes. That's one of the main advantages of BMC.""The valuable feature for me is that it's a tool that allows me to track processes right from the initial user request.""The versatility and customizability of the product is what I like most.""Smart Reporting makes it easy to create/publish views for tables, so our customers can easily create their own reports.""Improved our organization with better customer experience and reporting abilities.""The most valuable features of BMC Helix ITSM are the service level management, configuration, and reporting tool.""It has been instrumental in aligning our service desk with the ITIL fundamentals and continuously improving the operating metrics of that area.""We reduced many paper processes to electronic driven forms. It helps us a lot in tracking and managing."

More BMC Helix ITSM Pros →

"Omnichannel is one of the most valuable features of the solution.""The user experience on the platform itself is fantastic. The UI is clean and uncluttered, so it's easy to find any information about your customer or the issue at hand. You can find out the person responsible for that particular issue, what the problem is, who the stakeholders are, and how to resolve it. There are lots of tools that will help you do that as well.""Its simplicity is most valuable. It is easy and simple, and it requires negligible training effort. I don't spend all my time goofing around trying to find stuff in the ticketing system.""Freshdesk has allowed us to measure and track the response and resolution time of tickets which has been reduced from seven to eight hours down to 30 minutes to one hour.""It's easy to use and integrates with other tools. We can embed Jira into it, link Jira tickets with Freshdesk tickets, and use it for our knowledge base.""The organization that is possible with other departments is the solution's most valuable aspect.""The feature that I have found most valuable is the way that it connects to various folders especially because we use it as a CRM tool. We can connect it with our phones and our chat, and also with the API and have it as an email service. Freshdesk just makes our life easier.""The UI is easy to use."

More Freshdesk Pros →

"It shows the users that are currently logged in, which is not something that Active Directory by default will ever let you know up front.""If you're in the market for a low-cost service desk system, Spiceworks is a good software solution to start out with, especially when it comes to startups and those organizations that don't currently have any existing service desk software in place.""It was easy to integrate Spiceworks with our existing setup.""The solution can find all asset details automatically, whether it's a Mac address, computer name, IP address, models, etc. It's very helpful.""The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.""It lets us know whether devices are getting out of date and tracked warranties. Spiceworks also gave me visibility in terms of what software was installed on each device and its status.""Spiceworks' dashboard allows you to drill down to the notes, where I can take an inventory of the network and see the devices I need to monitor.""Helpdesk and inventory are both equally valuable, and they form the true core of the product."

More Spiceworks Pros →

Cons
"It has created more layers of bureaucracy.""The interface isn't that great.""Our middleman provider limits the available functionality so we cannot even do our own analytics.""It needs a more organic workflow, so every field you create is labeled throughout the stack. BMC has a few products that they try to bundle together. Generally, that solution works. BMC should take a step back and think about the overall solution—not only ITSM but also CTI Integration along with chat. They have all that, but it's not an end-to-end holistic solution with the added reporting analytics.""Adding additional fields does not work very well.""If I'm working with a client who wants to expand and move into other areas - they want to expand their workflow and other parts of the organization, they want to do some work with project management, they want to do some work with HR - I'm not sure that BMC Remedy is doing that. And it's because of their platform. Any software has a lifecycle. To me, BMC is a dated architecture.""Smart Reporting was added, then was purchased from another vendor. We have little ability to customize and correct issues due to this.""The reports need improvement, it is not a good functioning tool."

More BMC Helix ITSM Cons →

"There are a few things we have asked for, like a forward button. When a ticket comes in, we forward it, but it doesn't sync up with the forward. That is the one they have to rework. The other is when we forward the ticket, it doesn't go all, or certain things don't go with it. We have told them about it, and they are working on it. It would be better if they gave us a more standard reporting template. Although they already have some, many aren't usable. It would be easier if we had more templates to work with.""For integrations, we need to write code that communicates with their system in order to enable certain functionality in the system. This is a lot of work for their customers.""The reporting, analysis modules and insights capabilities for this solution could be improved.""Sometimes our requirements are not matched with Freshdesk's free version as most of the advanced features are not available to us.""Freshdesk could improve its capabilities. It's missing the article formatting, and the overall look and feel make it not easy to use. The administration instructions on how to manage the automation, capability, and integration with third parties, such as chat or bots, are very important in these types of solutions.""There aren't any features that we want to enhance, but we need to mature in our usage of some of them. I can't say any feature is missing or needs improvement, but a tool's built-in features need to evolve customer feedback. We have a dialogue set up for that kind of feedback.""I would like to see a little bit more color in the solution.""Technical support is not the best. It could be much, much better and offer better support to users."

More Freshdesk Cons →

"I would like to see more information when drilling down into access permissions, assignments management, or tagging. When I click a note or a device, I should be able to see more details about the router and modem. For example, I want to see the version, downtime, availability, latency, etc. I should have easy access to everything about our assets at a glance.""Having an integrated asset management tool, where I can plug in things that are offline, would be good.""It would be nice to have remote access to the solution via a tablet. They also need remote control from a PC. Right now, to complete the technical support process, you have to have a tool to access the PC, and check the problems.""Once a device was recognized on the network, Spiceworks never got rid of it even after you took it off the network. You had to go in and manually remove it.""With Spiceworks, like, when I open the websites, I have to Zoom in. I need to zoom in on those websites sometimes because it makes it horrible to use.""I would like the solution to allow for more direct interaction with computers. I can open tickets and I can see their status, but I can't interact directly with the computers themselves.""One of the biggest ways in which Spiceworks could improve is by developing better and more automated workflows. For example, in another solution called ServiceDesk by ManageEngine, you can have levels of approval in the event that there is a request for new software, or when someone requests a VPN or WiFi connection. This kind of multi-stage approval feature provided by ServiceDesk does not appear to exist in Spiceworks, and it is one of their main shortcomings for me.""The network mapping could be improved. Putting together an actual bonafide network map would be really nice."

More Spiceworks Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Please always get the latest quote from a BMC partner or from BMC. Check for the latest offerings."
  • "While purchasing, try to negotiate on per user licensing costs, associated maintenance, and purchase 20% more then what you think you should have. Bulk is always cheaper."
  • "If Customer and IT agents are happy, that is one of the greatest ROI. However, one of the major factors is Leadership, because at the end they have to justify the cost."
  • "It is costly, but it is well worth it."
  • "Just make sure you really sit down and look at what you will be using per user, therefore you will not be surprised with a big bill. You do not want every user having every license, it really is not needed."
  • "If you are looking for some kind of professional services form the OEM then you would have to purchase that."
  • "It is too expensive for a small business."
  • "It is not very expensive and not very cheap. It is somewhere in-between. Some of the features are more expensive. There are also additional costs. If you want to use most of the features, you need to pay more."
  • More BMC Helix ITSM Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "It was definitely not expensive. It was two grand or maybe three grand total for a year. It has just straight and simple standard licensing fees. There is no additional fee."
  • "The price could be better, but it's okay. Compared to ServiceNow and JIRA, Freshworks offers a competitive price. There are also additional licensing costs because you need Microsoft Outlook. Each new email account costs around $15 to $19."
  • "The best system plan is enterprise. It costs basically 79 Euros per agent per month when it's billed annually and 95 Euros per agent per month when it's billed monthly."
  • "We use a licensing model only so we pay for the number of agents we have configured in the system only."
  • "Freshdesk was the best solution with the best price. It was cost efficient and included all the features that we needed."
  • "We use a combination of Freshdesk, Freshservice, and Freshchat. We use the whole suite. Weirdly enough, we pay more for Freshdesk than we do for Freshservice. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing. You can get different bundles, and you can always move to different plans that are standard. Freshservice can go anywhere from $19 up to $120 per agent, per month. There is such a wide range, and it is very customizable to your needs."
  • "It is costly."
  • "The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."
  • More Freshdesk Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The product is free! Get it now."
  • "It's free."
  • "It might be about $300 annually for a bigger company. If you pay annually, it's better and cheaper."
  • "Seeing that it is a low-cost solution, I would advise you to go ahead with Spiceworks and experiment with it to see if you can get things working properly, especially if you currently don't have any existing service desk software in place."
  • "The tool is cheap."
  • More Spiceworks Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want using these, but they require quite some expertise before you can use them. Then there are the ones that are not open source, the enterprise softwares and cost you some money, but on the other hand, they are extremely easy to set-up and learn. You can have them up and running in a matter of minutes. And then there are those which are completely cloud based. They can be free of cost or charge some money depending on the software. The good thing about these is that you don’t have to install any extra software, and it can be managed completely online but then again these have limited features and you cannot exploit them to the full extent as you can do with the open-source and to some extent the enterprise software, so I won’t suggest you to use these, because these are generally not the complete solutions and require other support software to achieve the same. Below I have listed the outstanding pros and cons of the various Network analyzers that you can look into Nagios Pros: Nagios offers an extensive set of collector plug-ins that allows users to gather performance and availability data from a broad range of operating systems, including  Windows and Netware Nagios… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:If we consider major players like Ford or BMW, their core focus is manufacturing products like cars. To ensure smooth… more »
    Top Answer:The tool needs greater customization flexibility, particularly concerning notifications and the progressive view web… more »
    Top Answer:We used to support VMware applications, focusing on distributed applications such as data from ETW, Snowflake, and SAP… more »
    Top Answer:Freshdesk significantly improved our customer issue resolution process. We can now easily record and track all customer… more »
    Top Answer:I would like to see improvements in the account management aspect, having a customer portal for better visibility into… more »
    Top Answer:I use Freshdesk to manage IT support tickets for our team of 15 IT professionals across multiple countries. It has been… more »
    Top Answer:The solution is easy to use and easy to manage.
    Top Answer:The GUI must be improved. The GUI looks old-fashioned. The vendor must do some web development for it.
    Ranking
    3rd
    out of 59 in Help Desk Software
    Views
    8,391
    Comparisons
    4,725
    Reviews
    20
    Average Words per Review
    425
    Rating
    7.6
    6th
    out of 59 in Help Desk Software
    Views
    3,344
    Comparisons
    2,007
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    629
    Rating
    8.1
    16th
    out of 59 in Help Desk Software
    Views
    1,183
    Comparisons
    617
    Reviews
    5
    Average Words per Review
    666
    Rating
    7.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Remedy ITSM, Remedy, Helix Remedy
    Learn More
    Overview

    BMC Helix ITSM is a cutting-edge IT service management platform that leads the service management industry. It is built natively for mobile with an intuitive, beautiful, people-centric user experience that makes your whole organization more productive. This platform leverages artificial intelligence to automate and streamline various service management processes. In doing so, it will ultimately make your organization more efficient. This simple-to-use platform is capable of handling even your organization’s most advanced management requirements.

    BMC Helix ITSM is a predictive platform that does not simply wait for problems to occur. The advanced analytics software aims to improve your organization’s efficiency by spotting weak areas and then proposing solutions. This platform can improve your resource deployment efficiency by as much as 45% .This is why it is trusted by corporations across a variety of industries.

    Key Features

    Some of BMC Helix ITSM’s key features include:

    • Solves service issues in a way that makes you more efficient. BMC Helix ITSM employs advanced analytic software that searches for areas where your organization can drive efficiencies to provide the best possible service.
    • Groups issues that recur in a way that streamlines both analysis and incident management. It uses artificial intelligence to identify and solve groups of incidents in real time. The AI automates these processes, which can prove both tedious and time-consuming.
    • Securely and seamlessly provides services across multi-cloud environments with “a single pane of glass” interface. This allows you to be highly flexible. You can configure your services in a number of different ways without having to worry that your multi-cloud environment won’t be able to support your service management.
    • The ability to view all of your management data in a way that provides you with clear insights into your system’s management. BMC Helix ITSM enables you to create custom reports and dashboards. This makes it possible for you to see any and all significant trends in your operations and services data.

    Reviews from Real Users

    BMC Helix ITSM’s software stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two of these are the robust activity tracking features and the lightweight nature of the solution.

    A PeerSpot user who is a technical Program Manager and Site Lead at a computer software company notes the nature of Helix’s task tracking when they write, “The most valuable features I have found are the activity logs. Additionally, the other features where you are able to continuously address issues and are able to annotate notes inside to convey them to the customer. The customer can read the notes and are able to know where you are in the procedures and process of fixing the problem for them. It has a good interactive piece for dialogue with customers where you do not have to interact with them personally, but they can do it on their own just by going into that activity log. This is great for the customer to have the ability to find out how things are being progressively taken care of.”

    Another PeerSpot user, who is a Practice Director of Global Infrastructure Services at a computer software company, notes, “Many other tools are similar. I've used these tools and find that they meet my requirements. Helix is more lightweight than these tools. It's a traditional tool that was developed more than 10 years ago. Ease of use is the operative word.”

    Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer support solution that provides organizations with the features necessary to effectively streamline their support processes. This includes powerful multichannel capability, integrated game mechanics, smart automations, and more.

    The solution is designed to automate agent workflows and resolve routine questions using AI and bots. Freshdesk allows managers to prioritize, categorize, and assign tickets to their agents, making it easy for them to collaborate and quickly respond to customers. 

    Freshdesk Features and Benefits

    Some of the solution's top features and benefits include:

    • Simplified ticketing: With Freshdesk, you can easily prioritize, manage, and assign trackable tickets. The management system ensures that multiple agents don’t work on the same ticket by accident. You can easily set deadlines for ticket resolution based on specific categories and create custom statuses that suit your workflow to identify what stage a ticket is in.
    • Automation: Automatically assign tickets to agents and groups based on keywords and requests and set up automated repeated actions and provide quick, consistent responses to common questions using pre-formatted replies. In addition, you can choose to prevent the reopening of tickets when customers reply with a thank you.
    • Improved collaboration: Share tickets with other teams while retaining full visibility into the progress being made on the issue. Related tickets can be linked together to better keep track of the big picture. Tickets can also be split into smaller child tickets and assigned to multiple agents to help resolve complex, multi-stage issues.
    • Build up your knowledge base: Create effective support documentation by enabling agents to convert their ticket replies into knowledge base articles, while they reply.
    • Metrics and reporting: See how different agents and groups are performing by viewing various help desk metrics and improve performance by identifying problems based on insights.

      With Freshdesk’s reporting tools, you can schedule the periodic delivery of out-of-the-box and custom reports to your inbox. The solution’s customer satisfaction reports provide you with feedback on how your customers rate your support.
    • Forum moderation: Set up moderation workflows to ensure that forum posts that violate your guidelines are not immediately published. Critical issues raised in the community are automatically converted into tickets to ensure they get the required response.

    • Integration: Freshdesk’s open API can be used to integrate the solution with multiple  third-party systems. 
    • Comprehensive security: Freshdesk’s security features allow you to:

      • Set custom access permissions for agents.
      • Perform comprehensive audits of networks and systems.
      • Secure your own support domain or vanity URL with custom SSL certificates.
      • Whitelist IP ranges and restrict login access outside of work, or link IP whitelisting to a VPN.
      • Set up SSO scripts for credential authentication.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Freshdesk stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its effective ticketing system and its intuitive interface.

    Deepak B., an application manager, writes, “Freshdesk has allowed us to measure and track the response and resolution time of tickets which has been reduced from seven to eight hours down to 30 minutes to one hour. This information is valuable for board meetings.”

    From network inventory and network monitoring to help desk software, and mobile device management (MDM) to cloud services detection, Spiceworks helps you manage everything about your IT workday from one easy place.
    Sample Customers
    Brookfield, HealthSouth Corporation, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Mercator, SAP, Stanford University
    Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
    Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Symantec, Webroot, EMC, Pertino
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Manufacturing Company16%
    Comms Service Provider13%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Government10%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Retailer21%
    Computer Software Company21%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company23%
    Media Company6%
    Real Estate/Law Firm6%
    Retailer6%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company16%
    Construction Company10%
    Non Profit6%
    Hospitality Company6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government7%
    University6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business22%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise61%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business17%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise70%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business59%
    Midsize Enterprise14%
    Large Enterprise28%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise56%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business50%
    Midsize Enterprise29%
    Large Enterprise21%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business32%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise50%
    Buyer's Guide
    Help Desk Software
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, BMC and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: April 2024.
    768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.