Device42 vs ServiceNow Discovery comparison

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Device42 Logo
2,110 views|1,210 comparisons
100% willing to recommend
ServiceNow Logo
752 views|336 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Device42 and ServiceNow Discovery based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two IT Asset Management solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Device42 vs. ServiceNow Discovery Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,857 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
"The way the solution’s automatic IT asset discovery and inventory functionality works is you set up a discovery job, then you can schedule it to run. I schedule all of the runs daily at different times so nothing is interfering with anything else. It's nice to know that you can set up the scan, schedule it, and sit back. You can check them every day and make sure everything ran, making sure nothing had errors, then you're good to go. Anything new is going to automatically be discovered, which is nice. It takes some of the stress off because you don't have to know, "If this team opened new servers, we need make sure now it will automatically pick them up." It is one less thing to worry about. It gathers a lot of data points.""The auto-discovery is brilliant. You can have it scheduled to run on a regular basis, and the infrastructure is always getting updated within the platform. I would rate the asset discovery very highly. It's very comprehensive. It covers quite a lot of different methods for doing discovery and it supports a lot of different types of hardware as well.""Previously, our company had a lot of issues keeping track of all the data centers and the inventory, as well as the purchase orders. All of these were managed by other tools. The good thing about Device42 is that it can be used for all this together. We don't need to spend time checking many other tools and files.""The continuous asset discovery is good because it means not having to manually input all the small data, such as IP addresses, leases, etc. It helps and saves us a lot of time.""The REST API abilities enables us to run scripts that pull information from our servers about software, storage, etc. Anything we need is pushed through REST API to the Device42 server and reflected in the report it generates.""The solution has some very good relational capabilities that show us how certain devices relate to each other and how some of our environment actually works together.""The topology layout is the most valuable feature.""The Insights+ component is useful for us because it does business application mapping and helps us visualize it. It saves us time because we don't have to hunt for data."

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"They have a very good network in the infrastructure of Discovery.""This solution provides excellent insights.""ServiceNow Discovery is useful for discovering the servers, like the servers of Windows and Linux, from the client network.""ServiceNow Discovery works better than other products I've used.""It does a good job of collecting the data that's necessary for data centers, and IT's operations.""ServiceNow's Discovery feature is quite significant because it allows for service mapping and integrates with VIN management. It involves adding a business context to servers, routers, switches, and data centers. This means understanding not only what's installed on these systems and how they function together but also recognizing their significance in terms of business applications from the business's perspective and how they impact business processes and capabilities. So when we delve into these aspects and connect them to the essential components, it can help you engage in more meaningful discussions to enhance capacity management practices. In essence, it contributes to the overall IT portfolio, almost functioning as a business platform. This platform is accessible to users who leverage the data to initiate incidents, implement changes, and resolve problems. Consequently, consolidating all configuration items or assets into a unified platform makes sense, especially considering you already have Discovery in place. If the cost is reasonable, the other two components might not provide much value, except for their user-friendliness, which is often less important to leaders compared to the desired outcomes.""It's pretty robust, and it's agentless for the most part. So, you don't need to deploy agents, which makes it a lot easier to stand up.""In the past, I found troubleshooting difficult in ServiceNow Discovery because I didn't have much exposure to the platform during that time, but then I explored some troubleshooting features, and I found that it wasn't that tough, so this is one of the qualities I like about ServiceNow Discovery. I also like that log reading in ServiceNow Discovery is much better than other tools. Another valuable feature of the tool is that you don't need to install many tools to deploy ITSM. You only need to subscribe to the modules to deploy the proper ITSM in your organization."

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Cons
"The breadth and depth of the solution's discovery of IT asset information means the system does most of the work, but they need to work on improving the database discovery part, especially for Oracle Exadata.""The reporting could be better. The Insights+ component is an improvement, but they even admit it isn't the greatest. The documentation on their website could also be improved, but Device42 is constantly changing, so the documentation would have to change almost daily.""It would be nice for the agent to have an installer versus a single file across multiple systems.""The solution’s automatic IT asset discovery and inventory functionality functions pretty well. There could be some improvement if there were some automated scripts to get it off the ground. I know it takes a bit of effort to get all of various managed devices into one place. We have to go and change how they are managed and make sure they are all linking up correctly so they can be tracked in Device42. Some type of automated script for each to get over that initial activation.""In my experience I believe that the key concern is the pricing strategy of the solution. Instead other solutions such as lanweber are much more cost effective. Previously, Device42 operated on perpetualysis without any fees. But recently they have altered the pricing model to include a subscription fee which I see as a very costly affair. Therefore I would like to suggest that they evaluate their pricing strategy and licence scheme, conduct a market research and ensure that they provide the right product in the market at the right price.""The architecture is a bit old-fashioned. Device42 is on one server, appliance, virtual machine, or guest. We are loading more into Device42 than it can hold. Overloading Device42 with REST API calls or tasks will directly impact every aspect because the server will be too busy to answer requests.""Since I was focused on deploying connectors and getting all the servers to be scanned, one of the biggest pains was when a job would fail, then the output (logging) was poor. For example, "Why did it fail?" In these cases, you get a generic error. It doesn't point you in the right direction and tell you why you got the error, which is really annoying. There have been times I asked, "Is there somewhere I can see a better log as to why is this failing?" That would be a really nice improvement.""The only thing which I have noticed so far that is not good is that we had an issue with some reporting from the tool, reporting we had to export. We couldn't do it in the way we wanted to, so we tried to reach out to their support but it took pretty long until we understood how we can manage the reports. We still haven't received a complete explanation of what we need to do and how to do it."

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"ServiceNow has a constant development environment. Hence they get constant bugs which result in incorrect performance. It should also improve customer service.""In a few instances, ServiceNow has failed to discover some basic things. Some other tools are better at network discovery than ServiceNow. I'm not talking about database servers or any other infrastructure—only networking. Cloud discovery could also be better.""ServiceNow Discovery could improve the interface. The navigation bar could improve. It would be helpful to have a landing page to go to find all the elements in one place.""ServiceNow Discovery should be updated to provide its users with more out-of-the-box information and attributes to support the routers and switches from Cisco.""ServiceNow is very costly.""In my opinion, it's quite slow compared to other tools, like Device42. Also, there are predefined fields in Device42 that are not available in ServiceNow. These are the basic things I think can be improved here.""They can expand on the plugins for some of the other tools.""The solution is too high priced."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
  • "The product cost is low. It is quite cheap."
  • "On a yearly basis, our licensing is $10,000. However, our license is now nearly full with devices. We need the next bigger license with 5,000 devices, which will cost us $19,000. We pay for a set of licenses, a maximum number of devices, and a maximum number of IP addresses. We have the smallest amount of features, which is enough for us at this time."
  • "The problem with using other vendor, like BMC, is the pricing. The price is so horrible and nobody wants to pay this money."
  • "We pay $100,000 per year."
  • "It's in the top-three most expensive solutions in terms of cost, but it has all the features that are needed."
  • "I am not involved in its pricing, but I have seen their plans during a discussion with the customer. For 500 servers, they were asking 50,000 USD. The cost of BMC Discovery was less than half. For the same thing, they were charging only 10,000 USD. Its pricing needs to be improved. As compared to other discovery tools, such as BMC Discovery and ServiceNow Discovery, its price is a little bit higher."
  • "Functionality-wise, Device42 is on par with industry standards, but price-wise, the solution is expensive. I'm rating the pricing for the solution as eight out of ten."
  • More Device42 Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "This solution is a paid option within the ServiceNow framework."
  • "It's a bit expensive compared to other products in the market, but it's worth the money you pay because it's far advanced in terms of features, automation, and capabilities compared to other products."
  • "There is a subscription for ServiceNow Discovery. It's expensive, but I think it's one of the best solutions on the market, so it's worth it."
  • "The price could be better. It's a bit on the pricey side."
  • "It is an expensive product with a price that depends on the models that you wish to purchase."
  • "It costs a lot. It is probably close to over a hundred thousand. It's an expensive platform, but you can't compare ServiceNow's Discovery functionality to other discovery tools. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison of ServiceNow to a configuration management tool to an asset management tool because it does those things, but it's not those things."
  • "You need a subscription to ServiceNow Discovery, so you can use its features. You can also use specific plugins with the tool, and some of the plugins are free. I don't have information on how much my company pays for the subscription to ServiceNow Discovery."
  • "The solution is very expensive."
  • More ServiceNow Discovery Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Based on the use case for Device42, I found the solution a bit expensive. However, when you look at the support and the industry standards, Device42 was on par with the industry. Device42 is a little… more »
    Top Answer:The product must provide AI features. It would be very useful if I could create datasets or queries from an AI interface.
    Top Answer:The product provides great scalability features.
    Top Answer:Though I am not much involved in the pricing part, I know that it is a bit costly. As per a general discussion I had with the stakeholders, I figured out that it is a costly tool. There is a need to… more »
    Top Answer:On the patent side, my company faced some issues with ServiceNow Discovery. In the subsequent releases of the product, ServiceNow promptly addressed the patent-related issues in the tool. More… more »
    Ranking
    6th
    out of 48 in IT Asset Management
    Views
    2,110
    Comparisons
    1,210
    Reviews
    10
    Average Words per Review
    915
    Rating
    7.9
    7th
    out of 48 in IT Asset Management
    Views
    752
    Comparisons
    336
    Reviews
    24
    Average Words per Review
    576
    Rating
    8.1
    Comparisons
    Learn More
    ServiceNow
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    Overview

    Device42 is a powerful asset management tool for inventory, asset discovery, and CMDB purposes. It can be deployed on-premises or on the cloud and is praised for its ease of use, coordination, and reasonable pricing. 

    The tool's most valuable features include agentless discovery, service discovery, business application mapping, import/export for bulk operations, reporting, insights+, REST API abilities, auto-discovery, topology layout, and data center infrastructure management. Device42 has helped organizations provide visibility into on-premises infrastructure, aiding in asset management, automating IT problem-solving, and aiding in decision-making about resources.

    Say Hello! to Automated Data Center Management

    Say goodbye to spreadsheets and manual drawings which are, at best, inefficient and quickly outdated. Device42 auto-generates accurate infrastructure and inter-dependency diagrams making data center management faster, easier, and more accurate.

    • Gain – Gain accurate infrastructure visibility — know what you have, where it’s located, how it’s connected, and who owns it.
    • Beyond – Go beyond just the physical — gain visibility into blades, virtual machines, cloud instances, and the applications running on them.
    • Support – Support and document the entire lifecycle from purchase order to retirement.
    • Infrastructure – Device42’s comprehensive infrastructure management enables more informed decision making.

    Know Exactly What is Running, and Where, with Deep Application Mapping

    • Mapping – Powerful application mapping tools relate data from various sources.
    • Related – Auto-discovered data is related with imported and input data.
    • Components – Dependency flow diagrams relating application components are automatically generated.
    • Visualize – IT managers can visualize the application’s different parts and interdependencies.
    • Charts – Automatically-generated impact charts show the relationships between applications, hardware components, and facilities.

    Transform IT Anarchy into IT Organization

    Access real-time configuration data to understand where resources are and how those resources are being consumed. Support future capacity and growth planning.

    • IP Address – Get the next available IP address (eliminate ping and pray).
    • Capacity – Locate racks with enough space and power capacity to house new servers.
    • Affected – Determine which users are affected by scheduled and unscheduled outages.
    • Supported – Know if a server/OS is still supported, and where to find it.
    • Accurate – Maintain accurate server-switch port connections.
    • Manage – Accurately manage rack power and cooling capacities.
    • Device – Know device interdependencies and their service relationships.

    Efficiently Manage Growth and Consolidation with Powerful Capacity Planning Tools

    • Rack – Find available rack capacity with heat maps colored by available units.
    • Power – Ensure power availability at a glance with overlaid color bars.
    • Find – Quickly find space, outlets, and power capacity for new equipment with “What-If” scenarios.
    • Connections – Visually ensure all your machines are redundantly connected.
    • Hardware – Easily identify any hardware without redundancy.
    • View – View power consumption, temperature, and humidity over time.
    • Data Center – Locate data center hot spots and eliminate problem areas.
    • Reports – Comprehensive reporting includes abundant pre-configured reports or easily create your own.
    • Change – Instantly report change history, contracts, rack space availability, and much more.
    • Consolidate – Remove the guesswork — know if you have room to grow, or power and cooling capacity to consolidate.

    Dramatically Reduce Data Entry

    Increase data center staff productivity. By minimizing or eliminating redundant and low-value data entry, IT staff can spend more time on high-value business initiatives.

    • Automatic – Device42's autodiscovery, import tools, and 3rd-party integrations do a vast majority of the hard work for you.
    • API – All the documentation you could ever want on our open API is available at http://api.device42.com.
    • Powerful – Device42’s open and powerful REST API is thoroughly documented, easy to use, and extremely powerful —enabling input and output of data to and from external sources with features like .XLS API imports.
    • Better Place – Freedom from excessive data entry means you can focus on building the next cool thing and making the world a better place!

    Enhance IT Service Management

    Device42 integrates with many popular 3rd-party tools and imports from almost anywhere!

    • Input – No need to input the same data into multiple systems!
    • Information – Enhance the information in your ticketing system with data from Device42.
    • ITSM App – Out-of-the-box integrations with popular ITSM applications such as JIRA, Confluence, ServiceNow, and Zendesk.
    • Automation – Out-of-the-box integrations with automation platforms like Rundeck, Puppet, and Chef.
    • CMDB Providers – Import data from other CMDB providers like Aperature, Microsoft SCCM, Solarwinds, OpenDCIM, Racktables, Rackmonkey
    • Anywhere – Import from spreadsheets, Visio docs, and anywhere else you can get a .csv file.

    Effectively Manage Asset Life Cycles

    Make the most out of your budget. Track software and support entitlements, and full hardware asset lifecycles.

    • Purchases – Record purchases.
    • Lifecycle – Asset lifecycle tracking from the day of purchase to the day it’s retired.
    • Contract – Associate a service contract with the actual asset it applies to.
    • QR Code – Automatically generate a smartphone-readable QR code for physical inventory.
    • Planning – Improve planning with accurate financial data for budgeting and auditing.
    • Proactive – Proactively manage contracts and maintenance renewals with powerful reporting and renewal notices.
    • Track Well – Track software licensing and ensure compliance.
    • Eliminate – Eliminate waste and save money.

    Resolve Technical Issues Faster

    • Services – Improve your IT service delivery with accurate and actionable data.
    • Flexible – Device42 will discover and correlate relationships between physical, logical, and virtual environments – providing a powerful tool for problem solving.
    • Ticket Makes – Attaching the actual device to a ticket makes confusion about which device is being referenced a thing of the past.
    • Locate Device – Locating the device has never been easier when it’s attached to a ticket; click the device and get all the relevant details from Device42.
    • Emergency – The next time a data center emergency arises, save the day in style!

    Centrally Manage Shared Accounts and Passwords

    • Find – Take control of who has access to what systems
    • Ensure – Ensure that data center teams have the information they need, when they need it
    • Very Fast – Quickly map service accounts and secrets to devices and applications
    • Powerful Control – Protect account and password information with granular access controls
    • Locate – Track password views, expiration dates, and password changes
    • Happiness – And yes…keep the auditors happy, happy, happy!

    ServiceNow Discovery finds applications and devices on your network, and then updates the CMDB with the information it finds. Discovery is available as a separate subscription from the rest of the Now Platform.

    Sample Customers
    Computershare, Concur, Doosan, Fitch Ratings Inc., Fujitsu, HomeAway, Jasper Wireless, Mercedes-Benz, Square, Twitch, UCSB, Zayo Group Inc.
    York, National Grid, DXC Technology, experian, BEACHBODY
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm36%
    Computer Software Company21%
    University14%
    Retailer7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm13%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Healthcare Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Computer Software Company18%
    Retailer12%
    Manufacturing Company12%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Healthcare Company9%
    Manufacturing Company9%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business28%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise52%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise66%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise51%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business14%
    Midsize Enterprise11%
    Large Enterprise75%
    Buyer's Guide
    Device42 vs. ServiceNow Discovery
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Device42 vs. ServiceNow Discovery and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Device42 is ranked 6th in IT Asset Management with 25 reviews while ServiceNow Discovery is ranked 7th in IT Asset Management with 36 reviews. Device42 is rated 8.4, while ServiceNow Discovery is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Device42 writes "Good reporting and discovery capabilities, and helpful for understanding device dependencies and asset management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of ServiceNow Discovery writes "Valuable relationship building that discovers and auto-builds to make cleanup easy". Device42 is most compared with ServiceNow, ServiceNow CMDB, JIRA Service Management, Infoblox IPAM and Ivanti Neurons for Discovery, whereas ServiceNow Discovery is most compared with Tanium, Microsoft Configuration Manager, AWS Cloud Map, ScienceLogic and ServiceNow. See our Device42 vs. ServiceNow Discovery report.

    See our list of best IT Asset Management vendors.

    We monitor all IT Asset Management 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.