ServiceNow has been boosting the workflows of businesses everywhere for 2 decades, solidifying its position as the go-to option for IT operations management as well as for improving customer and employee experience processes. Yet, for all its powerful features, ServiceNow isn’t the only option out there for that purpose.
Main ServiceNow Competitors
There are many companies out there that offer alternative solutions for ServiceNow’s suite of applications. While there are too many to list, the most important ones include:
Zendesk
The company offers a wide range of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions that rival those of ServiceNow, including help desks, customer relationship management platforms, and other AI-driven customer-centric solutions.
Oracle PeopleSoft
Oracle boasts a comprehensive suite of SaaS applications called PeopleSoft, which aims to boost the workflows of any business, including solutions for human capital management, procurement and supplier management, and asset life cycle management, among others.
Jira
A lot of people think of Jira as a technical issue tracking and project management platform. And while it’s true that a lot of technical companies use it, the reality is that its service desk tools can boost the internal teams of any business, regardless of the industry.
Freshservice
This is a great alternative to ServiceNow’s IT workflow management capabilities. Freshservice comes packed with automated and no-code workflows that can vastly improve your operations without any additional configuration.
SolarWinds
Another IT service management solution alternative, SolarWinds covers many tasks related to employee support, including ticket management, inventory handling, and configuration management, all assisted by AI.
Spiceworks vs. ServiceNow
Spiceworks is another ServiceNow alternative you should consider, especially if you’re a small business. That’s because Spiceworks is a free alternative to ServiceNow that comes packed with a robust set of features for IT management. Other differences include:
Feature set
While Spiceworks has a strong range of features out of the box, ServiceNow boasts an even larger collection of tools and options, which are highly customizable to fit pretty much any environment.
Ease of use
Both Spiceworks and ServiceNow are fairly straightforward and easy to use, but ServiceNow can get more complex, especially when you want to fine-tune the platform’s behavior.
Flexibility
Since ServiceNow is more customizable than Spiceworks, you’ll want the former in case you need to adjust visualizations and reports to your liking.
Additional assets
Both services have vibrant communities that are ready to help you with any issue you might encounter. Additionally, the features of both ServiceNow and Spiceworks can be extended with add-ons and extensions, although ServiceNow offers more options.
Target audience
ServiceNow is a great platform for any business, though smaller companies might not take advantage of all its features. That’s why those companies should look for the more cost-efficient Spiceworks.
Freshdesk vs. ServiceNow
Freshdesk is yet another of the ServiceNow competitors, though one more geared toward customer retention and customer support. Here are some of the most important differences between Freshdesk and ServiceNow:
Feature set
In theory, both Freshdesk and ServiceNow have strong and wide features for virtually every task you can think of related to the help desk. However, Freshdesk doesn’t offer many of them out of the box, and each user has to install and deploy them.
Ease of use
Freshdesk is one of the most easy-to-use platforms in its category. Besides that, it’s extremely intuitive and very fast. ServiceNow, for its part, can be intuitive, but its many customization options and complexity affect its ease of use.
Flexibility
Both platforms are extremely flexible and highly customizable, though ServiceNow offers more in the way of personalization.
Extras
Freshdesk offers a free plan that can support up to 10 agents. However, it doesn’t offer omnichannel support or most of its interesting features (which are all paid). Freshdesk, though, has multiple integration options for many well-known services. ServiceNow doesn’t have a free plan but offers superior support and training with its paid plans.
Target audience
ServiceNow is all about midsize to big companies, while Freshdesk can be perfect for any kind of company—even freelancers.
Open-Source Alternatives to ServiceNow
ServiceNow is a great platform for automating IT management and its related operations, especially because it’s feature-packed and highly customizable. However, if you need alternatives with even more personalization options (to the point where you can adjust anything your business needs), then it’s worth considering some of the following open-source alternatives to ServiceNow:
GLPi
Distributed under the GNU General Public License, you can adopt this for personal use free of charge. Through it, you can manage IT inventory and tasks as well as finance assets and user actions. It can work for companies of all sizes and has on-premise and cloud-based solutions, although these are only available for a fee.
iTop
Its name stands for IT Operational Port, and the platform delivers on what that name promises. The biggest advantage of iTop is how flexible it is, as it doesn’t force ITIL practices on you—though you can certainly adhere to them to add more formality and control to your IT workflow management.
Helpy.io
This platform is intended for companies that want to run their IT management on-premises and with utmost privacy. In that way, Helpy.io is a good ServiceNow alternative to avoid vendor lock-in while retaining the ownership of your data. It’s true that this might be more limiting than the other alternatives, but being open source allows you to adjust anything you need to better improve your workflows.
Custom Development Workflow Management Tools
There are many options to pick from when it comes to selecting an IT workflow management platform. ServiceNow is often the first choice, but the market is filled with off-the-shelf alternatives that can do a great job, from proprietary software to open-source solutions. However, if you want ultimate control over the deployment of your IT workflow management, you should build your own custom tool.
By choosing a custom development workflow management tool, you can rest assured that the platform will fit your operational needs and boost your processes without you needing to radically change those processes to make them work in a pre-built environment. In other words, partnering with a custom development workflow management company can help you create the workflow platform you need seamlessly integrated into your digital environment and with total control over its capabilities.
