ServiceNow vs. BMC Helix vs. SmartSuite: Which One Is Better?

Both ServiceNow and BMC Helix are well-established in the IT service management space: ServiceNow with its enterprise-grade depth and BMC Helix with its stronger focus on ITIL-aligned workflows, CMDB-first visibility, and automation.

Choosing the right fit isn’t easy, as it depends on your team’s size, budget, and the maturity of your ITIL/process discipline.

➡️ In this comparison, I’ll break down the key features, pricing posture, and customer feedback for both platforms to help you decide with confidence.

💡 I’ll also introduce you to a third alternative that blends flexibility, affordability, and ease of use in one platform: SmartSuite.

TL;DR

✅ ServiceNow is ideal for enterprises that need a highly customizable, ITIL-aligned platform with a huge ecosystem of modules (incident, change, asset, service management), deep automation, and extensive native integrations. 

It’s powerful, but expensive and often complex to implement and maintain.

✅ BMC Helix is a strong choice for organizations that want enterprise-grade ITSM with a CMDB-centric approach, change management, and built-in automation/virtual-agent capabilities.

Despite this, getting the full value typically requires meaningful implementation effort and admin resources, and some users note a learning curve and outdated UX.

✅ SmartSuite delivers strong value with an all-in-one work management platform that goes beyond ITSM. It combines customization, templates, and built-in communication features at a lower entry price. 

While its integration depth is more limited, it’s an excellent fit for teams of all sizes looking for flexibility and affordability.

ServiceNow vs. BMC Helix vs. SmartSuite: ITSM Features

TL;DR:

• ServiceNow offers advanced modules for incident, change, problem, and asset management and excels at deep ITIL alignment, extensibility, and a huge marketplace.
• BMC Helix delivers a CMDB-first, ITIL-aligned ITSM platform with strong change management, AI-assisted automation (virtual agents, predictive analytics), and enterprise-scale capabilities.
• SmartSuite delivers a no-code, all-in-one ITSM and work management platform that streamlines service requests, ticketing, asset tracking, and internal IT projects. It stands out for IT teams that want flexible, fast-to-deploy ITSM.

Let’s go over the 3 tools’ features, starting with SmartSuite: 👇

SmartSuite’s ITSM Features

SmartSuite offers a no-code, easy-to-use ITSM software that helps you streamline critical IT processes, organise projects, and eliminate traditional obstacles in the tech landscape.

Here’s a walkthrough of the tool and our solution for IT leaders:

Let’s go over the capabilities that make SmartSuite the best choice for small and large IT teams looking for an ITSM platform: 👇

All-In-One IT Service Management

SmartSuite helps enterprises manage their IT processes, projects, and assets in a single, unified solution.

Our no-code, easy-to-use platform lets you automate all technical processes with ease.

Here are the use cases that your IT team will get with SmartSuite:

• Manage critical IT processes: Your team can manage IT data and workflows in one place, from deploying help desk and issue management solutions to ensuring core business operations stay uninterrupted.

• Track tickets & issues: It’s possible to deploy a help desk and issue management solutions to ensure your business operations are not interrupted.

• Manage your IT assets and licenses: Track all of your IT assets, to whom they are deployed to and what software versions are deployed.

• Manage internal IT projects: Plan deployments, schedule your teams, and monitor progress to ensure you deliver on time and under budget.

• Integrate with your existing systems: Integrate with existing systems and data to consolidate and centralize your data. 

• Automate for accuracy and efficiency: Your team can remove inefficiencies and the chance for human error by automating repeatable workflows.
• Monitor and report on your work with customizable IT dashboards: You’ll be able to slice and dice data, track help tickets, work requests, and more in dynamic interactive dashboards.

Standardize Your Team’s IT Workflows

Your IT team can standardize IT request workflows with a centralized work request process. 

Our platform lets you prioritize tasks, assign IT staff and ensure that you achieve SLAs.

You’ll also be able to monitor your team with flexible reports and dashboards that keep you updated in real time.

Apart from that, SmartSuite's no-code automation builder provides IT teams with a visual interface that makes it easy to respond to events and take action.

That means you can customize your ITSM workflows without technical resources.

💡 Are you working from mobile? Stay connected to critical IT information, tickets and device information with our native iOS and Android apps.

Your team can use our mobile apps to share files, images, updates and other feedback to resolve problems and close tickets.

Out-of-the-box ITSM Templates

Our team has prepared a few ITSM templates for IT teams looking to get started right away, instead of building everything from scratch, such as an IT Help Desk.

Our ITSM template includes a:

• IT Service Request Management, where you can streamline work requests, automate repetitive tasks, and manage IT assets.

• IT Help Desk, which we built for internal IT departments looking to capture and resolve internal technology issues.

• IT Asset Tracker, where you can keep track of IT assets issued to employees or implemented in networks, facilities and workspaces.

You can customize our ITSM management templates here for various use cases, such as IT Security Policies, IT Security Audits, and IT Work Requests.

ServiceNow’s ITSM Features

Incident & Problem Management

ServiceNow offers an incident management system that lets your IT team capture, prioritize, and resolve issues through a centralized interface. 

The software supports automated workflows for escalations and SLA tracking, ensuring critical tickets are addressed promptly.

Its problem management module helps you identify root causes of recurring incidents and maintains a known-error database, so fixes can be applied faster next time a similar issue arises.

➡️ Together, these tools streamline issue resolution and reduce downtime by enforcing ITIL best practices and providing agents with all the context needed to better close incidents.

Change & Asset Management

ServiceNow’s change management capabilities let you plan and authorize IT system changes with minimal risk. 

The platform provides structured change request workflows, integration with a Change Advisory Board (CAB), and a visual change calendar to avoid conflicts and schedule updates safely. 

Alongside change management, the tool also includes a full asset management module that automatically discovers hardware/software and tracks inventory throughout its lifecycle. 

➡️ You can monitor warranties, licenses, and contracts to ensure compliance and optimize usage.

CMDB & Service Mapping

At the core of ServiceNow’s platform is the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), which is a single source of truth for all IT components. 

The CMDB enables relationship mapping so your IT team can see dependencies between devices, applications, and services.

➡️ Before making any changes, your engineers can use the CMDB to predict how an update to one component might affect others (i.e., change impact analysis).

ServiceNow also offers service mapping that visually ties CIs (configuration items) to the services they support, providing you with a holistic view of the IT infrastructure. 

💡 What this means for your team is that you can quickly drill from a service outage down to the underlying components and respond with minimal guesswork.

BMC Helix’s ITSM Features

Incident & Problem Management

Helix provides a mature incident and problem management engine that maps directly to ITIL workflows so your team can triage, escalate and resolve incidents with structured SLAs and routing rules.

The tool supports automated incident matching and clustering so recurring incidents can be surfaced to problem teams for root-cause work to help you reduce repeat tickets. 

Your IT team will also get access to built-in dashboards and time-tracking to measure MTTR and SLA health. 

💡 Already following ITIL? Helix’s incident/problem flows are comprehensive and built for enterprise scale. 

Change & Release Management

I think of Helix’s change management module as one of its core strengths, as it offers controlled change workflows, approval chains, risk assessment and impact analysis tied to a central CMDB. 

The platform’s change policies, automated approvals and scheduled windows will help you reduce human error and help minimize disruption from releases. 

➡️ What I’ve noticed is that that Helix includes features to enforce operational guardrails, such as RFC templates, CAB scheduling, and backout plans, while also supporting automation for low-risk changes.

AI, Automation & Virtual Agents

Helix has been investing in AI-driven capabilities:

• Virtual agents for self-service.
• Predictive analytics to surface problem hotspots.
• Automation capabilities to route and resolve common incidents. 

These AI use cases can help you reduce manual ticket handling by automating triage, suggesting knowledge base articles, and identifying clusters of related incidents for proactive remediation. 

➡️ The platform also exposes APIs and automation hooks, so you can plug workflow platforms and RPA tools into ticket lifecycles.

Integrations: ServiceNow vs. BMC Helix vs. SmartSuite

SmartSuite’s Integrations

SmartSuite integrates directly with ITSM-related platforms and offers additional connectivity through Zapier, Make, and native API support. 

The software covers the essentials for IT leaders looking to centralize service workflows, compliance, and incident management without heavy setup, including:

• Microsoft Teams and Slack for communication.
• Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 for productivity.
• Okta for identity and access management.
• Jira for development and issue tracking.
• Zapier & Make for extended workflow automation.

ServiceNow’s Integrations

ServiceNow offers one of the best integration ecosystems on the market, with native connectors and APIs for virtually every enterprise system. 

From HR and finance to security and DevOps tools, its ServiceNow IntegrationHub allows IT teams to unify workflows across business functions:

• Microsoft Teams and Slack.
• Jira and Confluence.
• AWS, Azure, and GCP.
• Splunk and Datadog.
• Okta and Active Directory.

➡️ Note: ServiceNow’s integrations can require technical expertise and additional licensing costs.

BMC Helix’s Integrations

BMC Helix provides a flexible integration model, combining robust APIs, prebuilt connectors, and iPaaS support, so you can tie ITSM into your wider tool stack.

From monitoring and identity to DevOps and collaboration tools, Helix enables teams to unify workflows across IT and business functions:

• Microsoft Teams and Slack: Real-time ticket updates and chatops.
• Jira and Confluence: Bi-directional issue linking and documentation sync.
• AWS, Azure, and GCP: Cloud asset discovery and event ingestion.
• Splunk and Datadog: Ingest metrics and correlated alerts.
• Okta and Active Directory: User provisioning and SSO access control.
• BMC Discovery and other discovery/asset feeds: Automated CI mapping for accurate CMDB.
• Ansible, Puppet, and Chef (orchestration/runbook automation): Trigger remediations and runbooks automatically.
• iPaaS/connectors (Workato, MuleSoft, Zapier): Orchestrate multi-system workflows without code.

Pricing: ServiceNow vs. BMC Helix vs. SmartSuite

SmartSuite’s Pricing

Unlike ServiceNow & BMC Helix, SmartSuite offers a free-forever plan with access to 250+ automation actions, team collaboration, multi-dashboard views, and more.

There are four paid plans with a 14-day free trial (no CC required):

• Team: Starts at $12/user per month, including Gantt charts, timeline views, 5000 automation runs, and native time tracking.
• Professional: Starts at $30/user per month and adds two-factor authentication, Gmail & Outlook integrations, and unlimited editors.
• Enterprise: Starts at $45/user/month and includes access to audit logs, data loss prevention, and 50,000 monthly API calls.
• Signature: A custom plan tailored to your needs and team size with no predefined limits.

ServiceNow’s Pricing

ServiceNow’s pricing is not publicly disclosed, so you’d have to book a demo with their team to get a quote.

How Much Does ServiceNow Really Cost?

I did find ServiceNow customer and public reviews, which show that the average cost of ServiceNow contracts can range between $50,000 and $500,000 annually.

Source

According to insiders, the pricing structure depends on:

• The number of users/licenses you require.
• The types of product required (IT Service Management, HR Service Delivery, or Now platform).
• The level of support that you’ll need.
• The additional features or configurations.

BMC Helix’s Pricing

As reviewed in our comprehensive BMC Helix pricing guide, the platform uses a modular, user-based pricing model that varies by product suite (e.g., ITSM), license type (named vs concurrent), and deployment model (on-prem vs SaaS).

The cost depends on:

• Which modules do you require, such as IT Service Management, Operations Management, AIOps, Virtual Agent, and Knowledge Management, as separate or bundled services?
• The type and number of users: Licenses can be assigned as named (per individual) or concurrent (shared among users), with analyst licenses priced higher than self-service or requestor roles.
• Deployment preference: Prices are different between SaaS (Helix delivered via BMC cloud or AWS) and on-premise or hybrid deployments.
• Contract terms and volume: Discounts may apply for long-term contracts or enterprise-scale purchases. SaaS offerings also allow purchasing in credits (e.g., $10,000 worth of credits for a year, as you’ll see later).
• Use of AI add-ons like HelixGPT: AI features are bundled into some editions but require separate backend token usage charges (e.g., Azure OpenAI or GCP Vertex costs).

How Much Does BMC Helix Really Cost?

According to insiders from Vendr, BMC Helix pricing costs approximately $30,000 per year, based on data from three recent deals. 

For companies looking at per-user pricing, the going rate for a named user (e.g., help desk analysts, asset owners, or admins) is $114.75/month, according to BMC Helix’s Salesforce AppExchange listing.

➡️ Self-service users (those simply submitting IT tickets or requests) are included at no extra cost in that offering.

Another source, the UK Government’s Digital Marketplace, provides detailed SaaS pricing, including:

• £218.15/month per concurrent Service Desk user.
• £72.70/month per named Service Desk user.
• £395.70/month per concurrent user for the full Helix Suite.
• £131.90/month per named user for the full Helix Suite.

If you purchase BMC Helix via the AWS Marketplace, the platform also offers a $10,000/year SaaS credit bundle for 12 months. 

These credits are prepaid and applied against licenses or usage, with any overage billed separately.

💡 According to a BMC forum post, BMC Helix Knowledge Management requires “a minimum of 30 user subscriptions at $149/month, including one named user” at initial purchase.

What are customers saying about ServiceNow, BMC Helix, & SmartSuite?

TL;DR:

• ServiceNow users appreciate its enterprise-grade ITSM capabilities, powerful automation, and deep ITIL alignment. Despite this, the tool can be complex, expensive, and requires significant time and expertise to implement.
• BMC Helix users praise its automation, change management and CMDB strength for enterprise environments, but many cite complexity, a steep implementation curve, UI/UX and occasional performance or integration challenges.
• SmartSuite users are fond of its user-friendly design, no-code customization, built-in collaboration tools, and strong value for money. That said, some reviewers note fewer native integrations for enterprise tools.

ServiceNow Reviews

G2 Rating: 4.4/5.

What users love:

• Powerful incident/workflow automation.
• Above-average tracking and reporting.
• Wide array of built-in ITIL processes and integrations.

‘’ServiceNow ITSM is very user-friendly and customizable. It helps automate repetitive tasks, manage incidents and requests smoothly, and improves overall productivity.’’ – G2 Review.

Common complaints:

• A learning curve and need for training (which can mean additional costs).
• High licensing and implementation costs have pushed some organizations to remove roles to keep costs down.
• Complexity of customization.

‘’As per my understanding, the per-user cost is very high for ServiceNow. We needed to remove a few of the roles because of the high cost.’’ – G2 Review.

BMC Helix Reviews

G2 Rating: 3.7/5.

What users love:

• Powerful automation and workflow customization that cuts manual work and speeds up incident/change processing.
• Change management and CMDB integration for impact analysis and auditability.
• Good range of integrations with other DevOps tools, New Relic, and OIC.

‘’An enterprise-level tool that is used globally for service management and routing of incidents. Integrations with DevOps tools, New Relic, and OIC. Built-in knowledge management for effective use and up-to-date information.’’ – G2 Review.

Common complaints:

• Outdated or clunky UI and an uneven user experience compared to newer competitors. 
• The platform requires significant configuration or partner support to unlock full value. 
• Performance or integration pain points reported by some customers (esp. when integrating many third-party systems).

‘’Expensive compared to other ITSM tools. Not easy to maintain, sometimes causes troubles like performance issues.’’ – G2 Review.

SmartSuite Reviews

G2 Rating: 4.9/5.

What users love:

• Intuitive, spreadsheet-like interface.
• Extensive customization and pre-built ITSM templates have helped teams get started in days and not months.
• Built-in collaboration and strong value for money.

‘’I love how intuitive SmartSuite is from the moment you log in. It's easy to navigate, and the templates really made it simple to quickly realize all the potential ways to utilize the software. I love how easy it is to see progress on a project at any point, and how all files, communication and calendar are tied in within the task. So insanely simple, but there is so much you can do.’’ - Capterra Review.

Common complaints:

• Learning curve for advanced features.
• Per-user pricing can add up.
• Limited out-of-the-box integrations compared to ITSM leaders.

‘’While SmartSuite offers a good range of automation tools, we find that some essential automation features are not yet available. Enhancements such as more customizable workflow automation and integration with other automation platforms would be beneficial. These additions would reduce the need for manual interventions and increase efficiency across our operations.’’ – G2 Review.

Which platform should you choose for IT service management?

If you’ve read through the article so far and still haven’t figured it out, here’s a quick use case summary to help you see the 3 tools from a bird’s eye view: ⬇️

SmartSuite is the right choice if you:

✅ Are looking for an all-in-one ITSM platform with a user-friendly, no-code interface and drag-and-drop customization.

✅ Need to centralize IT ticketing, issue tracking, asset management, and internal IT projects.

✅ Are looking for an affordable ITSM solution that scales from small IT teams to enterprise IT departments.

✅ Want ready-to-use ITSM templates (help desk, service requests, asset tracker) to get started quickly.

✅ Prefer built-in automation and customizable dashboards to monitor SLAs, tickets, and IT projects in real time.

✅ Need mobile access for IT staff to resolve tickets, manage assets, and stay connected on the go.

SmartSuite isn’t the best option if you:

❌ Require a legacy ITSM vendor with a decades-long enterprise track record like ServiceNow.

❌ Are looking for deep, pre-built ITIL workflows.

❌ Expect hundreds of native enterprise integrations (ServiceNow and BMC Helix currently offer broader ecosystems).

ServiceNow is the ideal choice if you:

✅ Manage IT operations at a large enterprise or across many departments and need a single, unified platform.

✅ Require a highly customizable, ITIL-aligned solution with enterprise-grade workflows.

✅ Have the budget and resources for a full-featured platform that can scale globally.

✅ Need advanced automation, AI-driven capabilities, and extensive integration options.

ServiceNow isn’t the best choice if you:

❌ Are a part of a small or lean IT team and prefer a simpler, quicker setup with lower cost.

❌ Don’t look for extensive customization or formal ITIL processes.

❌ Have budget constraints, as licensing and implementation costs are high, which is why some IT leads have been looking for ServiceNow alternatives.

BMC Helix is the ideal choice if you:

✅ Operate in a mid-to-large enterprise that needs full ITIL discipline (incidents, changes, CMDB, SLAs).

✅ Need strong, auditable change management and a single CMDB for impact analysis.

✅ Want built-in automation and AI capabilities (virtual agents, predictive analytics).

✅ Require options for both cloud and on-prem deployments and enterprise-grade scalability.

BMC Helix isn’t the best choice if you:

❌ Need a lightweight, low-cost helpdesk for small teams or startups.

❌ Require a modern, consumer-grade UI out of the box.

❌ Want to avoid substantial implementation and configuration effort, which is why some companies have been looking for BMC Helix alternatives.

Set Up Your Workspace In Days & Not Months With SmartSuite’s ITSM Templates

If you’re an IT lead looking to build IT service management workflows, give SmartSuite a chance with our free plan and pre-built ITSM templates.

SmartSuite’s solution for IT leaders offers just the right customization, native collaboration capabilities and a library of 200+ project management templates to help teams create and maintain a project management workflow.

Here’s what's in it for your team when you try SmartSuite:

• Access to a free plan with features including multi-board views (Kanban, Chart, Map, Timeline, Card, and Calendar), 100 automations/month, and 40+ field types, including formula and linked record fields.
• No-code automation builder to set up to 500,000 trigger/action workflows.
• Built-in productivity tools, including time tracking, status tracking, and checklists.
• Team collaboration and planning tools such as whiteboards and SmartSuite docs.
• Resource management across projects and teams.
• 40+ field types, including the option to add your custom fields.

Sign up for a free plan to test the water or get a 14-day free trial to explore all its amazing features.

Or, if you’d like to talk to our team of experts, schedule a demo.

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