Alpha Anywhere vs. ServiceNow Now Platform

The speed of development from concept, through development and delivery of the end product is so impressive [with Alpha Anywhere]. There is an impressive array of genies and helper functions meaning that you can focus on what matters, the end user experience. It is not a "No code" solution but it is a very impressive "low code" solution which allows detailed access under the hood to tweak the applications to your own needs and the needs of your clients.

ITSM is straight forward creation of Incidents and Requests. It can get more confusing as you layer more modules on top of it with event management, risk, project, etc. It also becomes more costly as everything is a different license. Integration between other external applications is very easy to do with their API. You can easily create endpoints for external apps to talk to or create REST messages for the platform to reach out directly.

Incentivized

• Our company had been creating small business applications since the 1980's, when we used DBase IV (don't laugh... that's what was available). Then, we got more "sophisticated" with Microsoft Access. Clearly, we would always be limited with what we can do with those two programs. By accident, during an Internet search, we saw and ad for Alpha Anywhere (back then, it was called Alpha V). After working with the 30 free trial for just two weeks, we retired Access, for good. The best part was Alpha's flexibility in its use of "back end" data tables. That allowed us to use existing Access tables as we redesigned the front-end program (Alpha ships with its own DBF system, but we prefer SQL-Based tables). You can choose, SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle, Access, Paradox (actually, too many to name) for your tables. You can even create links to Excel spreadsheets or QuickBooks Tables. It's outstanding!
• Alpha allows developers to create very large and very complex programs. However, it's also a great choice for RAD (Rapid Application Development) for those who need to be up and running quickly or for less experienced programmers. Actually, the interface truly allows for "codeless" development of your application (more on that later). That means you can design a fully functional application, without typing a single line of code. They have some examples on their website.
• My favorite part of Alpha is that it is constantly adding features and functions that allow us to do more with our applications. In fact, one of my biggest problems is that I need more time to learn and practice the added features as fast as they are introduced
• Prior to Alpha Anywhere, we never considered creating/developing "mobile" applications (for tablets, smartphones, etc.). Alpha created a unique "panel" system that makes those application work great... and allows for the design of very sophisticated Apps.

Incentivized

• The ServiceNow platform is very good at incident management.
• ServiceNow as an ITSM system is very as it integrates with a lot of different systems.
• The CMDB module of ServiceNow effectively makes relationships between configuration items and other infrastructure objects in ServiceNow.

Incentivized

• I really enjoyed product when the database was a part of it, less maintenance
• Converting to the cloud has been challenging
• Security setup should be simpler, like Softr or Stacker

• The ServiceNow performance speed has big room for improvement, as it is quite slow in loading Dashboards with more than 5-6 widgets. We are keeping our ServiceNow version up to date with latest releases.
• Usually there are issues with having multiple ServiceNow tabs open in the browser and have different dashboards open in those tabs.
• The way of showing a history log of all activities on Incident ticket is not optimal and easy to use or search in and have very old design.

Incentivized

While we are very likely to renew, we are also assessing if we should renew all of what we currently subscribe to as we try to reduce costs. Some parts of the business feel there may be a better tool out there to fit their process requirements. We are currently working with them to identify what those requirements are to see if it makes sense while also pointing out a reduced cost of tooling is not always the best fit if we have an increased cost of customization and maintenance between tools.

Incentivized

It provides a lot of modification options which is wonderful for certain team usage but becomes too much of a job when it comes to the Service Desk. Also on the app support side, since too much information can be carried, it affects the GUI and makes it complex.

Incentivized

I was not in the team that take care of the installation of ServiceNow but their feedback was very positive. Go live was done by the planned date and their support at the beginning provided always a timely response. Their customer service is friendly and easy to reach. Today we don't use their customer service anymore because we have an internal IT dedicated to maintaining the system.

Incentivized

We went through a re-implementation last year with a partner and were very pleased with the outcome. We looked at several partners and chose one that was able to provide an entire scope and cost upfront of what would be required to complete our requirements. We worked very closely with the dedicated team assigned to our project throughout the process and they fully delivered on all of our requirements that we presented in the initial scope.

Incentivized

Alpha Anywhere is a full-stack IDE. It’s no code and low code, but you can also custom code if you need to. About 10% of our application is no code. 80% is low code and 10% is custom code.

I've used Freshservice which is very similar to ServiceNow. I can definitely say ServiceNow performs better in a larger environment. Freshservice is usually used in smaller organization or less complx environment. Plus the ServiceNow reporting and dashboard features are more accurate than Freshservice. ServiceNow is a bit costly but gives way more features that really helps my organization.

Incentivized

1. It is not great when they can't seperate apps/products from a particular sku, forcing you to make a business case for a larger portion of functionlity than your current business case seeks to address. 2. ServiceNow reps are able to work with you when economies of scale are projected out. They are willing to start at a desired tier and provide pricing at applicable upgraded tiers

Very easy to use. Capture more data from the Incident and problem management. Easier to escalate and following the change management process to resole the issues.

Incentivized

• Allows for a great return on investment since you can quickly become very productive and complete more projects and applications in a shorter period of time with hand coding and the normal programming headaches of PHP, C#, Angular, etc.
• You can afford to take on more and smaller projects since they will require far less time to complete than more traditional development environments.
• Alpha Anywhere is continuously updated coming out with new features and capabilities on essentially a daily basis. Continuous improvement and frequent updates allows you to always stay ahead of the curve and competitors.
• Alpha Anywhere allows you to offer lower cost solutions that will be completed in less time and that will be much easier to support and maintain.

Incentivized

• Fast implementation of our Sales & Operation/Projects controls and process - tool adapted to our needs, not us to adapt to the tool.
• Once we are a consulting/implementation company, our customers are happy to see that we use what we sell, and it is easy to show them how this platform/tool can have an impact on our own business.

Incentivized