BMC FootPrints vs. SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BMC FootPrints
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
BMC FootPrints is an IT service management (ITSM) solution featuring workload automation.N/A
SolarWinds Service Desk
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage) is a cloud-based, multi-tenant IT service desk and asset management software for IT and enterprise service management. Samanage is on a single, always new instance of software. The service desk includes a self-service portal, service catalog, knowledge base, and SLA management tool. The integrated agent-based asset management solution collects contracts and licensing data from Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix systems.N/A
Pricing
BMC FootPrintsSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BMC FootPrintsSolarWinds Service Desk
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BMC FootPrintsSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Considered Both Products
BMC FootPrints
Chose BMC FootPrints
I did not chose the program it was chosen and implemented by our IT team. Based on verified reviews from real users in the IT Service Management Tools market.
SolarWinds Service Desk
Chose SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
BMC FootPrints lacked some of the functions we needed and were a little more cost-prohibitive. Ivanti had more of the things that SolarWinds provides but at a higher cost.
Chose SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Solarwinds Service Desk is much more intuitive, user-friendly, and modern than the service desks we have used in the past. It offers additional features and is a lot easier to navigate. We selected Solarwinds Service Desk because we were looking for a change and a way to …
Chose SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
We wanted a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering that was easy to deploy and also had features we knew we wanted in the longer term. SolarWinds won out due to the ease of forms-and-workflow through its Service Catalog and the integrated asset inventory.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BMC FootPrintsSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
BMC FootPrints
8.1
9 Ratings
1% below category average
SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
8.0
96 Ratings
2% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.09 Ratings9.395 Ratings
Expert directory7.04 Ratings7.956 Ratings
Service restoration6.02 Ratings7.357 Ratings
Self-service tools7.07 Ratings8.085 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications10.06 Ratings8.967 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation9.06 Ratings8.176 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards9.07 Ratings6.486 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
BMC FootPrints
7.9
7 Ratings
4% below category average
SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
6.9
81 Ratings
17% below category average
Configuration mangement7.77 Ratings6.973 Ratings
Asset management dashboard8.05 Ratings6.980 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement8.04 Ratings6.963 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
BMC FootPrints
9.0
4 Ratings
7% above category average
SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
8.0
79 Ratings
4% below category average
Change requests repository9.03 Ratings8.663 Ratings
Change calendar9.03 Ratings7.743 Ratings
Service-level management9.04 Ratings7.871 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BMC FootPrintsSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Small Businesses
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Score 9.1 out of 10
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BMC FootPrintsSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.3
(18 ratings)
7.9
(118 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(9 ratings)
6.5
(8 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(2 ratings)
8.9
(7 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(7 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(4 ratings)
8.0
(92 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(3 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(4 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.7
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
BMC FootPrintsSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Likelihood to Recommend
BMC Software Inc.
BMC Footprints is so well suited to keep the documentation easy to read and find, as same as typification. You can find specific documentation for an audit so fast and export a report using the specific criteria that you need to comply with your boss or audit needs. As I told before, BMC footprints need to be more friendly to the end users because they get lost many times trying to track some ticket or typing documentation.
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SolarWinds
If you are looking for a way to support a company and bill based on the outcome this software works really well. If it's a quick password change there was no charge, but if it's troubleshooting things you click the box to charge. It works really well for this. Also bringing all your assets into this and associating them to a client works well. I can't think of anything that this software would not be less appropriate for. It works well for what we use it for.
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Pros
BMC Software Inc.
  • Documentation. We try to reduce the amount of paperwork needed for staff to do their job, so by automating certain tasks, we are able to speed up the resolution process for trouble tickets.
  • Reporting. We'll use the reporting tool to get the number of tickets opened, response times and can go into granular reports.
  • Surveys. When tickets are closed, we automatically send out surveys to end users to get valuable feedback on how we did and what we can improve.
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SolarWinds
  • Approval flows: You can have multiple layers of approval required for the tickets and service requests you design. This helps us show auditors that access to privileged systems and data was formerly reviewed and approved by the appropriate managers.
  • Easy to design forms: You don't need to spend hours reading the documentation to figure out how to create forms. It's simple enough that you can just jump right in and start creating them with minimal training.
  • Lots of options and features are available for you to include in your forms.
  • Integrates well with SAML-based SSO and has capabilities for MFA.
  • Easy and useful search function. Need to find that ticket from last year that you worked for a particular user or issue? Just search by keyword or username, and it'll quickly find the ticket.
Read full review
Cons
BMC Software Inc.
  • Purpose based configuration- It would be beneficial to see a more purposed based, out of the box, configuration option. For example, if you need PCI compliance, more intuitive reporting would make managing compliance much easier.
  • Initial design and implementation- Don't think that your experience as an IT professional will allow you to stand this system up on your own. To properly configure Footprints and set yourself up for success down the road, get Professional Services with this one.
  • Somewhat behind the times- Service Core is making a huge leap forward with the latest version, 12, but Asset Core is far behind. There are quite a few quirks to how the application works and how it is used.
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SolarWinds
  • There is potential to greatly improve the capacity for cascading attributes. Currently, categories are limited to a top-level category and one subcategory. This leaves a fairly shallow decision tree.
  • Greater flexibility to modify the layout of incident request forms.
  • More integration options for cloud file-sharing platforms. Solarwinds Service Desk has tie-ins to Dropbox but not other vendors.
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Likelihood to Renew
BMC Software Inc.
It has been the business decision to go with them and that is what we will do. Going back, this would have not been the choice, but nothing can be done about it now. We are stuck with this application for years to come. Wish there were other possibilities that could be done.
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SolarWinds
My renewal is soon coming up, it is fairly likely I will renew again for the 5th year. I may consider evaluating what else is out there, It was requested by my staff to not make a change. They feel that SSD fits our needs, is easy to use and should keep it.
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Usability
BMC Software Inc.
It's so simple to use and customize however you want. You can create new workspaces and workflows with ease, set up new users, incoming email rules, customize the layout of the forms, and even change the colors and logos. It's just very easily customizable overall. It's also really straightforward to figure out how to use, you really almost don't have to show somebody how to use it. If you just sit them down in front of it and let them look it over, they could figure it out themselves easily.
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SolarWinds
Solarwinds Service Desk has a very "user friendly" interface. Everything looks nice and neat. And, learning how to use the system is very easy. It provides multiple services that are easy for most people to grasp, and allows for great organization of incidents and assets. Support for Solarwinds Service Desk has a good response and resolution time and are easy to work with.
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Reliability and Availability
BMC Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Because the data is stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) there are very rarely any outages. There have been some times when the product has been slow to load, but because the interface is web based it could be anything between my computer and AWS that was causing the issue. But also, because the application is web based it can be access from anywhere which makes it very convenient
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Performance
BMC Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
When the system is working, the pages load very quickly. We run reports all the time in the system. The reporting can be extremely complex or very simple. Either way, we have not had any issues with the reports. We do not currently integrate Solarwinds Service Desk with any other software.
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Support Rating
BMC Software Inc.
I've had no issues with the support for FootPrints. We haven't really had to use them all that much over the years, but when needed they have always been prompt and knowledgeable at dealing with any issue. I've worked with a lot of different support teams over the years, and they have been one of my favorites to work with.
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SolarWinds
SolarWinds support department will respond to you quickly from the time of purchase to after-purchase instructions & supporting, and the company is great in customers support. In buying a software, our organization always has a priority for the seller and support and accountability is very important to us, and the manufacturer or seller must be responsible and supportive.
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Online Training
BMC Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
When we first purchased Samanage (now Solarwinds) they provided us with an informational training session to show us all of the basics on how the service works and showed us everything we were interested in using. There are still some areas of Solarwinds that we do not yet utilize but I know if we choose to use them in the future we would be able to schedule another session with our representative to have them show us what we need to know.
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Implementation Rating
BMC Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
The implementation process for our organization was fairly simple. We set up an email address to receive the emails from the system (for incident creation), and we allowed the system to spoof our IT email to respond to requests. Solarwinds helped us with the rest of the implementation, and it took less than a week to get the system fully operational.
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Alternatives Considered
BMC Software Inc.
I was not involved in the selection process but in my opinion either SQL or Access databases would have worked just as well without the same amount of cost. These two systems would have been much easier to manage and would have tracked the same information in a less convoluted process and expense.
Read full review
SolarWinds
We chose SolarWinds Service Desk for its user friendly platform compared to what we had. Its was easier for requestors to submit tickets, provide feedback, merge tickets, build a suitable approval process. Our organization had a hard time going back and forth with the end user on providing a status on their request or issue, where most users just didn't follow through or lost interest in their issue. We would have to send multiple emails to get any type of feedback and that's something we did not want to keep on doing.
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Scalability
BMC Software Inc.
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
We have over 500 computers and tablets across our organization and this has helped us greatly in keeping track of where computers are and who is currently using it. I can see this product being useful to groups both larger and smaller than us and I really appreciate this product.
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Return on Investment
BMC Software Inc.
  • It helps us with keeping projects on track, which saves time
  • When someone wants to know about a project, they are able to without calling around
  • I have had a difficult time searching specifics, as how many tickets closed by me in 2021
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SolarWinds
  • We are more easily able to quantify user satisfaction with support.
  • We are able to develop SLAs that quantify and define the obligation of our support teams.
  • The actual cost of Solarwinds Service Desk per agent user is high in our estimation. The more you implement this platform across your organization, the more tightly tethered you are to this solution.
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ScreenShots

SolarWinds Service Desk Screenshots

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