BMC Helix ITSM vs. Spiceworks Help Desk

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BMC Helix ITSM
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
BMC Helix ITSM replaces Remedy. It is a broad suite of ITSM, tools with strong integrations to other BMC tools and in-built ITAM. The product is used mainly by global brands and is offered in on-premise and SaaS configurations.N/A
Spiceworks Help Desk
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Spiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management. The Spiceworks Network Monitor provides information on observed IT for problem tracking and server performance monitoring. And finally, the Spiceworks Help Desk Software lets IT personnel stay on top of issues across the network with a ticketing system. Help desk roles with role-based…N/A
Pricing
BMC Helix ITSMSpiceworks Help Desk
Editions & Modules
BMC Helix ITSM
Contact Sales
All Tiers
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BMC Helix ITSMSpiceworks Help Desk
Free Trial
NoNo
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 Helix ITSMSpiceworks Help Desk
Considered Both Products
BMC Helix ITSM
Chose BMC Helix ITSM
BMC Remedy is the whole package where all of your ITSM operations can be managed. It is a reliable product on which the whole organization can depend on as ITSM is highly critical for any organization. Nobody thinks of using any other tool if they are using this tool. Nowadays, …
Chose BMC Helix ITSM
Although Spiceworks appeared to be easier to set up and use, we felt that BMC Remedy was more robust. We noticed that the user base for BMC Remedy was huge. Although this should never be the single deciding factor, it was definitely a big plus. The ability to have cloud-based …
Spiceworks Help Desk
Chose Spiceworks Help Desk
A lot of the competition starts with some free options, but bare minimum or "paid only modules" etc. And their support is often either non existent or convoluted while Spiceworks Help Desk is both great and responsive as well as having an open community and forums. You can …
Chose Spiceworks Help Desk
Spiceworks has all of the features we would require. It matched up well in features and definitely price!
Chose Spiceworks Help Desk
Besides the advanced SLA and change management features in CA and BMC, Spiceworks does everything they can do, but with a little more spice! Most of the bigger brand ServiceDesk softwares do just that - servicedesk. Whereas, Spiceworks does servicedesk and IT management tasks …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BMC Helix ITSMSpiceworks Help Desk
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
8.6
93 Ratings
5% above category average
Spiceworks Help Desk
8.4
55 Ratings
4% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.192 Ratings8.054 Ratings
Expert directory8.763 Ratings7.447 Ratings
Service restoration8.875 Ratings00 Ratings
Self-service tools8.884 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.366 Ratings8.742 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation8.382 Ratings6.345 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards8.583 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings10.054 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings10.053 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
8.5
81 Ratings
3% above category average
Spiceworks Help Desk
-
Ratings
Configuration mangement8.878 Ratings00 Ratings
Asset management dashboard8.674 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement8.158 Ratings00 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
8.6
85 Ratings
1% above category average
Spiceworks Help Desk
-
Ratings
Change requests repository8.984 Ratings00 Ratings
Change calendar8.480 Ratings00 Ratings
Service-level management8.680 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
-
Ratings
Spiceworks Help Desk
7.1
52 Ratings
10% below category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings7.648 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings6.748 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix ITSM
-
Ratings
Spiceworks Help Desk
7.9
52 Ratings
0% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings8.146 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings6.111 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings7.227 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings9.446 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.528 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BMC Helix ITSMSpiceworks Help Desk
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.4 out of 10
Front
Front
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
BMC Helix ITSMSpiceworks Help Desk
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(100 ratings)
9.7
(83 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(8 ratings)
10.0
(29 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(51 ratings)
9.0
(9 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
3.0
(10 ratings)
8.7
(26 ratings)
Online Training
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.6
(2 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
BMC Helix ITSMSpiceworks Help Desk
Likelihood to Recommend
BMC Software Inc.
There are many ITSM platforms available - but only a very select few are true enterprise leaders. BMC Helix is one. When it comes to managing thousands of incidents daily, BMC Helix helps cut through the noise with incident correlation and predictive problem management.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
It's a great helpdesk solution - we currently have five years of data within it, roughly 25,000 tickets. The older edition is a great inventory and software license tracking tool. It is easy for users to use the interface and submit tickets and requests on the web, and its email integration is solid. The new version is a below-average system monitoring tool, only giving up/down status and a few other metrics.
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Pros
BMC Software Inc.
  • The Service Asset and Configuration Management capabilities of Helix ITSM are awesome. It can be used as a central repository for all SACM information and seamlessly integrated with Helix Discovery.
  • It has the most certified ITIL process modules of any ITSM system. These modules work seamlessly with each other and give you the power to manage any situation effectively.
  • As an Administrator of Helix ITSM you have many tools at your disposal to create customizations, workflows. BMC makes it easy to manage the system, leaving time to develop customizations and workflows.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
  • It helps to multitask, even on the go with the mobile App.
  • We can customize to meet your needs with automated responses, notifications, and templates.
  • Detailed reports allow managers to keep track [of] and analyze data.
  • Allows for a database to store notes helpful for future tickets.
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Cons
BMC Software Inc.
  • Customization can be lengthy due to the numerous features included in the software.
  • New staff members require some sort of hands-on training to get to know all the use capabilities.
  • The analytics can be improved to include forecasts and trend analysis.
  • Expensive compared to competitors.
Read full review
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
  • I have always wanted a way to redirect a support request into another IS bin, such as a development task.
  • It's possible to extract the data from the Spiceworks database, but it would be helpful if the process to do so were easier.
  • Improved ability to customize the system generated emails to improve the formatting and company branding.
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Likelihood to Renew
BMC Software Inc.
It provides the tool we need and is able to be customised to meet new requirements. Cost to change in training and integrations would be considerable.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
Spiceworks is a free tool, so there would be no hesitation if we are required to upgrade it. We have installed Spiceworks on a dedicated server with more than enough resources to get the most from this tool, so we will have this running in our department for years to come.
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Usability
BMC Software Inc.
At least Remedy is all contained in a single platform, so the interface is consistent. Also, the most heavily performed functions are generally usable. However, to use some of the more advanced modules can be a bit more cumbersome (such as Change Management and CMDB (Not Including ADDM)). So, overall BMC Remedy ITSM is better than some applications like CA SDM or HP SM, but not quite on par with ServiceNow.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
Spiceworks is user friendly and easy to set up. It can be customized to suit your needs. If there are any problems, you can go to the community forums for support and be in contact with many IT Pros, as well as the Spiceworks support staff and development teams who are always happy to help users out
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Reliability and Availability
BMC Software Inc.
for now we are satisfied. first two months 😉
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
We use it both locally on our own server so up time is decided by us and we also use the hosted help desk. We have never had an outage of that.
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Performance
BMC Software Inc.
could be faster. db is slower from introducing postgresql
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
BMC Software Inc.
Their tech support is top notch. They respond and get back to us, even on lower level incidents and issues, very quickly. It is rare that we deal with a support technician who does not know what they are doing.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
Spiceworks has been working out of the box, and some of the basic customizations have been successful with just our internal staff handling. We don't have any other issues with the tool. It provides us with the inventory information we want in a quick and concise report in a variety of formats for our team.
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Online Training
BMC Software Inc.
the trainers dont have so much practical experiences. its mostly follow up and reading existing documentation withou own input. of course experiences people are on shore or have no free time. sad truth
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
BMC Software Inc.
Satisfied because I didn't have to do it!
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
If you can spin up a VM to run it on, you'll thank yourself later. If you have remote sites, set up a local server (or dedicated computer) at each site and set them up as remote collectors for the main site. You'll save time and bandwidth
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Alternatives Considered
BMC Software Inc.
I did not select Remedy myself, so I am coming in from someone who is apart of the story, from somewhere in the midway. That being said: Remedy has begun a journey of understanding the problems associated with the implementation of ITIL, and indeed ITIL itself (it is a top-down process for management of an IT department). there are many alternatives out there. One, in particular, I am keen to investigate: Redmine. But in doing so, It will be evaluated via my experience with Remedy.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
EGroupware UI is clunky and hard to use, Jira is great but the pricing is expensive in comparison with spice works that has a free version and you can test it out properly before buying and make a correct decision based on your business plan and company objectives with the right software.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
BMC Software Inc.
unclear. lot of for less
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
No answers on this topic
Scalability
BMC Software Inc.
Again, always room for improvement, but a very stable product none-the-less.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
BMC Software Inc.
  • The ROI was fine initially as we got what we paid for and it served its purpose
  • Over time, we got behind on releases due to limitations with customizations we made to the application. The product then became out of support and completely out of date, and we had to replace
  • Overall ROI was minimal and once the product was out of date we found more value in other tools
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
  • Positive - Allow organizations to implement structured Help Desk procedures.
  • Positive - IT can begin to quantify their tickets and uncover needs within the organization.
  • Positive - IT can develop a solid roadmap with [the] management of future needs, equipment refresh schedules, etc.
  • Positive - IT can pinpoint employees who may need extra training or updated equipment based on historical ticketing data.
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ScreenShots

BMC Helix ITSM Screenshots

Screenshot of BMC Helix Multi-Cloud Broker. This is where users can deliver a secure service experience across multi-cloud environments.Screenshot of Knowledge Management, available with intelligent recommendations to help bring the right information to end-users and agents to quickly and accurately resolve issues.Screenshot of the incident and problem management interface, used to create and resolve incidents faster with intelligent, context-aware, and proactive incident matching.