BMC Helix Remedyforce vs. SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BMC Helix Remedyforce
Score 5.1 out of 10
N/A
BMC Helix Remedyforce is a cloud-delivered SaaS solution for IT Helpdesk and Ticketing Management.
$67.90
per user/per month
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 Helix RemedyforceSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Editions & Modules
BMC Helix Remedyforce
$67.90
per user/per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BMC Helix RemedyforceSolarWinds Service Desk
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BMC Helix RemedyforceSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Considered Both Products
BMC Helix Remedyforce

No answer on this topic

SolarWinds Service Desk
Chose SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)

SWSD was more cost effective and easier to administer and manage. Easier reporting functionality.

SWSD didn't require a dedicated programmer/developer or a specific skill set to administer.

Reporting functionality is very easy to use. Doesn't require you to create SQL statements …

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
BMC Helix RemedyforceSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix Remedyforce
7.7
7 Ratings
6% below category average
SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
8.0
96 Ratings
2% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.07 Ratings9.395 Ratings
Expert directory6.05 Ratings7.956 Ratings
Service restoration9.07 Ratings7.357 Ratings
Self-service tools7.95 Ratings8.085 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications6.06 Ratings8.967 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation8.07 Ratings8.176 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards8.07 Ratings6.486 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix Remedyforce
8.0
7 Ratings
2% below category average
SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
6.9
81 Ratings
17% below category average
Configuration mangement9.07 Ratings6.973 Ratings
Asset management dashboard9.05 Ratings6.980 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement6.03 Ratings6.963 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
BMC Helix Remedyforce
9.0
7 Ratings
7% above category average
SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
8.0
79 Ratings
4% below category average
Change requests repository9.07 Ratings8.663 Ratings
Change calendar9.07 Ratings7.743 Ratings
Service-level management9.07 Ratings7.871 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BMC Helix RemedyforceSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Small Businesses
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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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
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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Score 9.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
BMC Helix RemedyforceSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(12 ratings)
7.9
(118 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.5
(4 ratings)
6.5
(8 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(7 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(7 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(92 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(1 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 Helix RemedyforceSolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
Likelihood to Recommend
BMC Software Inc.
[BMC Helix Remedyforce] is probably best suited for an MSP who needs to keep multiple clients separated. If you were an internal IT department I think the additional features it has would be lost. When dealing with an MSP who needs to know what software and what issues have effected specific clients it is very well suited to do that.
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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.
  • An admin user is able to quickly create a request definition with all of its components from one screen. We use to have to go to the 7 or 8 different screens to create each piece of the request definition.
  • Ability to update multiple Incidents/Service Requests at once with the update button. This allows essentially an inline edit functionality within Remedyforce.
  • Change management schedule is a great feature as well to be able to see how changes align and what there expected start dates/times are.
Read full review
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.
  • The ability to monitor/regulate the volume of tickets when you integrate with your monitoring software. We have so many items that trigger alerts, creating a ticket for each is somewhat overwhelming. Would like to be able to better control when an incident should be created.
  • Being able to report on Service requests and tasks together would be nice. Right now I have to do it separately as they are in different buckets, so to speak.
  • Remedy console is an improvement from where it started but can still be a cleaner interface for a tech to be able to work out of for their day to day work.
Read full review
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.
The total amount of time spent from installation to configuration for a minimal ticketing system was 2 hours. Maintenance and customization for the application can be completed with a great amount of ease. In addition having a customer portal is an added benefit that pays for itself
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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.
No answers on this topic
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.
They care about your success.
Read full review
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.
Learning industry best practices or gaining insight on them from either BMC or an implementation partner would have saved some headaches we faced after roll-out.
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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 previously worked with tools like Service Manager which were difficult to configure, administer and maintain. The support options were very limited. Remedyforce has local US support, dedicated reps, and a more developed infrastructure to work from to support an organization. This runs on the Salesforce platform so worrying about server failures and unscheduled outages was no longer going to be an issue for us. Self service, knowledge base, and change control were just a few highly utilized features that helped employees support themselves and automate very manual processes.
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.
  • Remedyforce has allowed us to eliminate other solutions that provided similar features. By now using one true ITSM we have been able to save money which in higher education is always a concern.
  • The reports and dashboards allow for a birds-eye view of our daily operations and provide managers and executives the information they need to make important cost saving decisions.
Read full review
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

BMC Helix Remedyforce Screenshots

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SolarWinds Service Desk Screenshots

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