Cherwell Service Management vs. ServiceNow IT Service Management

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cherwell Service Management
Score 7.3 out of 10
N/A
Cherwell Software was founded by the former CEO of FrontRage Solutions and is a full suite of service management tools competing with BMC Remedy, ServiceNow, and IBM SmartCloud.N/A
ServiceNow IT Service Management
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
ServiceNow is a fast-growing service management provider that went public in 2012. Built on the ServiceNow Now Platform, the IT Service Management bundle provides an agent workspace with knowledge management, and modules supporting issue tracking and problem resolution, change, release and configuration management, and (on the higher tier ITSM Professional plan) ITAM and software asset management.
$10,000
per year
Pricing
Cherwell Service ManagementServiceNow IT Service Management
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Starting Price
$10,000.00
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cherwell Service ManagementServiceNow IT Service Management
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
Cherwell Service ManagementServiceNow IT Service Management
Considered Both Products
Cherwell Service Management
Chose Cherwell Service Management
Cost is the number one reason most use Cherwell versus the FootPrints and ServiceNow platforms out there. Not all orgs can afford millions for an ITSM solution and the cost of Cherwell means they can. Also the code less interface means you don't have to shell out additional …
Chose Cherwell Service Management
ServiceNow, Jira and other products in the market are very expensive compared to cherwell and cherwell provides a good number of features for the price you pay
Chose Cherwell Service Management
We selected Cherwell because it offered the best value and return on investment by far, while still providing highly sophisticated capability within the platform. But more than that, Cherwell is a company you want to partner with. The level of engagement we have with Cherwell …
Chose Cherwell Service Management
I like the fact I can select an on-premise option. ServiceNow is strictly cloud-based and does not help in our federal regulatory requirements.
Chose Cherwell Service Management
Service now did not really seem to care about it - and the level of customization within Cherwell's platform was better overall.
Chose Cherwell Service Management
When I did the shopping for an ITSM solution, I found that ITSM solutions seemed to (at the time, anyway) fall into two rough categories and a small third category. In the first larger category, there were a group of the "out of the box", quick to implement but immature and …
Chose Cherwell Service Management
I believe Cherwell is trying to do something different than ServiceNow and because we are an MSP, we benefit greatly from that. On paper, ServiceNow is very powerful and can integrate with almost anything, but Cherwell is not far behind in that realm - and in the next year or …
Chose Cherwell Service Management
Cherwell was significantly less expensive compared to our prior vendor. Making the transition was relatively seamless and the Cherwell support team was very helpful.
Chose Cherwell Service Management
We looked at ServiceNow but it was too expensive for our needs.
We then looked at RemedyForce because one region had recently implemented it.
We settled on Cherwell because of its placement within the Gartner quadrant and its ease of configuration and flexibility and great price.
Chose Cherwell Service Management

We found Cherwell to offer the best value when considering the features we needed, our organizational maturity and anticipated growth. CAPEX and OPEX were lowest, in some cases by orders of magnitude, of other products evaluated.

One key differentiator is the concurrent license …

Chose Cherwell Service Management
This is the first tool like this that I have used. I was just trained on ServiceNow today, but have not used the system enough to see the differences. On the surface it had a better interface and more ways to manage tickets through the entire organization. There were some …
ServiceNow IT Service Management
Chose ServiceNow IT Service Management
ServiceNow has faster performance and is easier to use. There's more training material and better product support from the ServiceNow team.
Chose ServiceNow IT Service Management
ServiceNow is a platform for service management, this is the big separator between the competitors. It is not simply an ITSM tool, and most organizations need a single pane of glass. This allows for all service management to live in one tool, which is the nirvana that most …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cherwell Service ManagementServiceNow IT Service Management
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Cherwell Service Management
9.7
53 Ratings
17% above category average
ServiceNow IT Service Management
8.3
67 Ratings
2% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets10.052 Ratings8.966 Ratings
Expert directory9.641 Ratings7.650 Ratings
Service restoration9.935 Ratings7.655 Ratings
Self-service tools9.851 Ratings9.064 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications9.538 Ratings7.662 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation9.548 Ratings8.359 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards9.751 Ratings8.861 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
Cherwell Service Management
9.7
44 Ratings
17% above category average
ServiceNow IT Service Management
8.5
60 Ratings
4% above category average
Configuration mangement9.742 Ratings8.259 Ratings
Asset management dashboard9.741 Ratings8.658 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement9.731 Ratings8.752 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
Cherwell Service Management
9.8
50 Ratings
16% above category average
ServiceNow IT Service Management
8.1
61 Ratings
3% below category average
Change requests repository9.848 Ratings7.661 Ratings
Change calendar9.844 Ratings7.455 Ratings
Service-level management9.845 Ratings9.157 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cherwell Service ManagementServiceNow IT Service Management
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
Cherwell Service ManagementServiceNow IT Service Management
Likelihood to Recommend
9.6
(57 ratings)
8.3
(78 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.9
(13 ratings)
9.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(5 ratings)
6.3
(11 ratings)
Availability
8.2
(3 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
6.4
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.6
(16 ratings)
7.3
(22 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.7
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.1
(1 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(3 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Configurability
9.1
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.1
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.2
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cherwell Service ManagementServiceNow IT Service Management
Likelihood to Recommend
Ivanti
Well suited in an IT environment where you have limited staff. It can be managed by one administrator. Reliability of the SaaS environment has been excellent. Flexibility in developing automated workflows to open, manage, and close Incidents. Change Management due to ability to modify OOB to meet the needs of our staff. Contract Management allowing us to be notified when a contract or license is up for renewal and setting reminders. Integrations are not easy to create and manage.
Read full review
ServiceNow
In our organization, we are using ServiceNow extensively. Change Management, Incident Management, Problem Management, Time tracking are few modules which we use extensively. This sort of model will work for any product or service based companies as the product is built on ITIL framework. So this product will be suited for small or large scale companies to better organize and add controls and track SLA's for technology or business process.
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Pros
Ivanti
  • Cherwell's email handling automation works flawlessly. The only time that I have ever needed to reset the automation service that drives it is when my own server that houses the small connecting agent has some kind of problem and disconnects us from our hosted Cherwell instance. It just works. Emails to a certain address always result in a new ticket or update to an existing ticket.
  • Cherwell is literally 100% customization in so many ways that it would be pointless to try to enumerate them. There is a very sizable list of already-created customizations (called "mApps") that you can download and apply to your instance. If you don't like them you can roll them back in seconds. But you can add and configure entire modules using one of these pre-defined, completely free, add-on packages. It's so easy to add features this way that I check the list of available mApps every month or so just to see what functionality I can add.
Read full review
ServiceNow
  • When I have a number of requests to make, for example a request to add a dozen or so user accounts to more than one group account in Active Directory , I can put all the needed information into the initial form, add it to my "shopping cart" and all of that information remains on the screen for the next item for which I only need to edit a few items (like the AD group name in this example), and keep adding them to the shopping cart until I have them all. When I "Check Out" each of those items is generated as a separate task under the one request. It simplifies and expedites the creation and tracking of these kinds of requests.
  • I can easily and quickly see what tickets are currently assigned to me in order to prioritize them and remain aware of my workload.
  • Numerous fields for CIs can be used when trying to find the entry for a particular item. For example, IP Address, server name, raw text, classification, and so on.
  • To help with making sense out of related tasks, when a task is assigned to me and I need to open another task for a different team to work in order to complete my task, I can open a sub-task from my ticket so that the relationship between the two can be pulled up later into reports. For example, I may have a task to build a new vm, and need to open tasks for networking, security accounts, software installation and so on. By opening sub-tasks from my assignment, the time spent by all parties concerned is tied together for more meaningful cost accounting.
Read full review
Cons
Ivanti
  • Cherwell lacks modern UI capabilities such as responsive forms and CSS styling for web portals.
  • Built-in reporting engine is hard to use and resource intensive to run.
  • No patching model for small platform fixes, must upgrade to receive platform code changes.
Read full review
ServiceNow
  • It is hard to find areas for improvement, the tool is very powerful. That said, building the CMDB still involves some manual interaction which was not how it was presented in demos.
  • The CMDB data is almost too deep and detailed. When you build the relationship map it can be so large that it is overwhelming. You can limit this, but the default maps are massive if you are discovering lots of device classes.
  • The product is expensive. Since they are the leader in the industry and the product has tons of features, they definitely charge for it!
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Ivanti
Cherwell is still the best tool for the job in the market. Even though Ivanti bought them and are trying to convince everyone to move over to Neurons for ITSM, they have stated Cherwell will remain supported indefinitely and have a roadmap for future Cherwell development. Unfortunately, ISM is not as flexible as Cherwell (and the UX is atrocious), hence why many people are sticking with Cherwell (and why many Cherwell customers never purchased ISM originally)
Read full review
ServiceNow
To be completely honest setting up a new ticketing system can be a pain in the ass. Once you have it setup and customized the way you want it, you don't want to switch unless you're unhappy with the product. Unless future releases and updates really muck the system up, I wouldn't change.
Read full review
Usability
Ivanti
I enjoy the layout and configuration of our Cherwell Service Management instance. It did take me a bit to get used to, as with any new ticketing system, but now that I understand the system more, I thoroughly enjoy it! There are just so many options and the UI is very intuitive.
Read full review
ServiceNow
The dashboard is so confusing, [there are] many clicks to open a task and search by a ticket. The Enterprise customisation [we did] has finished to kill the software and creates a really bad experience on a daily basis. [It is] So slow, and so many clicks to process a ticket. Works only on IE so, that [should] make you realize that [it] is a bad idea.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Ivanti
Almost always available, with exception for a handful of outages due to infrastructure related issues
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ServiceNow
We have never had any issues with ServiceNow's availability that I am aware of in the two years I have been using it.
Read full review
Performance
Ivanti
The browser client is mostly acceptable in terms of performance, but still lacks parity with the rich client. The rich client is not very performant at all. It's built on old architecture and relies heavily on a fast internet connection, good caching and database indexing. There are several unwritten rules with form design (and form arrangement) which most users are not aware of, but can severely impact performance in the rich client. This is where the flexibility of Cherwell can come back to bite you if you step outside the boundaries of these unwritten rules
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ServiceNow
For a massive system, page loads are reasonably quick, including searches.
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Support Rating
Ivanti
We generally have a good time with Cherwell support, however, there are the few niche cases where I have to explain how Cherwell works to the customer support agent on the other end. A little more product education for tier 1 support could go a long way in helping expedite support requests from SaaS customers.
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ServiceNow
I would give it this rating because we have had no major issues with the support for ServiceNow after we implemented it at our organization. They seem to respond promptly and efficiently if we ever do need to open a support case with them about an issue we are having.
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In-Person Training
Ivanti
I didn't partake in the in-person training, but it was available. I preferred the online method instead, which was a great experience. It was nice to have someone available to bounce questions off of and demonstrate how certain functions worked.
Read full review
ServiceNow
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Ivanti
The training was great! We got together to review the system, its UI, and how to perform basic functions. Then there was plenty of time to ask questions and test out the system while there was someone available to assist.
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ServiceNow
To type in what should be a text box, you have to click an empty cell, a tiny text box pop up opens with a check box and an X. You the. Type in the text box and have to click the check mark. If you have a bunch of fields to fill out, doing this is very annoying. Absolutely know thought went in to this. I'm sure somebody in marketing thought it was a good idea. It wasn't.
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Implementation Rating
Ivanti
Implementation is a breeze. Each time I've implemented it, we had an outsourced vendor overseeing it & assisting where needed. However, Cherwell OOTB is ready to go, and configuring it for LDAP/SAML, etc. for authentication and user-imports is really straight forward. The infrastructure needed for Cherwell is extremely simple too - and installing the server & database takes no more than 20 mins
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ServiceNow
Without exception, every client I have worked with has been very happy with their resulting product. While this is partly due to my work, I must point out that the platform is the winning decision, not the implementer.
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Alternatives Considered
Ivanti
Much more customizable than other products, especially when ran in a self-hosted environment. Cherwell [Service Management] allows for greater flexibility of custom development and integrations to allow for automating tasks that traditional ITSM apps are not well suited for. Cherwell [Service Management] gives you the freedom to develop your own objects with minimal licensing costs.
Read full review
ServiceNow
We used to use Jira to handle service tickets but it's way too robust for something this straightforward. Due to the nature of Jira, you needed to already have a lot of documentation and knowledge about who should be assigned the ticket, so the lift of creating a ticket was time consuming.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Ivanti
We have had great contracts with Cherwell and love the concurrent licensing model
Read full review
ServiceNow
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Ivanti
We have never had any major show-stopper issues with Cherwell itself - more so with the infrastructure it sits on. Moving from in-house cloud (on Cherwell's side), to AWS then to Azure has caused multiple problems over the years (some still on-going), however the product has remained fairly stable
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ServiceNow
ServiceNow works as an enterprise solution.
Read full review
Professional Services
Ivanti
As mentioned, they were always great to work with (minus the project management side). My only feedback would be to push back on requirements that don't make sense
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ServiceNow
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Ivanti
  • As with any standard ticketing system, it helped decrease the time before first contact with clients.
  • Our department was always concerned with keeping a low budget, and it was cheaper than most.
  • My supervisor could easily tell how many resources were being put into each employee, so we had more visibility of our team's capabilities at a given time if we needed to take on something complex.
Read full review
ServiceNow
  • Overall ServiceNow has a positive impact on getting the SLA of tickets down in supporting our customers.
  • One negative impact has been the amount of time to get the product to produce an ROI, it's almost too big to fail and too big to replace. You almost become committed to the product. Good or bad.
  • Another negative impact would be if you track metrics of employees and time tracking, there is a lot of scenarios where engineers will track time on tickets but not get credit for closing them as the assignee function of tickets can only be tied to one user and credits only the engineer who closes the ticket.
  • Another positive impact would be the level of security for permissions and scaling the workloads is robust and you will get out of the system what your team is willing to put in.
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ScreenShots