Top 10 ServiceNow Alternatives for IT Service Management (ITSM)

Finding the right ITSM tool isn’t about buying into the latest trend or simply ticking off features. It’s about choosing a solution that actually addresses the daily pain points your team faces, while making it easier to manage workflows, improve response times, and gain real insights from your data. While ServiceNow is a widely recognized name in the ITSM space, it often struggles to meet key expectations around usability, integration, and delivering actionable insights. Many organizations find that while ServiceNow offers a broad set of features, the platform can be overly complex, requiring extensive customization and ongoing administrative overhead to function effectively. Integration with existing systems isn’t always seamless, leading to data silos and workflow bottlenecks.

A tool should be easy for your employees to work with, integrate seamlessly with your existing systems, and provide you with deep insights into your organization’s metrics. 

ServiceNow falls short when it comes to becoming ‘THE TOOL’ and according to users, “ You won't regret ServiceNow ITSM, but you probably won't love it.”

What is ServiceNow?

ServiceNow is a cloud-based tool that offers an extensive range of features for IT service management. These include knowledge management, incident management, change management, virtual agents, employee centers, workforce optimization, and several others. 

It is an all-in-one tool. However, it comes with glitches that you cannot avoid, especially when times call for more competitive approaches and modern technology like GenAI to manage your IT services. But there are some ServiceNow ITSM competitors that can help you here.

ServiceNow: A Powerful Solution, But Not for Everyone

ServiceNow is a widely recognized IT service management (ITSM) platform enterprises use worldwide. It has become the go-to choice for many large organizations and is increasingly being adopted by mid-sized and even smaller companies. Its comprehensive features, robust capabilities, and scalable architecture make it a strong contender in the ITSM space.

However, despite its strengths, many businesses are actively exploring ServiceNow alternatives. If you're one of them or simply conducting research to understand your options, this article will provide valuable insights.

Who Uses ServiceNow?

ServiceNow is primarily designed for IT teams, but its user base extends far beyond that. While IT teams are the core users, they vary significantly in size, structure, and requirements. ServiceNow excels in enterprise-level organizations across diverse industries with complex and large-scale IT operations.

That said, ServiceNow isn’t exclusive to enterprises. Many mid-sized companies also leverage its platform, though it may not always be the optimal fit for smaller or leaner IT teams.

Beyond IT professionals, ServiceNow is frequently used by roles such as C-suite executives, IT managers, system administrators, front-line IT staff, and even end-users who interact with IT services.

Why Look for ServiceNow Alternatives?

While ServiceNow is a powerful IT Service Management (ITSM) platform, it may not always align with the specific needs, budgets, or goals of every organization. Over time, many businesses have started to explore alternatives due to a range of challenges associated with ServiceNow's cost, complexity, scalability, and alignment with modern ITSM requirements. Below are the key reasons why organizations are increasingly considering ServiceNow alternatives:

1. High Costs and Price Escalation

‍ServiceNow is known for its steep pricing structure, which often escalates over time. Organizations that start with a smaller investment can find costs quickly adding up as they scale, requiring additional modules, advanced features, or user licenses. Pricing isn’t always transparent, and the lack of clear cost structures often frustrates businesses trying to budget effectively. Moreover, licensing structures tend to grow more complex with added requirements such as advanced reporting, analytics, or AI capabilities—often requiring costly upgrades to Pro or Enterprise packages. These add-ons can make the total cost of ownership disproportionately high compared to the value realized.

2. Complicated Pricing Structure
ServiceNow's pricing model is notoriously intricate, with multiple tiers, licenses, and dependencies on additional modules. For example, even basic functionalities like advanced analytics, reporting, or AI tools are often locked behind premium licensing tiers, further inflating costs. Organizations also face yearly price hikes and limited flexibility in negotiating contracts, leaving them with ballooning expenses and constrained budgets.

3. Complex and Overwhelming Platform
While powerful, ServiceNow's extensive range of features can become a double-edged sword. Its complexity often requires significant customization, ongoing configuration, and expert-level knowledge to fully utilize its capabilities. Many organizations find themselves dependent on specialized consultants or third-party service providers for implementation, optimization, and maintenance. The costs for these services can range from $100,000 to $270,000 annually in the U.S.; even outsourcing these services internationally still incurs substantial expenses. This reliance on external expertise not only increases costs but also slows down adoption and ROI realization.

4. Lengthy Implementation Timelines
Deploying ServiceNow is rarely a quick or straightforward process. Implementations can span several months or even years, requiring dedicated internal resources, specialized consultants, and constant oversight. These prolonged timelines delay the realization of ROI, often creating frustration among stakeholders who expect quicker results.

5. Unclear ROI
The combination of high costs, complex implementation, and ongoing resource requirements often makes it challenging for organizations to measure a clear return on investment (ROI) with ServiceNow. While the platform promises efficiency and process automation, these benefits are frequently diluted by operational overhead, long adoption cycles, and resource constraints.

6. Limited Negotiating Power
As ServiceNow's market dominance has grown, its customer-centric approach has waned. Many organizations report limited negotiating power when it comes to pricing, licensing flexibility, or service-level agreements. Even long-standing customers often find themselves locked into costly agreements with little room to adjust terms or reduce expenses.

7. Scalability Challenges
ServiceNow offers robust horizontal and vertical scalability, but not all organizations require its full range of capabilities. For smaller teams or companies with basic ITSM needs, the investment often outweighs the returns. On the other hand, enterprises with highly critical processes may find themselves limited by ServiceNow's rigid architecture, requiring further costly customizations to meet specific operational requirements.

8. Limited GenAI Capabilities
Modern ITSM platforms are increasingly leveraging Generative AI (GenAI) to enhance predictive analytics, automation, and overall efficiency. ServiceNow's AI capabilities, however, often feel more like add-ons rather than core platform features. Its older architecture creates barriers to seamless AI integration, leaving organizations unable to fully capitalize on AI-driven innovations.

9. Misalignment with Modern ITSM Needs
ServiceNow was initially designed to follow traditional ITIL processes, with a focus on ticketing and technician-centric workflows. However, ITSM has evolved significantly, with an increased emphasis on user experience, self-service capabilities, and proactive problem resolution. ServiceNow’s rigid workflows sometimes fall short of addressing these modern requirements, driving organizations to seek more flexible, user-centric alternatives.

10. Closed-Source Platform
ServiceNow operates on a closed-source codebase, which may not align with organizations that prioritize transparency, auditability, and security compliance. Open-source platforms often provide greater flexibility for auditing, customization, and security enhancements—advantages that ServiceNow lacks.

11. Dependency on Professional Services
Due to the platform's complexity, organizations often become heavily dependent on professional services for upgrades, configuration changes, and ongoing management. This dependency creates ongoing expenses and can lead to delays in resolving critical issues, as even minor changes may require external support.

Top 10 ServiceNow Alternatives & Competitors

1. Rezolve.ai

Rezolve.ai is a GenAI-powered ITSM solution that works within your Microsoft Teams interface. It combines the power of AI with the best ITSM features to create a seamless AITSM tool that streamlines your operations, anticipates your requirements and automates processes. It is designed for enterprises to auto-resolve issues, enhance employee support and experience, and equip the support team with the power of GenAI, replacing the traditional service desk. Rezolve.ai is one of the leading ServiceNow alternatives, offering seamless AI-powered service desk functionality.

Key Features 

1. Service Desk Powered by GenAI: This GenAI bot of Rezolve.ai transforms the traditional scattered support services into a unified solution where employees can chat with the bot within MS Teams. They can ask anything and get faster issue resolution. You also get detailed analytics and reporting to identify trends, KPI tracking and insights into the overall performance of your IT service desk. 

2. Agile Knowledge Management: Rezolve.ai learns from the organizational knowledge stored on the website, PDFs, URLs, Sharepoint folders, and office documents to provide support to employees. It evolves with every interaction and provides citations and links. It is an agile knowledge base available anytime, anywhere. 

3. Process orchestration: Rezolve.ai is an automation-first platform that simplifies your support system with Chat GPT like GenAI. From employee onboarding to configuring project management software, laptop configuration, software installation, and resetting passwords, it automates many such processes saving time and service desk resources. 

4. Conversational Ticketing and Live Chat:  The smart ticketing offered by Rezolve.ai effortlessly creates, updates, and tracks tickets within MS Teams. It makes raising tickets as easy as having a conversation. It automatically creates the ticket, auto-assigns it to the right agent, and provides notification as the ticket matures through the resolution pipeline. 

5. Live chat: Users get real-time support through live chat and can even ask the chat for intervention from a service desk agent anytime during the conversation. It automatically summarizes the chat and creates/updates the ticket for you.

6. Desktop Automation: There are only a few tools that provide you with desktop automation as of now. Powered by GenAI, Rezolve.ai takes charge of tasks like software installation, network printer installation, enabling and disabling USB drives, OneDrive troubleshooting, cache cleaning, device configuration, new laptop setup, monitoring your device and creating tickets, and so on. 

7. Incident Management: Rezolve.ai helps you streamline your incident management with structured workflows and automation. It enhances overall operational efficiency with features like deflected tickets, smart ticket creation, GenAI-based ticket summary, and so on.

Pros

• Intuitive and user-friendly UI
• Excellent implementation support and customer support, which ensures a smooth transition
• Integration with MS Teams makes rolling out a piece of cake
• Highly trainable Knowledgebase 
• Offers a unified platform for ITSM, HR service desk and employee engagement.
• Creates tickets from within the chat without hassle and the need for a separate user portal 

Cons 

• There is no separate portal for users to log in and access

Pricing 

Made available upon request.

Want to revolutionize your IT support with an AI-powered ITSM tool?

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2. Freshservice

Freshservice is another top choice among ServiceNow alternatives. Freshservice is a cloud-based ITSM solution. It is a comprehensive tool that helps streamline and enhance the IT support process and simplifies IT operations. It helps you with incident management, change management, and asset tracking, simplifying overall IT operations.

Key Features

1. Intuitive service desk: Freshservice offers an intuitive UI platform for knowledge management, service requests and changes which helps IT teams to prioritize and categorize tickets efficiently. 

2. Incident management: It intelligently routes incidents and offers several useful tools for technicians to resolve issues on a single platform.

3. Unified service catalog: You can deploy extensible workflows  using this unified service portal for all service requests and streamline service delivery. 

Pros

• Good automation features 
• Intuitive and easy-to-navigate UI 
• Good ticket management system that offers the ability to categorize, prioritize and assign tickets to specific agent

Cons 

• Slow response time from customer support 
• Asset management and mobile functionality require improvement
• Limited customization

Pricing:

• Starter: $15/agent/month (billed annually) or $22/agent/month (billed monthly) – Includes incident management, knowledge base, self-service portal, and more.
• Growth: $40/agent/month (billed annually) or $50/agent/month (billed monthly) – Adds service catalog, asset management, and more.
• Pro: $80/agent/month (billed annually) or $100/agent/month (billed monthly) – Includes Freddy Copilot, problem management, and more.‍
• Enterprise: $100/agent/month (billed annually) or $130/agent/month (billed monthly) – Includes advanced features beyond Pro.

3. Jira Service Management 

Jira Service Management is a versatile tool for IT and business service management. It is designed to streamline workflows and improve collaboration. It integrates with the broader Jira ecosystem seamlessly offering a comprehensive suite of tools for incident and change management, request management, and so on. 

Key Features 

1. Request Management: Jira service management offers a suite for request management that includes a service desk, AI-powered virtual agent, request queues, self-service portal, service level agreements (SLAs), dynamic forms, reports and metrics and more. 

2. Incident and Problem Management: This feature helps you bring your development and IT operations team together to respond and resolve incidents quickly, alert on-call management, escalate major incidents, etc. You can also group incidents and fast-track root cause analysis to find solutions to major problems. 

3. Change Management: Using this feature, you can enhance the decision-making and performance of your IT team. It helps you in referencing change requests, extracting data CI/CD tools, automating low risk changes, configuring efficient workflows and so much more. 

Pros

• Easy ticket creation using customer portal 
• Allows mixing common support requests for long-term product updates and bug issues
• Excellent integration with Jira ecosystem

Cons 

• Comes with a learning curve. However, once you learn to use it, it becomes a breeze
• Limited mobile functionality 
• Does not allow closing tickets in bulk

Pricing

• Free plan: Allows Up to 3 agents, unlimited customers, 2 GB file storage, and 100 email notifications per day
• Standard Plan: Priced at $49.35/ agent with a monthly total of $66.15. Includes all features from the Free plan, support for up to 10,000 agents, 250 GB file storage, business hour support, and unlimited email notifications.
• Premium Plan: Priced at $22.05/ agent with a monthly total of $148.05. Includes all features from the standard plan, advanced incident management, unlimited file storage, asset and configuration management, and 24/7 support for critical issues
• Enterprise Plan: Contact sales team

4. Ivanti

Ivanti provides a comprehensive ITSM and IT asset management solution, offering tools that streamline operations and improve service delivery. It focuses on automating workflows, managing incidents, and providing robust asset management.

Key Features:

1. Self-Service Portal: Ivanti’s portal enables users to submit requests, access knowledge articles, and track ticket status independently, reducing the load on IT teams.
2. Automation: Ivanti automates routine tasks and workflows, including ticket routing, escalation, and self-service functions, improving efficiency and response times.
3. Asset Management: Ivanti provides detailed insights into IT assets, tracking their lifecycle and ensuring policy compliance.

Pros:

• Strong automation and asset management features
• Good integration with third-party tools
• Customizable dashboards and reporting

Cons:

• Mobile app functionality is limited
• UI can be clunky and difficult to navigate
• Customization options could be more extensive

Pricing: 

Made available upon request to the sales team

5. SysAid

SysAid is a comprehensive ITSM and help desk tool which offers a range of features like service requests, incidents, problems, changes and asset management. It comes with ticket and task automation, workflow automation, self-service portal, third-party integrations and more. 

Key Features 

1. Self-service portal: SysAid self-service portal enables users to independently submit requests, access knowledge articles and track ticket status reducing the load off the IT service team. 

2. Automations: SysAid automates your routine tasks and workflows, which saves time and improves efficiency. It automates ticket routing, ticket escalation, self-service automation, workflow automation, and more. 

3. SysAid for Teams: This feature focuses on employee experience and helps them raise tickets from their MS Teams. The automation feature auto-resolves, auto-routes and enables quick resolution. 

Pros 

• Good customer support service 
• Process automation, custom report generation, and multi-channel support are standout features

Cons 

• Mobile app functionality is very limited 
• Buggy UI and clunky interface
• Customization functionality is not up-to-the-mark

Pricing

Contact Sales Team for quote

6. BMC Helix ITSM

BMC Helix ITSM is a comprehensive ITSM solution that offers a cloud-native, AI-driven service management platform. It automates tasks, streamlines workflows, and efficiently helps IT teams manage services and incidents.

Key Features:

• AI-Driven Insights: Uses AI to provide insights and recommendations for incident management and service delivery.
• Cloud-Native Platform: Offers flexibility and scalability with its cloud-first design.

Pros:

• Robust AI capabilities
• Scalable for large enterprises

Cons:

• Steep learning curve for new users

Pricing: Available upon request.

7. SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds Service Desk is an ITSM tool designed to help businesses manage incidents, service requests, and assets. Its user-friendly interface and affordability make it a strong contender for organizations looking for an alternative to ServiceNow.

Key Features:

• Incident and Asset Management: Tracks and manages incidents and IT assets throughout their lifecycle.
• Service Catalog: Provides a centralized place for users to submit and track service requests.

Pros:

• Affordable pricing
• Easy to set up and use

Cons:

• Limited advanced automation features

Pricing: Starts at $19/agent/month.

8. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a comprehensive ITSM and help desk solution that offers features like asset management, incident management, and self-service portals. It’s highly customizable, making it a flexible option for various business needs.

Key Features:

• Incident and Problem Management: Helps IT teams track and resolve issues efficiently.
• Self-Service Portal: Allows users to submit tickets and track their status.

Pros:

• Good customization options
• Strong reporting tools

Cons:

• UI can feel outdated

Pricing:

• Standard Edition: $10/technician/month
• Professional Edition: $21/technician/month
• Enterprise Edition: $50/technician/month

9. TOPdesk

‍TOPdesk is a scalable ITSM solution designed to enhance service desk operations by streamlining incident, asset, and change management. Known for its customizable workflows, TOPdesk helps organizations of all sizes optimize their support processes efficiently.

Key Features:

• Self-Service Portal: Offers a robust portal for users to solve issues independently, reducing ticket volume.
• Incident Management: Automates the management of IT incidents from creation to resolution.
• Asset Management: Tracks IT assets throughout their lifecycle, ensuring compliance and resource optimization.
• Change Management: Facilitates smooth implementation of changes with minimal disruption.
• Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with third-party applications, allowing for a tailored ITSM solution.

Pros:

• Intuitive interface
• Strong customization options
• Suitable for businesses of all sizes

Cons:

• Reporting features could be improved
• Limited mobile functionality

Pricing: Available upon request.

10. Zoho Desk

Zoho Desk is a cloud-based help desk and ITSM solution that helps businesses automate their service processes. It's particularly popular for its seamless integration with other Zoho applications and its customizable workflows.

Key Features:

• Multi-Channel Support: Offers support via email, social media, and phone channels.
• Workflow Automation: Helps automate routine tasks and service processes to improve response times.

Pros:

• Affordable
• Strong integration with Zoho apps

Cons:

• Limited advanced features compared to other ITSM solutions

Pricing:

• Free Plan: Up to 3 agents
• Standard Plan: $14/agent/month
• Enterprise Plan: $40/agent/month

Conclusion 

Imagine chatting with GenAI-powered bot within your MS Teams to raise tickets, get auto-resolutions and articles enabling self-service among your employees, feels like a breeze right? 

While ServiceNow remains a dominant player in the ITSM market, several ServiceNow alternatives may better meet the evolving needs of modern organizations. These alternatives can cater to individual needs, seamlessly integrate into existing systems, and harness the power of modern technology like GenAI to streamline workflows and support ITSM teams.

Rezolve.ai lives up to its name and resolves many of your ITSM requirements in just a few clicks. Its agile knowledge management system and automation-first mindset offer a robust ServiceNow ITSM alternative and a user-friendly approach to ITSM.

Discover how Rezolve.ai can streamline your ITSM processes with its powerful GenAI features.

Book a demo today

FAQs

What is the best alternative to ServiceNow?

The best option out of the ServiceNow alternatives depend on your specific needs. Look for ITSM solutions that offer strong integration capabilities, user-friendly interfaces, and advanced automation features.

Who is the competitor of ServiceNow?

ServiceNow's competitors include a range of ITSM tools that offer various features for incident management, change management, and automation.

Which is better, Azure or ServiceNow?

Azure and ServiceNow serve different purposes. Azure is primarily a cloud computing platform, while ServiceNow focuses on IT service management. Your choice depends on whether you need cloud infrastructure or ITSM solutions.

Is ServiceNow similar to Jira?

ServiceNow and Jira serve different functions but have some overlapping features. ServiceNow focuses on IT service management (ITSM), while Jira is primarily used for project management and issue tracking.