Freshservice vs ServiceNow CMDB comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Freshworks and ServiceNow are both solutions in the Configuration Management Databases category. Freshworks is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3, while ServiceNow is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.5. Freshworks holds a 13.4% mindshare in CMD, compared to ServiceNow’s 19.5% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Freshworks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of ServiceNow users who would recommend it.

Freshservice

Read 40 Freshservice reviews

11,703 Views
468 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

ServiceNow CMDB

Read 34 ServiceNow CMDB reviews

2,245 Views
2,245 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Freshservice

ServiceNow CMDB

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Freshservice and ServiceNow CMDB based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Configuration Management Databases solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Freshservice vs. ServiceNow CMDB Report (Updated: September 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Freshservice vs. ServiceNow CMDB

September 2026

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Helped 917,433 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Freshservice

Ranking in Configuration Management Databases

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (8th), Project Management Software (12th), Cloud Management (15th), IT Asset Management (7th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (7th), IT Alerting and Incident Management (14th), AI IT Support (6th)

ServiceNow CMDB

Ranking in Configuration Management Databases

2nd

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Configuration Management Databases category, the mindshare of Freshservice is 13.4%, up from 2.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow CMDB is 19.5%, down from 29.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Configuration Management Databases Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ServiceNow CMDB	19.5%
Freshservice	13.4%
Other	67.1%

Configuration Management Databases

Featured Reviews

Raja Farrar

IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam

Automation and AI have transformed our service delivery and have made IT support faster and more efficient

I always keep up with Freshservice's roadmaps and new features. Freshservice has been very good at listening to feedback and adding those feature requests into their next iterations. I wish they would offer more granular data export options for utilizing in Power BI, along with predictive analytics for capacity planning and SLA breaches to enable more proactive support management and reduce firefighting. While the dashboards are effective, some users find custom reporting limited compared to ServiceNow or Jira. I would also appreciate deeper integrations, especially for niche apps requiring development coding work to enable advanced orchestration. Native integrations for DevOps pipelines such as GitHub Actions and Jenkins, along with stronger API flexibility for complex workflows, would enhance functionality. Although the CMDB and asset management are solid, they do lack advanced dependency mapping compared to other enterprise tools. My wishlist includes automated impact analysis for changes and improved visualization of asset relationships, enabling quicker resolutions from an agent's perspective when alerts come in. I acknowledge that Device42 may enhance this, but it is an extra cost beyond what we already pay. While Freddy AI is excellent for triage and suggestions, some users desire more proactive automation, such as predictive ticket routing based on historical patterns and AI-driven capacity forecasting. Lastly, the pricing tiers might seem rigid for mid-sized teams, so a more granular add-on option for features such as Device42 or pay-per-use for orchestration workflows could be beneficial.

Read full review

reviewer2782440

ServiceNow Consultant at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

Automation features and integrated service mapping have streamlined incident and change management processes

There is probably room for improvement in ServiceNow CMDB. I'm so immersed in projects and solving direct customer issues that I don't think too much about potential improvements. Maintaining an accurate and up-to-date ServiceNow CMDB can be challenging due to incoming data from various sources, but ServiceNow has been developing small AI components to help with data discrepancies and deduplication recently. They have also improved integrations with other tools, providing many out-of-the-box integrations to different monitoring tools and CMDBs, which previously required coding experience for custom integrations. They are moving towards a more low-code or no-code approach, which is part of their goal as a company.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It is a stable solution. My company hasn't faced any problems with the solution."

"All features explored in Freshservice have proven to be helpful in reducing workload and ticket redundancy."

"It has a very easy, flexible model. You can open up a particular module and work on the next. That's what we did. Overall, it provides a simple way of getting your support teams up and running. That was one thing that I thought was quite easy to do."

"It allowed the development team to concentrate on the client’s requirements instead."

"I would recommend this solution to others because it is good and the price is reasonable."

"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the user experience."

"It has allowed the client to implement service management processes that didn't previously exist in the business and to have more visibility and control of process tickets."

"Ability to scan barcodes and a great search feature."

More Freshservice pros

"ServiceNow CMDB is just something that you could track everything on."

"There is a data mixer that's called Management and Commission and Discovery, which helps us auto-populate the information directly by pinging that particular CI and capturing that information, so we don't have to go for manual updates every time."

"I like ServiceNow CMDB's discovery tools. If you have discovery tools and the discovery tools are built around a philosophy of mapping, then we can implement a top-down architectural mapping of the elements in the upper structure and create your CI."

"I deal mostly with asset management, and ServiceNow helps me do my job more effectively."

"One important element is automation. We can back up and manage multiple configurations. It also enables password self-service."

"The ServiceNow OOB toolsuite functionality allows you to manage the whole asset life cycle, which is really powerful."

"It has provided the ROI."

"ServiceNow CMDB works great for large and small businesses."

More ServiceNow CMDB pros

Cons

"A chat bot needs to be added to the portal."

"It's hard to interact directly with the users themselves."

"I'd like to see better reporting on changes and as well as enhancements to the task/time function."

"There is a need for improvement in terms of automatic escalation to the next level if an issue is not resolved. It should optimize and allow customization. Additionally, asset management needs improvement."

"I experienced some delay in response time for non-function critical queries."

"We haven't had any issues with the stability of Freshservice. However, we have had some issues with data imports, we have noticed that large amounts of data can get stuck. This is something that we haven't seen in other solutions."

"Freshservice can be improved by enhancing Asset Management or CMDB accuracy."

"There are some limitations in reporting. For example, I would like to have a report of conversations or replies."

More Freshservice cons

"The initial setup can be very bad if the roadmap is not set up properly. You need a specialist to help you set up the roadmap."

"Customers are not getting value for money paid for the performance analytics model because they don't use the whole set of functionalities, and that is the problem."

"I would like to see them partner with some key scanning technology companies to give them a real end-to-end offering."

"If you have multiple tools that are going to ingest data into the CMDB, you need to be careful of what rules we write to ensure that they fall in place."

"The initial setup is a bit complex."

"Definitely, the price needs to be lower because there are clients that I work with who cannot afford ServiceNow. I have to end up proposing alternate solutions to fit their budget."

"I don't think it's a failure of Service Now or something that they don't offer, but I haven't seen any training modules."

"You need to perform additional planning because their recommendation is not to add columns to the core tables."

More ServiceNow CMDB cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is good for the price you pay. It has different plans. If you need all features, you need to go for a higher plan. Currently, with the second tier plan, you cannot completely separate the group of agents. So, the agent in each group can see another person's ticket. You also cannot modify the rules based on the viewable, readable stuff and cannot have a custom role in this plan. If you want to do that, you have to go for a higher plan. It works in our case because it doesn't matter if the other group can see our ticket because it doesn't contain anything sensitive. We also didn't need the project or change management features. That's why we didn't go with a higher plan."

"The solution may be around 20,000 euros a year."

"One of the key benefits of Freshservice is license management. Asset management has the possibility to keep track of licenses and that's very useful. The price of the solution is very good."

"Compared to other tools, Freshservice is affordable."

"It was a middle tier. It wasn't an expensive one. It was a tier model usage. Licensing costs varied between admin users and regular users."

"The pricing is reasonable."

"Freshservice is a fairly cheap solution. Though monthly payments can be made towards the licensing costs of the solution, my company prefers to make annual payments."

"Freshservice price is competitive, it is not more than other solutions on the market."

More Freshservice pricing and cost advice

"I would like it to be cheaper. If you've got a large environment, it can get quite expensive quite quickly. You still get a return on investment, but everybody has a tight budget. In terms of licensing, everything is pretty much known upfront. Being SaaS-based, there are no real additional gotchas that we came across."

"It is always fluctuating. It seems to change every six months. Every time they come out with a new iteration, it changes. It is pretty complicated, and they should improve it."

"In comparison to the cost of other solutions, you get value for your money with ServiceNow CMDB. It could definitely be cheaper though."

"The product is pricey."

"It is really expensive. I don't know actually how much it costs, but in 2016, when a client decided to move from an old solution to ServiceNow and had to choose a supplier for ServiceNow, I had heard that it could cost $10 per hour, which is really expensive. I am not aware of any additional fees to the standard licensing fees. There is no standard ServiceNow solution. When a company wants to acquire ServiceNow, they already know which module they will choose. In a basic package, you would have Service Catalog, Incident Management, and Change Management. These modules are usually required in an IT company."

"The product price falls on the higher side of the spectrum."

"The market sees ServiceNow as the Ferrari in terms of pricing. It's at the very top, and its cost is very, very high."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Manufacturing Company

11%

Construction Company

10%

Outsourcing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

16%

Outsourcing Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	24
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	16

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	23

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Freshservice?

I cannot comment much on the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Freshservice as it was already preset up in my company.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Freshservice?

I believe Freshservice can be improved by offering more advanced features and customizability. In terms of improvements, I suggest enhancing performance for larger networks and addressing workflow ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Freshservice?

In Freshservice, I typically use it for day-to-day tasks. A quick, specific example of how I use Freshservice in my daily work includes getting some incidents, working on service requests, and hand...

See all answers

What needs improvement with ServiceNow CMDB?

I believe that related to the solutions in the Now Assist platform, we can put more autonomy on that. Some reconciliation can be automated. AI Assist is the current improvement now. I don't have an...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for ServiceNow CMDB?

I primarily work with ITSM, HR, SPM, AI, Now Assist, CMDB, and CSDM modules, covering almost all of these areas. I use the integration with ServiceNow CMDB with all the processes that we have imple...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering ServiceNow CMDB?

I help customers evaluate their CMDB health. We use the CMDB health to make that analysis, to see the relationships, what is missing with the processes they have, and any mis-ownership issues. So, ...

See all answers

Comparisons

ServiceNow vs Freshservice

Compared 10% of the time

Zendesk vs Freshservice

Compared 7% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs Freshservice

Compared 5% of the time

Samanage vs Freshservice

Compared 4% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs Freshservice

Compared 3% of the time

More Freshservice Competitors

Device42 vs ServiceNow CMDB

Compared 36% of the time

BMC Helix CMDB vs ServiceNow CMDB

Compared 22% of the time

Faddom vs ServiceNow CMDB

Compared 18% of the time

OpenText Universal Discovery and Universal CMDB vs ServiceNow CMDB

Compared 14% of the time

More ServiceNow CMDB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Freshservice

October 2026

Download Freshservice product report

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow CMDB

September 2026

Download ServiceNow CMDB product report

Also Known As

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Overview

Freshservice specializes in user-friendliness and seamless integration, facilitating IT operations with AI-driven ticketing and flexible asset management, essential for diverse organizations.

Known for its comprehensive automation and integration with platforms like AWS, Freshservice enhances IT tasks with flexible workflows and intuitive dashboards. Its self-service portal and effective incident management promote efficient service delivery and SLA compliance, making it vital for IT teams. However, users seek enhanced customization and integration with Microsoft and Google, along with improved analytics and project management features.

What are the essential features of Freshservice?

User-friendliness: Simplifies IT processes with intuitive design.
Comprehensive automation: Optimizes operations through streamlined processes.
AI-powered ticketing: Enhances ticket management with intelligent solutions.
Seamless integration: Connects with platforms like AWS and SolarWinds for efficient workflows.
Flexible workflows and asset management: Adapts to diverse IT needs for better service delivery.

What benefits should users consider in Freshservice reviews?

Streamlined IT operations: Simplifies and speeds up service processes.
Improved SLA compliance: Enhances adherence to service level agreements through efficient management.
Increased service delivery: Boosts the quality and efficiency of services provided.
Visibility across departments: Provides clear tracking and management of service requests and assets.

Freshservice is widely implemented in IT service management, supporting ticketing, incident management, and change management. It assists in customer service, internal support, and integrates with Azure and AWS. Significant for HR service centers and knowledge bases, it enables workflow automation and reporting, centralizing service operations for enhanced visibility and tracking across departments.

Freshworks

ServiceNow CMDB offers a user-friendly interface with customizable features, seamless integration, reliable performance, detailed discovery tools, and robust data governance. It is essential for effective asset management and IT service optimization.

ServiceNow CMDB serves as a central management facility for configuration items supporting processes like incident, change, and asset management. It provides scalable tracking of IT hardware assets, integrates discovery, and manages relationships among configuration items to enhance infrastructure and service visualization. With strong data governance, automation capabilities, and integration with business modules, it supports cloud and on-premises environments effectively.

What are the most important features of ServiceNow CMDB?

User-Friendly Interface: Customizable and easy-to-navigate, allowing for efficient management.
Seamless Integration: Interfaces with Microsoft Active Directory and business tools effortlessly.
Automation Capabilities: Automates processes to enhance operational efficiency.
Reliability: Offers consistent performance and detailed discovery tools.
Data Governance: Strong regulatory compliance and data management.

What key benefits or ROI should users expect?

Asset Tracking: Centralized asset management with scalable solutions.
IT Service Management: Enhanced project and service portfolio management.
Centralization: Consolidates configuration data for improved decision-making.
Scalability: Adapts to growing business needs and large data sets.

ServiceNow CMDB is implemented across multiple industries to manage complex IT infrastructures. In finance, it supports asset tracking and compliance. Healthcare uses it for critical configuration management and reliable discovery. Tech companies benefit from its integration capabilities and process automation to maintain competitive edge.

ServiceNow

Sample Customers

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport

Wayfair, Siemens, Allianz, Experian, Vitas Healthcare

Buyer's Guide

Freshservice vs. ServiceNow CMDB

September 2026

Free Report: Freshservice vs. ServiceNow CMDB

Find out what your peers are saying about Freshservice vs. ServiceNow CMDB and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.

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