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IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus vs ServiceNow IT Operations Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 23, 2025

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

IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
Ranking in Event Monitoring
5th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
ServiceNow IT Operations Ma...
Ranking in Event Monitoring
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (10th), IT Infrastructure Monitoring (8th), AIOps (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Event Monitoring category, the mindshare of IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus is 10.2%, up from 8.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is 18.9%, up from 17.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Event Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed Salman - PeerSpot reviewer
Aids in network performance monitoring and management
I am working as a customer, mainly using IntelliQ and another product, IBM NetCool, Watson AI. These products are used for monitoring network performance and management.  The primary use case involves network performance monitoring, and it is compatible only with IBM DB2 IBM Tivoli NetCool…
PriyankaBachu - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides templates which reduces duplications in rule configuration
Currently, we are integrating LogicMonitor with ServiceNow IT Operations Management to manage IT event management and auto-ticketing for alerts from the monitoring tool to ServiceNow The solution is saving time by providing templates, reducing duplication in rule configuration, and offering…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus supports legacy protocols like CORBA, Huawei, and other telecom protocols, which I find beneficial."
"The most valuable feature is the event management capability."
"It is customer-centric. Customers can access the event list from their location or desktop and view the event. There is no need to go and connect to any other server and run events to have a view of all the events happening in the environment. We get a good response from customers about this feature and the main architecture of NetCool. Its processing is very good. Deduplication and correlation functionalities are good in this solution as compared to other solutions. A big advantage of NetCool is that it also supports multi-layered protocols. We can receive multiple events from different protocols like UDP, HTTP, and those events can be captured in NetCool."
"The biggest plus points for me are the configurability and scalability of the solution, as well as the multi-tenancy of the platform."
"Offers very good event/alert drill-down and statistical reporting capabilities."
"It is an easy-to-use solution."
"OMNIbus is valuable for its compatibility and performance, as I haven't encountered any performance issues."
"Probes are the best feature because they are well written which rarely requires you to write additional rules. These probes monitor activity within your environment."
"The most valuable features of ServiceNow IT Operations Management are ease of use, intuitive design, and ease of management, and its based on IT practices which are good."
"Has service mapping, impact management, metric intelligence and health of analytics."
"I like the tool's discovery feature."
"ITOM communicates information about incidents and maintains them. It handles tickets change, manages service networks, and reduces IT service downtime for the organization."
"The solution allows you to subscribe to the features you need and utilize CMDB, ITSM, and discovery on the same platform."
"Customer service is excellent."
"You can improve integrations of the operation with the solution."
"I like the tool's CMBD connection with Discovery. The solution is also flexible."
 

Cons

"The solution has limitations in database integration as it cannot integrate with databases other than IBM DB2."
"Its technical support team takes longer to reply."
"They could enhance the visibility to give us a unified view of our entire IT infrastructure."
"There should be an easier-to-understand model, more of a flat-structured model rather than different tiers of licenses which complicates licensing."
"The solution needs to invest in the development of a knowledge base and use of AI services for providing event resolution and intervention directions."
"Its integration could be better. They should provide an easier integration for all the monitoring stuff, and it will make things easier for us. Currently, there is a complexity in integrating it with a vendor application, and we have to use another tool to integrate it with a vendor application. To integrate some applications with NetCool, I need to install an IBM tool on top of it. It would be good if they can provide an API or any kind of interface that we can leverage while developing a new protocol interface or application. We should be able to use an API or interface with NetCool. Its GUI can also be better. As compared to other tools, it is not user friendly, and it is not easy to do stuff through GUI. Whenever we do anything on the GUI, it takes time. They need to focus on the GUI part, especially the dashboard. They should focus on how users can effectively drill down from one box to another. The visual appeal of the dashboard is as important as the data and functionality."
"The cost of the product is quite high. They should work to adjust their pricing models."
"Areas that could be better include the fact that the solution is only on-premises, lacks AI capabilities, and support response times could be quicker."
"The solution’s licensing cost could be improved."
"I would like more manual issues to have automated report-facing options."
"My managers would say that the price is too high. We wanted to also have the visibility version of it, but it's too expensive for us. Going for visibility would have doubled up the price."
"The pricing of some modules is higher because they are sold in packages. If we need something specific, we cannot take it individually."
"When it comes to improvements, I think that my colleagues and I often have issues finding the correct screen and the search box does not work as intended."
"Service mapping is pretty limited."
"I believe that technical support could improve a bit. I would rate it a six."
"Regarding ServiceNow, there is room for improvement in terms of customization, particularly in the area of self-customization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You have to have the right level of budget to afford this solution."
"Its license cost is a little bit more than other solutions. Our customers expect a standard market price that is comparative to other products. For each and every NetCool OMNIbus component, we have to purchase a separate license. These components are not free with the product."
"It is a costly solution."
"The solution is costly compared to the products offered by its competitors."
"The cost of ServiceNow is much higher."
"The pricing is high and may be excluding the small to medium-sized enterprise businesses."
"There are additional costs, you have to pay more for everything."
"It is expensive. It is around 10 Euros per server per month."
"This solution offers good value but comes at a very high premium. Pricing could be reduced by 10 to 20%."
"The price of ServiceNow IT Operations Management is expensive."
"It has different subscription models."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
18%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
If the various HW elements are from the same vendor, a monitoring solution provided by that vendor or its partners will potentially result in lower licensing and operational costs. Moreover, for ve...
What needs improvement with IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
IBM is working on converting NetCool to NetCool Operations Insight, which runs on Watson AI. There were areas needing improvement in terms of AI, however, they have migrated the entire NetCool suit...
What is your primary use case for IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus?
OMNIbus is used for alert processing and deduplication of alarms. It is used for performing certain actions on any alarm processed through NetCool. It serves as a core component for action triggers...
What do you like most about ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
From my perspective as an asset manager, the most valuable feature of the solution is the configuration management portion, where I can actively add something to the database.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
ServiceNow's pricing is expensive. We consider it a Tier 1 product, but it requires significant investment.
What needs improvement with ServiceNow IT Operations Management?
ServiceNow ( /products/servicenow-reviews )'s pricing is expensive. A more streamlined configuration process tailored to use cases and industry would be beneficial. We needed some external help to ...
 

Also Known As

Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus
ServiceNow ITOM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Consolidated Communications, €sterreichische Bundesbahnen (€BB), Capgemini
servicenow, TransAlta, NATS, Symantec
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Tivoli NetCool OMNIbus vs. ServiceNow IT Operations Management and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,278 professionals have used our research since 2012.