Compare: ITSM for IT teams
ServiceNow IT Service Management alternative: Tenvara
ServiceNow IT Service Management is a long-established enterprise ITSM product, used by large organisations for incident, problem, change and request management on the wider ServiceNow platform. This page compares the ITSM core an in-house IT team works in every day. IT teams look at Tenvara when they want that service desk next to the tools that look after the estate itself: the agent, patching, remote control, Microsoft 365, backup and security, in one app with one login.
The tool today
What ServiceNow IT Service Management does
Enterprise ITSM on the ServiceNow platform: incidents, problems, changes, requests and more. Made by ServiceNow. This is how the vendor describes it, in our words.
- Incident, problem, change and request management, with major incident management.
- Service level management with schedules for business hours.
- Knowledge management and Employee Center for self-service.
- On-call scheduling and incident communications.
- Generative AI skills, a virtual agent and the ITSM Mobile Agent app.
- Asset management, platform analytics and many other ServiceNow products on the same platform.
Side by side
Tenvara vs ServiceNow IT Service Management
The IT service management jobs that matter most, and how each product handles them. Then what else comes with Tenvara, such as RMM, patching and vulnerability management, in the same app.
Incident management
Incident Management
Service requests and a catalogue with forms
Request Management with catalogue items
Manager approvals
Approval policies for requests and changes
Problem management
Problem Management with known error articles
Change management and a change calendar
CAB approval, change schedules and a conflict calendar
Major incidents
Major Incident Management with a workbench
SLAs by priority, department or VIP
Service Level Management with business schedules
Ticket categories
Category and subcategory on incidents
On hold with a reason, SLA paused
On hold reasons such as awaiting caller, with SLA pause conditions
Knowledge base and self-service portal
Knowledge Management and Employee Center
Asset records and lifecycle
Asset Management
On-call rotas
On-Call Scheduling
Reports and dashboards
Platform Analytics dashboards
AI on tickets
Generative AI skills and incident summaries
Mobile app for the IT team
ITSM Mobile Agent
Also in Tenvara
What else you get with Tenvara, in the same app
Remote monitoring and alerts
Separate: Agent Client Collector, licensed with ITOM
Patching
Not included; orchestrates patching through tools such as SCCM
Vulnerability management
Separate product: ServiceNow Vulnerability Response
Network discovery and SNMP
Separate product: ServiceNow Discovery, part of ITOM
Endpoint, server and VM backup
Not included
Microsoft 365 backup
Not included
Add-on means the vendor sells it as a separate product or paid extra. ServiceNow IT Service Management details come from the vendor's own website, see sources.
The one-app pitch
What else you'd replace
Most IT teams running ServiceNow IT Service Management pay for several other tools beside it. Tenvara does these jobs too, on the same employee and device records, with one agent and one login.
See every comparisonSwitching
Moving from ServiceNow IT Service Management
A calm move, not a big bang. Run both side by side until your team is happy.
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1
Import your sites, employees, devices and assets
Save your sites, people, devices and assets as CSV files and import them in Settings, Migration, one file at a time. You match the columns, a dry run checks every row, and you can undo an import.
Importing from CSV -
2
Connect Microsoft 365
Give admin consent for your own tenant. Employees arrive with their departments, and licences and security settings come with them, with nothing to map.
Connecting a tenant -
3
Point the support mailbox at Tenvara
Connect the mailbox employees already write to, so new mail becomes tickets. Finish open work in ServiceNow while new tickets land in Tenvara.
Email to ticket and alert rules -
4
Deploy the agent
Install the agent on Windows, macOS and Linux with the one-line command or your usual deployment tool, so devices, patching and remote control are ready before you switch.
Installing the agent -
5
Go live
Run the two side by side while you check the findings report, then press We're live in the setup helper when the essentials are in place.
Go-live and Health
ServiceNow IT Service Management pricing
ServiceNow sells IT Service Management by quote. Contact ServiceNow for prices and packages.
Tenvara pricing
One product with every feature included, hosted or self-hosted. Tenvara is new and in beta, and pricing is announced before launch.
See pricingQuestions
ServiceNow IT Service Management vs Tenvara: FAQ
The IT service management core an in-house IT team works in: incidents, requests and the catalogue, approvals, problems, changes, major incidents, SLAs, the knowledge base and the self-service portal. Tenvara adds the agent, patching, remote control, Microsoft 365, backup and security on the same employee and device records.
In the employee portal they raise tickets, read help articles and choose from the service catalogue under Request something. A request goes to their department manager first and then to IT, and an approved request for a laptop, equipment or software to buy becomes a purchase request by itself.
Yes. A ticket follows a chosen policy, a policy whose conditions it matches, its requester's department policy, the VIP policy or the default by priority, with clocks on business hours, chosen hours or 24/7.
Yes. Import your sites, employees, devices and assets from CSV, connect the support mailbox so new mail becomes tickets in Tenvara, and finish open work in ServiceNow. Tenvara stays in Getting started mode, with findings in one report, until you go live.
Hosted, on an instance run for you at yourname.tenvara.app, or self-hosted on your own Linux server with Docker Compose. It is the same product either way.
More IT service management comparisons
Tenvara is coming soon.
Apply for the beta to run Tenvara side by side with ServiceNow IT Service Management before you decide, or get launch updates and hear first when pricing is announced.
Comparison based on publicly available information as of September 2026. ServiceNow IT Service Management is a trademark of its owner; Tenvara is not affiliated with it. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll correct it.
Sources
- ServiceNow IT Service Management documentation (Zurich)
- ServiceNow ITSM applications and features
- ServiceNow Incident Management documentation
- ServiceNow Change Management documentation
- ServiceNow change types
- ServiceNow Service Level Management
- ServiceNow Agent Client Collector
- ServiceNow Discovery
- ServiceNow Vulnerability Response
- ServiceNow Vulnerability Response data sheet
- Vulnerability Response Patch Orchestration with Microsoft SCCM
- ServiceNow incident categories
- ServiceNow life cycle of an incident
- ServiceNow SLA conditions