September 2026 Edition, published · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › IT › IT operations and endpoint › ITSM › Enterprise · September 2026 Edition

IT service management for enterprise buyers

Asked as “ITSM platform”, and as “IT service desk and ticketing tool”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 43 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing · first-choice share
63%
Clear leader
63ServiceNow ITSM19Jira Service Management07Freshservice12others

63% of first choices, clear leader.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01ServiceNow ITSM63%28%65criticized default
02Jira Service Management19%17%54accepted challenger
03Freshservice7%22%51accepted challenger
04ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus2%26%19criticized challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
07Zendesk ITSM0%40%15criticized challenger
06Ivanti Neurons for ITSM0%27%30criticized challenger
05BMC Helix ITSM0%20%44accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.
Head to headHead-to-head pages are published for mid-market buyers, so these open on mid-market figures, not enterprise.
All ten head-to-head pages: the top five products, each against each

One product takes 63% of first choices here, so the chart would put six markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. Four products carry a negative rate above 25% in this category.

What they warned about

Nine of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
ServiceNow ITSM
28%
18 of 65 labels negative · 12 of 12 models · 4 hard negative
“the industry leaders like ServiceNow or BMC are generally poor choices due to their complex, metric-based pricing models” Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt
Jira Service Management
17%
9 of 54 labels negative · 9 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“often criticized for steep learning curves, "build-it-yourself" configuration burdens, and weaker non-technical usability/CMDB” Grok 4.20, negative prompt
BMC Helix ITSM
20%
9 of 44 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“industry leaders like ServiceNow or BMC are generally poor choices” Qwen 3.7 Flash, budget prompt
Freshservice
22%
11 of 51 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Platforms to Avoid or Approach with High Caution ... Complaints include scalability caps on ticket volumes” Grok 4.20, negative prompt

What they cite

Twelve of the twelve models returned a source list in this edition: four return the pages they cited and eight the search results they consulted.

Sites the answers cite

63 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 907 links across 243 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

39 answers · 55 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Motadata25 answers · 29 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Virima23 answers · 29 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Console20 answers · 22 citations · 11 models
vendor site · InvGate19 answers · 21 citations · 10 models
18 answers · 19 citations · 9 models
vendor site · Xurrent17 answers · 20 citations · 9 models
vendor site · TeamDynamix17 answers · 17 citations · 9 models
16 answers · 16 citations · 8 models
vendor site · Atlassian15 answers · 20 citations · 8 models
15 answers · 15 citations · 8 models
vendor site · ONES.com14 answers · 16 citations · 7 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best itsm platform”, “itsm platform”, “itsm platforms”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
ServiceNow parent site
ServiceNow ITSM 63%
63%221135,00013,451
Jira atlassian.com
Jira Service Management 19%
19%3356,6001884,724,388 company$5,906615
Freshservice freshworks.com7%4238,100221111,586$14,486113
TeamDynamix teamdynamix.com5%214,400631,482,633$1,518207
HaloITSM5%88032
ManageEngine parent site
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus 2%
2%1238,100675
BMC Helix bmc.com
BMC Helix ITSM 0%
0%943204188,432 company$2963
Ivanti parent site
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM 0%
0%539,900636
Console console.com0%890,500213,3511,3210
InvGate invgate.com
InvGate Service Management 0%
0%48500174,187 company$2,57967

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 14 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (atlassian.com, gartner.com, teamdynamix.com, xurrent.com). The first result for “best itsm platform” is gartner.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best ITSM platform for an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which IT service desk and ticketing tool would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade ITSM platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best ITSM platform for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating an ITSM platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which ITSM platforms should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5ServiceNow ITSM
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Console, Freshservice, TeamDynamix
ServiceNow ITSMHeld
Three alternativesFreshservice, Jira Service Management, Zendesk ITSM
Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, ServiceNow ITSM
Two alternativesFreshservice, Jira Service Management
Freshservice, HaloITSMagainst: ServiceNow ITSMno first choiceagainst: BMC Helix ITSM, Omnitracker, ServiceNow ITSM
GPT-5.4 miniServiceNow ITSM
Three alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management
against: Freshservice
ServiceNow ITSMHeld
One alternativeJira Service Management
ServiceNow ITSM
Five alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Jira Service Management
One alternativeManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
against: ServiceNow ITSM
no first choiceagainst: Freshservice, HaloITSM, Jira Service Management, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, SysAid, TOPdesk
Gemini 3.5 FlashServiceNow ITSM
Two alternativesFreshservice, Jira Service Management
ServiceNow ITSMHeld
Three alternativesFreshservice, HaloITSM, Jira Service Management
ServiceNow ITSM
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Jira Service Management, TeamDynamix
HaloITSM
Two alternativesJira Service Management, TeamDynamix
against: ServiceNow ITSM
Jira Service Management
Three alternativesFreshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, ServiceNow ITSM
against: BMC Helix ITSM, Broadcom, Cherwell Service Management, HubSpot Service Hub, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk, SysAid, Zendesk ITSM, Zoho Desk
Perplexity SonarServiceNow ITSM
Three alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Jira Service Management, TeamDynamix
ServiceNow ITSMHeld
Two alternativesJira Service Management, Salesforce Service Cloud
against: HaloITSM
ServiceNow ITSM
Seven alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, IBM Control Desk, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, TeamDynamix, Xurrent
TeamDynamix
One alternativeBMC Helix ITSM
against: ServiceNow ITSM
no first choiceagainst: Freshservice, GoTo Resolve, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, SolarWinds Service Desk, Zendesk ITSM
Grok 4.20ServiceNow ITSM
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management
ServiceNow ITSMHeld
Two alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Jira Service Management
against: Freshservice
ServiceNow ITSM
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management
against: IBM Instana, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Jira Service Management
One alternativeFreshservice
against: BMC Helix ITSM, ServiceNow ITSM
ServiceNow ITSM
One alternativeFreshservice
against: Freshservice, Jira Service Management, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, SolarWinds Service Desk
Mistral SmallServiceNow ITSM
Two alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice
no first choiceChangedServiceNow ITSM
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, TeamDynamix
against: Cherwell Service Management
Freshserviceagainst: ServiceNow ITSMServiceNow ITSM
Six alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, Microsoft, Microsoft Intune
against: BMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, ServiceNow ITSM
DeepSeek V4 FlashServiceNow ITSM
Two alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Jira Service Management
against: Freshservice
ServiceNow ITSMHeld
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management
ServiceNow ITSM
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management
Jira Service Management
One alternativeFreshservice
against: ServiceNow ITSM
no first choiceagainst: BMC Helix ITSM, Bubble, Cherwell Service Management, Freshdesk, Freshservice, HappyFox, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, Retool, Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow ITSM, SysAid, Zendesk ITSM
Llama 4 MaverickTeamDynamixServiceNow ITSMChangedServiceNow ITSM
Three alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Jira Service Management
ServiceNow ITSMno first choiceagainst: BMC Helix ITSM, ServiceNow ITSM
Qwen 3.7 FlashServiceNow ITSM
Three alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Jira Service Management
ServiceNow ITSMHeld
One alternativeJira Service Management
against: Freshservice, Zendesk ITSM
ServiceNow ITSM
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Two alternativesFreshservice, Jira Service Management
against: BMC Helix ITSM, ServiceNow ITSM
no first choiceagainst: BMC Helix ITSM, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, ServiceNow ITSM
Kimi K2ServiceNow ITSM
Three alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Jira Service Management
ServiceNow ITSMHeld
Two alternativesFreshservice, Jira Service Management
ServiceNow ITSM
Three alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Jira Service Management
against: Cherwell Service Management
Jira Service Management
One alternativeFreshservice
against: ServiceNow ITSM
Freshservice, Jira Service Management
One alternativeServiceNow ITSM
against: BMC Helix ITSM, Cherwell, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, ServiceNow ITSM, Zendesk ITSM
GLM 4.7 FlashXServiceNow ITSM
Five alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ServiceNow ITSMHeld
Three alternativesFreshservice, Jira Service Management, Zendesk ITSM
ServiceNow ITSM
Seven alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Cherwell Service Management, IBM Control Desk, InvGate Service Management, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, Serval
ServiceNow ITSM
Three alternativesFreshservice, Jira Service Management, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ServiceNow ITSM
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, ONES.com
against: Cherwell, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, ServiceNow ITSM, TOPdesk
MiniMax M2.5Jira Service Management, ServiceNow ITSM
One alternativeFreshservice
ServiceNow ITSMChanged
Two alternativesFreshservice, Jira Service Management
against: Zendesk ITSM
ServiceNow ITSM
Four alternativesBMC Helix ITSM, Freshservice, Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management
against: IBM Control Desk
Jira Service Management
One alternativeTOPdesk
against: ServiceNow ITSM
no first choiceagainst: Ivanti Neurons for ITSM, Jira Service Management, ServiceNow ITSM
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency.
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 11:20yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 11:31yes35 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:22yes921 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:52yes206 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 13:04yes199 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 10:07yes1311 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:52yes1013 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 12:16yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 09:40yes527 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:33yes1337 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:23yes13108 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:40yes1045 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:02yes910 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 12:05yes25 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:45yes1321 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:16yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 13:49yes157 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:38no02 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 13:34yes1011 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:08yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 12:25yes1069 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:21yes1019 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:28yes2934 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 11:26yes543 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 14:13yes99 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 13:42yes49 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 09:31yes1332 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:11yes2010 s
ComparativeGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 13:32yes2116 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:43yes1512 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 10:55yes1025 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:51yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:54no052 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 14:04yes1430 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:23yes875 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 11:29yes828 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:50yes188 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:27yes45 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:14yes2734 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:51yes207 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 12:46yes4118 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 14:05yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:09yes2020 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:44yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:28no035 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 09:23yes1030 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:49yes1484 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:05yes1482 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:49no07 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 14:11no044 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:44no016 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:45yes209 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 10:31yes1716 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:01no09 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:56yes1936 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:56yes54 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:50no040 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:09yes1557 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:59yes1986 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 12:05no014 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 11:01yes1714 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:39yes411 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 12:53yes1826 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:36yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.20spacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex (asked for grok-4.20-non-reasoning; the API answered as this version)2026-09-17 13:01yes3619 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 10:59yes1011 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-09-17 13:29yes3072 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 14:08yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 14:00yes3481 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 13:48yes2989 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 13:59yes24125 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:02yes2350 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Atlassian (Jira Service Management) read as Jira Service Management
BMC read as BMC Helix ITSM
BMC Helix read as BMC Helix ITSM
BMC Helix (and Remedy) read as BMC Helix ITSM
BMC Helix (formerly Remedy) read as BMC Helix ITSM
HubSpot read as HubSpot Service Hub
Ivanti read as Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Ivanti (Neurons for ITSM) read as Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
Ivanti Neurons read as Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
ManageEngine read as ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ServiceNow read as ServiceNow ITSM
ServiceNow IT Service Management read as ServiceNow ITSM
ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) read as ServiceNow ITSM
Spiceworks read as Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
Zendesk read as Zendesk ITSM
Zendesk Enterprise read as Zendesk ITSM
Zendesk for IT (Zendesk) read as Zendesk ITSM
Unresolved, counted raw
Bubble
Microsoft Dynamics 365 ITSM
Omnitracker
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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