Ticketing systems play a fundamental role in almost every organization’s everyday IT operations. In fact, for many, ticket based tools are the backbone of IT help desk operations used by top service providers almost everywhere. Ticketing systems are the most essential piece of software that enables organizations to keep track of and manage workflow processes. Without them, every query, service request or customer problems would end up lost inside a flurry of emails. It is not wrong to say that ticketing systems are modern IT service management solutions to eliminate barriers to employee support services. Ticketing systems consolidate everything into a single, easy to manage dashboard that manage workflows, prioritize work and resolve issues. Two of the most popular and widely used ticketing system software are Jira and ServiceNow.

What is ServiceNow?

ServiceNow is a powerful and versatile cloud-based IT Service Management (ITSM) platform that enables organizations to manage, structure and automate their business operations. It is an easy to use ticketing system that helps companies manage their digital workflows for everyday business processes. It is nothing but a platform as a service that helps in providing the infrastructure needed to implement and run business applications and services. It provides ITSM applications and helps in the automation of many organizational workflow activities. With roots in IT service management, ServiceNow is gradually evolving as the platform of choice for enterprise service management, consolidating all business related functions such as customer helpdesk, HR, security and legal into one versatile platform. With easy integration with several different tools, ServiceNow enables you to manage projects, teams, and customer interactions in a jiffy without the extra bells and whistles.

What is Jira?

Jira is a powerful bug/issue tracking and work management tool for all kinds of use cases and for businesses of all sizes. Originally a bug tracking tool for software and mobile apps, Jira has evolved into a highly customizable project management system that supports any agile methodology, be it Scrum or Kanban. The name Jira is actually a truncation of Gojira, the Japanese word for Godzilla and was designed to compete with the infamous bug tracking tool Bugzilla. On top of its bug and issue tracking capabilities, it is highly customizable which makes it a different system altogether. Jira Software is a part of the Jira’s family of products, along with Jira Core and Jira Service Desk. It combines the classic Jira features such as flexible workflows and customizable fields with the agile support methods to bring you a complete package that gives you the absolute experience of running a project the agile way.

Difference between ServiceNow and Jira

Tool 

– Atlassian Jira was originally developed for tracking bugs and issues for software and mobile apps, but it has evolved into a powerful agile project management tool for businesses of all sizes. Jira is a project tracking and management system that keeps all of your team’s work in a single Jira Project. ServiceNow, on the other hand, is a cloud-based IT Service Management (ITSM) platform that enables organizations to manage, structure and automate their business operations. It is a platform as a service that provides ITSM applications and helps in the automation of organizational workflow activities.

Incident/Problem Management 

– ServiceNow has a very robust incident and problem modules that tie directly into the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), which is like the heart of ServiceNow that stores information about all technical services. You can easily create a problem from one or more incidents and have those all linked together. You can do automatic assignment based on AI if you want or based on pre-defined rules to automatically assign the instance out to anybody. Jira Service Desk comes with a set of ITIL certified workflows and issue types for incident and problem management out of the box. It also has the ability to link certain issue together.

Configuration Management 

– Configuration management is the management of lifecycle of all configuration objects and infrastructure components. CMDB has all the configuration items with its relationships. ServiceNow uses a plug-in called discovery that helps in exploring a given network and identifies the interdependencies between the infrastructure components. Coming to Jira, CMDB is not a core feature or a core module of Jira Service Desk, but it is built to expand as your organization scale and mature.

Knowledge Management 

– ServiceNow offers out of the box solutions for sharing information in knowledge bases for customers, employees and agents for easy access. It has the ability to have different knowledge bases as they call them for different audiences for each one of them. You can have rating and feedback directly on the articles. Confluence is the core software for knowledge management in Jira that gives teams easy and quick access to solutions.

Pricing 

– Jira Service Management is free to use for up to three agents. The premium models start at an average of $20 per agent per month for over 4 agents and for organizations scaling high-velocity ITSM, there’s a Premium plan which costs $40 per agent per month. So, the pricing is budget friendly and pretty straightforward. ServiceNow also offers a free trial and the premium plans start at $10,000 per license per year. You have to talk to the sales team to get a custom quote.

ServiceNow vs. Jira: Comparison Chart

Summary

So, in a nutshell, ServiceNow is a platform as a service enterprise-grade ITSM solution that is purpose built for IT operations. It is an easy to use ticketing system that helps companies manage their digital workflows for everyday business processes and applications. Jira, on the other hand, has a customer base of over 250,000 and more than 80 percent of the Fortune-500 companies use Jira for its impressive business service management and bug tracking capabilities. So, organizations looking for a more organized and well-structured ITIL-focused solution may go for ServiceNow, but for small to medium enterprises, Jira is the best bet because it can be scaled as you expand.

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