# ServiceNow

11 Hacker News commenters recommended ServiceNow and 22 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Widely used enterprise platform for IT service and workflow management that people credit with maturity, power and fast ticket handling. Common caveat: it is expensive, poorly designed and breaks when heavily customized.

## Why people recommend it

- Mature, powerful enterprise system (2 comments): "The established players such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, etc. have a mature product that justifies the 7-figure contract price" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47061364)) "really powerful system with ugly, ugly roots" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46558158))
- Seen as ahead of rivals (2 comments): "this is why servicenow and sales force are just killing it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49837043)) "ServiceNow is light years ahead of that too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46258656))
- Fast ticket handling and resolution (2 comments): "Takes 2 seconds to be in the ticket. Granted, that interface sucks too" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46260201)) "Resolution time is down like 60%." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47304530))

## What people warn about

- Poorly designed and hard to use (8 comments): "Possibly ServiceNow (or "service never" as it is nicknamed where I work) is the worst commercial software I have ever had to use." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47737463)) "I often find major flaws with db schema design - similar data in multiple places, lack of constraints, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47294266)) "It's really expensive and extremely poorly designed and you need specialized people just to maintain it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46819272))
- Customizations cause breakage and workflow changes (3 comments): "We try not to customize servicenow quite as much, but the less we customize it, the more we have to change the workflows in our company." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48082202)) "the latest ServiceNow update nuked a bunch of the changes I had worked for months trying to get done" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47899253)) "things can go really bad when you go crazy with the customizations" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46260443))
- Expensive and needs specialists (2 comments): "It's really expensive and extremely poorly designed and you need specialized people just to maintain it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46819272)) "parasites that wine and dine their way into organisations (and governments) and then bleed them dry" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46258234))

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "ServiceNow", https://hackerapproved.com/p/servicenow/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).