ServiceNow
Service management platform in Money & business
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.
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.
33 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 22
- approval share
- 33%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Mature, powerful enterprise system
“The established players such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, etc. have a mature product that justifies the 7-figure contract price”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Claude Sonnet 4.6 System Card” “really powerful system with ugly, ugly roots”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “Opus 4.5 is going to change everything” Seen as ahead of rivals
“this is why servicenow and sales force are just killing it”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Opus 5.5 is good at explainer videos” “ServiceNow is light years ahead of that too.”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Workday project at Washington University hits $266M” Fast ticket handling and resolution
“Takes 2 seconds to be in the ticket. Granted, that interface sucks too”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Workday project at Washington University hits $266M” “Resolution time is down like 60%.”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Log messages are mostly for the people operating your software”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Poorly designed and hard to use
“Possibly ServiceNow (or "service never" as it is nicknamed where I work) is the worst commercial software I have ever had to use.”
Comment from 12 Apr 2026 in “Salesforce and ServiceNow are squaring off in the battle for the helpdesk” “I often find major flaws with db schema design - similar data in multiple places, lack of constraints, etc.”
Comment from 8 Mar 2026 in “Will Claude Code ruin our team?” “It's really expensive and extremely poorly designed and you need specialized people just to maintain it.”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “ServiceNow Stock Tumbles 50% in a Year: Good Earnings Don't Stop 'Death of SaaS'” - Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “ServiceNow Stock Tumbles 50% in a Year: Good Earnings Don't Stop 'Death of SaaS'”
- Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Workday project at Washington University hits $266M”
- Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Workday project at Washington University hits $266M”
- Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Workday project at Washington University hits $266M”
- Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Workday project at Washington University hits $266M”
Customizations cause breakage and workflow changes
“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.”
Comment from 10 May 2026 in “Bun's experimental Rust rewrite hits 99.8% test compatibility on Linux x64 glibc” “the latest ServiceNow update nuked a bunch of the changes I had worked for months trying to get done”
Comment from 25 Apr 2026 in “Do I belong in tech anymore?” “things can go really bad when you go crazy with the customizations”
Comment from 14 Dec 2025 in “Workday project at Washington University hits $266M” Expensive and needs specialists
“It's really expensive and extremely poorly designed and you need specialized people just to maintain it.”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “ServiceNow Stock Tumbles 50% in a Year: Good Earnings Don't Stop 'Death of SaaS'” “parasites that wine and dine their way into organisations (and governments) and then bleed them dry”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Workday project at Washington University hits $266M”
What people said
36 of the 38 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Form needs to be corrected and reapproved before we can go into ServiceNow and make changes.”
“this is why servicenow and sales force are just killing it”
“it's absolutely horrible, and they have busted processes atop it”
“you don't need a $5m/yr salesforce / servicenow contract”
“I like Jira. Much more than Service Now”
“Both seemed to just discard or sort some trash bin those emails.”
“We try not to customize servicenow quite as much, but the less we customize it, the more we have to change the workflows in our company.”
“the latest ServiceNow update nuked a bunch of the changes I had worked for months trying to get done”
“Possibly ServiceNow (or "service never" as it is nicknamed where I work) is the worst commercial software I have ever had to use.”
“Resolution time is down like 60%.”
“I often find major flaws with db schema design - similar data in multiple places, lack of constraints, etc.”
“The established players such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, etc. have a mature product that justifies the 7-figure contract price”
“The SoR that builds a credible agent platform on top of its own data and workflow layer has a structural advantage over a standalone agent”
“massively-overkill-$olution$ in $aa$ like CRM, NOW, etc.”
“ServiceNow, Oracle, Workday, etc are not small monthly fees.”
“service now couldn't even conveniently calculate a median”
“Nobody wants to use those products either”
“ServiceNow SUCKS. I mean it's not quite as bad as IBM Remedy, but it really, really tries.”
“This is such a weird trope.”
“For those of us who've used microsoft teams, jira, servicenow, salesforce”
“It's really expensive and extremely poorly designed and you need specialized people just to maintain it.”
“start feeling like calcified systems that the end users start hating”
“So someone adds a gateway to a fence but forgets to add the gate.”
“Companies are bolting AI agents onto legacy systems without rethinking authorization.”
“really powerful system with ugly, ugly roots”
“things can go really bad when you go crazy with the customizations”
“It still didn't make sense why an enhancement request and a fix request couldn't be moved between queues.”
“ServiceNow has completely broken the back/forward behavior in its own unique way.”
“Takes 2 seconds to be in the ticket. Granted, that interface sucks too”
“There is no input box to interact with "Now Assist" or the "Virtual Agent"”
“It's so horrible that I assumed it was in house.”
“It always amazes me there seems to be no obvious URL scheme for servicenow”
“I still do not know how to look up a ticket by ticket number.”
“ServiceNow is light years ahead of that too.”
“ServiceNow is so terrible I genuinely wonder how it is ever deployed anywhere”
“parasites that wine and dine their way into organisations (and governments) and then bleed them dry”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.