Forrester, a research firm that provides companies with guidance through market and customer shifts, recently released a trends report comparing the two leading enterprise service management platforms, Atlassian and ServiceNow. Let’s take a look at insights from the report.
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, IT departments are the backbone of organizations as they become increasingly dependent on technology for daily operations. They manage critical infrastructure, ensure seamless operations, and support billions in revenue. However, service teams are often “the cobbler’s barefoot child,” struggling with outdated tools, rising technical debt, and increasing security concerns. Research finds that the average organization wastes 42% of development time on technical debt.
The need for robust IT management platforms is more pressing now than ever, and two major players have emerged as industry leaders: Atlassian and ServiceNow. While both platforms offer comprehensive service desk solutions, Atlassian is increasingly positioning itself as the superior choice for organizations looking to thrive in a modern IT environment.
The Growing Complexity of IT Service Management
Forrester's report underscores the challenges that IT service management teams face today. Technical debt, sprawl, redundancy, and security concerns are all growing issues that require effective management solutions. The report also highlights the lack of visibility and insight into IT operations, which continue to hinder organizations' ability to manage expenses, meet deadlines, and achieve a strong return on investment.
To address these challenges, service teams need more than just basic tools. They require an integrated platform that supports the entire service management lifecycle—from planning and development to deployment, operations, and beyond. This is where Atlassian excels.
Two Platforms Lead the Service Management Industry
While Atlassian and ServiceNow have risen as leading IT management platforms, they have distinct origins and strengths. ServiceNow's roots lie in IT service management (ITSM), while Atlassian began with a focus on development and collaboration. Over the years, both companies have expanded their offerings, but Atlassian's unique approach and continuous innovation set it apart.
1. Developer-Centric Roots: A Strong Foundation for the Future
Atlassian’s origins in development give it a significant edge over ServiceNow, which faces branding and historical image challenges in appealing to developers with its Agile Development offering. With tools like Jira, Bitbucket, and Confluence, Atlassian provides a seamless experience for dev and ops teams working on complex projects, making it easy to manage incidents, track progress, and collaborate effectively.
Jira Service Management is a natural addition to this thriving ecosystem. It provides a user-friendly and flexible service desk solution for IT and non-IT business teams already familiar with Atlassian’s suite of enterprise tools. With templates for every use case and custom configurations for even the most complex workflows, Jira Service Management quickly becomes a home base for issue tracking and incident management.
2. A Comprehensive Digital Delivery Pipeline
Atlassian’s strategy over the past decade has been to acquire tools to fit every user's need, with noteworthy acquisitions like Opsgenie for incident management in 2018 and AgileCraft (rebranded to Jira Align) for portfolio management in 2019. While Jira Align still trails its competitors as a Strategic Portfolio Management offering, Atlassian has continued to invest in enterprise visibility with added capabilities like Enterprise Insights and Atlassian Analytics.
Atlassian has steadily expanded its capabilities to cover all aspects of IT service management. Its recent introduction of AIOps capabilities further strengthens this position, offering organizations advanced capabilities to manage and automate their IT operations and service desk with greater efficiency and insight.
3. Innovation in AI and Knowledge Management
Atlassian continues to innovate as it responds to the needs of modern IT organizations. In 2023, they introduced Atlassian Intelligence, a powerful AI engine that empowers teams with virtual agents, natural language to JQL processing, generative search, and more. At Team 24, they introduced Rovo, an enterprise search tool built on Atlassian’s Teamwork Graph. With virtual agent capabilities and the vast expansion of Atlassian Intelligence across the entire ecosystem, Atlassian has made a clear commitment to improving knowledge transfer and operational insight across the organization.
ServiceNow is also expanding its AI capabilities, hedging its bets on its strengths as an AI-infused custom app development and automation platform. However, Atlassian’s focus on knowledge management and AI-driven insights positions it as a more effective platform for IT departments that must stay ahead in a rapidly changing environment.
4. Addressing the IT Control Plane
Forrester’s report introduces the concept of the “IT control plane,” which represents the hierarchy of IT service management, from governance and control to the deployment and monitoring of IT infrastructure. Atlassian’s holistic approach leads competitors in aligning with the needs of modern businesses.
In continuing to develop a comprehensive ITSM solution, Atlassian has invested significantly in configuration management and asset management with acquisitions like Mindville (2020) and Airtrack (2023). The focus on asset management and configuration management ensures that IT departments can maintain visibility and control over their IT resources, reducing the risk of sprawl and redundancy.
ServiceNow remains the tried-and-true enterprise ITSM platform, especially in the case of strategic management and non-IT workflows for business teams. At their Knowledge24 conference, ServiceNow announced support for enterprise asset management, which gives it a competitive advantage over Atlassian. Its non-IT customer service module recently reached $1 billion in annual revenue as a product, and its Now platform is a Leader on the Forrester Wave for low-code platforms for professional developers.
A Case for Coexistence
As Atlassian and ServiceNow continue to invest in expanding capabilities, organizations will have to make a careful choice between the two to avoid redundancy and unnecessary technical debt. However, the two platforms will continue to coexist for various reasons.
1. It is expensive and complicated to fully replace ServiceNow
Organizations have made massive investments in ServiceNow, with years of processes and templates built across the enterprise. This means a project to fully replace the Now platform can take months or years, and organizations often face multi-year contracts that make it challenging to implement another solution.
2. JSM offers a flexible option for teams outside of IT
While the IT department may be entrenched with ServiceNow, other departments and business teams may wish to set up their own service desk solutions outside of the platform. Jira Service Management is free for up to three agents, and its Standard plan starts at just $17.65/agent/month (compared to ServiceNow at $100/agent/month). This is an affordable, high velocity way to expand service management capabilities without expensive additions to ServiceNow.
3. Many organizations can build on an existing Atlassian footprint
Many organizations already have an Atlassian footprint, whether that’s Bitbucket, Jira, Trello, or one of Atlassian’s other work management solutions. This means that the dev and ops teams are already familiar with the tools and can build on that existing foundation. Atlassian’s true strength is its beautifully integrated ecosystem. Plus, with thousands of integrations and add-ons from the Atlassian Marketplace, teams will feel right at home with JSM.
Over time, organizations can continue to build out capabilities in Jira Service Management and eventually replace ServiceNow if desired. However, JSM’s flexible and affordable pricing model can allow for a coexist strategy in the meantime. To learn how Praecipio has helped organizations streamline operations and reduce costs by replacing ServiceNow, check out our collection of resources comparing Jira Service Management to other ITSM solutions.
The Path Forward: Building a Connected Enterprise
As the IT service management landscape continues to evolve, organizations must choose a platform that not only meets the current needs of their support teams but also empowers future growth and innovation. Atlassian's developer-centric roots, comprehensive digital delivery pipeline, and commitment to AI-driven insights help organizations stay ahead of the curve.
While ServiceNow has its strengths, particularly in non-IT workflows and low-code development, Atlassian's focus on high-code development, knowledge management, and platform-agnostic solutions positions it as the ideal platform for modern IT departments.
Praecipio’s enterprise service management solutions are designed to help your organization evaluate the landscape of service management tools and build a strategy that empowers teams and drives business value in an increasingly complex digital world.
