European Alternatives to ServiceNow
Looking for a European alternative to ServiceNow? ServiceNow, Inc. is a Delaware company in Santa Clara, and although European customers usually sign with its Irish entity, the group, the roadmap and the price list are American.
No European tool is a full clone, but eleven cover the job in different ways: commercial service management suites, open-source service desks with a CMDB, and lighter ticket systems, from companies in the Netherlands, France, Germany, the United Kingdom.
How we rank these tools — 4-step process
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European ownership, verified
The company is headquartered and incorporated in the EU, EEA or Switzerland, and processes customer data in Europe. A US parent company disqualifies a tool from this page regardless of where its servers are.
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Category fit and hands-on review
What the tool actually does, who it suits, and where it falls short — checked against the vendor’s own documentation, changelog and pricing page rather than its marketing copy.
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Compliance and pricing check
GDPR posture, hosting location and the prices quoted on this page are verified against the vendor’s public pricing before publication, and re-checked when we revisit the category.
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Position on this page
Placement on this page can be paid, and that can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. It never buys a good review: a tool that fails the checks above is not here at any price, and payment does not change the shortcomings we write about. A vendor can ask us to correct a factual error — not to remove a criticism.
Vendors can pay for visibility on this page. It never changes what an entry says about a product, including the criticism, and we earn nothing when you click through to a vendor. Paid placement can affect which tools appear here and the order they appear in. Editorial policy
11 European Alternatives to ServiceNow
TOPdesk
Delft service management for IT, facilities and HR, with Dutch law in its standard terms
EasyVista
French ITSM with its own discovery, monitoring and no-code orchestration
HaloITSM
UK service desk with one all-in price, GBP 66 per agent per month billed annually
Hornbill
London ITSM and ESM platform with codeless workflow automation and a CMDB
Matrix42
Frankfurt service management joined to endpoint management, now including Efecte
iTop
Open-source ITSM and CMDB from Combodo, with a free edition for up to 10 agents
GLPI
Open-source service desk with automatic inventory and CMDB, published by Teclib in Paris
OTOBO
Open-source ITIL-style ticket system from Rother OSS, with German managed hosting
Znuny
Berlin fork of OTRS Community Edition with long-term support, free to use
i-doit
Duesseldorf CMDB and IT documentation with ITSM, ITAM and compliance on one database
Zammad
Berlin open-source helpdesk with published prices, hosted from EUR 7 per month
Key takeaways
- ServiceNow, Inc. is a Delaware corporation in Santa Clara. European customers usually sign with ServiceNow Ireland Limited under Irish law, but the group and the roadmap are American. It publishes no prices.
- TOPdesk (Delft, Netherlands) is the broadest commercial alternative for IT and facilities, under Dutch law in its standard terms. CVC Growth Funds holds a minority stake since 2023 and the founders kept the majority.
- EasyVista (France, backed by Eurazeo) and Hornbill (London) are the closest to ServiceNow in workflow and automation, and both ask you to talk to sales for a price.
- HaloITSM (UK) is the only one here that publishes one all-in per-agent price, GBP 66 per agent per month billed annually on its UK pricing page. Its standard agreement does not state a governing law.
- iTop (Combodo, France), GLPI (Teclib, France) and OTOBO (Rother OSS, Germany) are open source with paid support and cloud options, and are the cheapest ways in.
- Matrix42 (Frankfurt) pairs service management with endpoint management and absorbed Efecte in 2024. i-doit (Duesseldorf) is a CMDB first. Znuny and Zammad are ticket systems that are lighter than ServiceNow.
Why people leave ServiceNow
ServiceNow is the reference platform for IT service management and enterprise workflows: incidents, requests, changes, a CMDB, a service portal, and a workflow engine that other departments such as HR and facilities build on. It is sold on annual subscriptions, and its own annual report says the digital workflow products are generally priced per user and the IT operations products by subscription unit. Prices are not published, so every figure comes out of a sales conversation.
It is also a US company: ServiceNow, Inc. is a Delaware corporation in Santa Clara, California. European customers usually sign with ServiceNow Ireland Limited in Dublin under Irish law, which is a real difference, but the group, the product roadmap and the final say remain American. This page is for IT teams that want the same kind of service desk and CMDB from a company that is European in ownership as well as in the contract.
The scope is IT and enterprise service management, not software development or customer support, which have their own pages for Jira and Zendesk.
Below are eleven European tools: five commercial service management platforms (TOPdesk, EasyVista, HaloITSM, Hornbill and Matrix42), three open-source service desks with paid support (iTop, GLPI and OTOBO), and three that cover one part of the job, such as the CMDB (i-doit) or the ticket queue (Znuny and Zammad). No European tool matches ServiceNow's full breadth, and the entries say where each one stops.
- A US parent sits behind the Irish contract ServiceNow, Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, and the group's annual report is filed in the United States. A European customer usually contracts with ServiceNow Ireland Limited, and the subscription agreement for that entity is governed by Irish law with the Dublin courts competent, so the paper is European. What stays American is ownership and control: the roadmap, the support organisation and the decision on what the platform will do next. Tools on this page are owned and contracted in Europe, with ownership noted where private equity is involved.
- Quote-based pricing, per user, and a lot of platform you may not use ServiceNow publishes no price list. Its filings describe per-user pricing for workflow products and subscription units for IT operations, so cost scales with the number of fulfillers and the modules you license. A team that mostly needs a service desk, asset records and change approval can end up paying for a platform whose workflow engine it barely touches. Among the European tools, Halo lists a single per-agent price that includes everything, Zammad and iTop publish plan prices or tiers, and TOPdesk, EasyVista, Matrix42 and Hornbill ask you to talk to them.
- The CMDB and the workflow engine are the hard parts to replace A service desk is easy to move. The CMDB, the discovery that feeds it, and the workflows other teams have built on the platform are not. If your ServiceNow estate is a ticket queue and a service catalog, almost every tool here can take over. If it holds a populated CMDB, change approvals and HR or facilities workflows, plan for GLPI, iTop, i-doit, TOPdesk or Matrix42 on the asset side, and for Hornbill, EasyVista or Halo on the workflow side.
- No European tool is a full clone, and some are open source with paid support TOPdesk, EasyVista, Halo, Hornbill and Matrix42 are commercial platforms with ITIL-style processes. iTop, GLPI and OTOBO are open source with a company behind them, which means you can run them yourself or buy support. Znuny and Zammad are ticket systems that grow into service desks. i-doit is a CMDB first. They are not interchangeable, and that is why each entry says what it covers and what it leaves out.
What you have to replace, not just match
Start by listing what you actually use. If it is incidents, requests, a catalog, knowledge and SLAs, a commercial service desk such as TOPdesk, Halo or Hornbill covers it, and Znuny, OTOBO, iTop and GLPI cover it with open-source licences. If the CMDB and discovery are central, look first at GLPI, iTop and i-doit, and at EasyVista, which ships its own discovery.
Run one real process end to end before you sign. Import a month of incidents, rebuild your most-used catalog item and one change approval, and test the integration with your identity provider and monitoring. Your tickets and CMDB records export as CSV from ServiceNow, but workflows, business rules and flows do not move: they have to be rebuilt in the new tool, and that is where the project time goes.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | TOPdesk | Delft, Netherlands | Per operator, per month | EU (Netherlands) |
| #2 | EasyVista | Noisy-le-Grand, France | Not published; pricing provided via quote request | EU (France) |
| #3 | HaloITSM | Stowmarket, United Kingdom | Per agent, per month | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #5 | Matrix42 | Frankfurt, Germany | Per device or per user licence | EU (Germany) |
| #6 | iTop | Échirolles, France | iTop Community free for up to 10 agents (self-hosted or SaaS); Atelier (up to 50 agents) and Forge (50+ agents) editions priced on request | EU (France) |
| #7 | GLPI | Paris, France | GLPI Network cloud from €19 per agent per month (public) or €21 (private, 25+ users); self-hosted from €100/month (up to 10 agents) to €4,500/month (unlimited); free open-source Community edition available | EU (France) |
| #9 | Znuny | Berlin, Germany | Software free (GPL-3.0); managed hosting from €675/month (Silver, annual, plus €1,595 setup); support from €4,250/year | EU (Germany) |
| #10 | i-doit | Düsseldorf, Germany | Open source core + paid editions | EU (Germany) |
| #11 | Zammad | Berlin, Germany | Free self-hosted / from about €7/agent/month | EU (Germany) |
How each alternative compares to ServiceNow
- Which law reaches it. EU (Netherlands). ServiceNow is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Closed source, as ServiceNow is.
Best for: IT departments that want to configure a full ITSM and enterprise service management suite without programming
TOPdesk is a Dutch service management company based in Delft. Its standard terms for the Netherlands are governed exclusively by Dutch law, and it publishes separate terms for US customers. CVC Growth Funds took a minority stake in 2023, and the founders kept the majority.
It covers incident, change, problem and asset management, adds enterprise service management and facility management, and comes with knowledge bases, self-service portals, reporting and contract and SLA management. The site says it has more than ten million users and that it is named in Gartner's 2026 Magic Quadrant for ITSM.
The company publishes no prices on the pages we checked, so budget starts with a conversation. It is configuration-led rather than a development platform, which is a strength for IT teams and a limit if you built custom apps on ServiceNow.
What TOPdesk does better than ServiceNow
- Dutch company under Dutch law, where ServiceNow is a Delaware parent
- Covers IT, facilities and enterprise service management in one product
- Configured through the interface, with less need for specialist developers
- Customers include large public bodies such as the NHS and universities, per its own site
Where TOPdesk is a step down from ServiceNow
- Not an application platform: custom apps are not what it is for
- No public prices, so costs are only known after a quote
- A minority private equity investor now sits on its cap table
- Smaller partner and app ecosystem than ServiceNow
Standout against ServiceNow. It is the one European suite that treats IT, facilities and HR as one service catalog.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). ServiceNow is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Closed source, as ServiceNow is.
Best for: Teams that want service desk, discovery and automation from one European vendor
EasyVista is a French company, EasyVista SAS, registered at Bobigny. Its software terms are governed by the law of the supplier's registered seat, with the commercial court of that seat competent. Eurazeo has owned it since 2020, and it holds a majority stake in OTRS Group, the German maker of OTRS, following a 2025 deal.
The platform is a set of products: EV Service Manager for ITSM, EV Orchestrate for workflow automation, EV Discovery for asset and dependency mapping, EV Observe for monitoring, EV Reach for remote support, and digital experience monitoring. The site claims inclusion in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for ITSM and no-code deployment.
Its press release names BlackRock alongside Eurazeo as a backer, so the ownership is European with a US asset manager as a minority backer. Prices are not published.
What EasyVista does better than ServiceNow
- French company with French law as the governing law of its terms
- Discovery, monitoring and orchestration come from the same vendor as the service desk
- No-code configuration, which suits teams without developers
- Holds a majority stake in OTRS Group, the German maker of OTRS
Where EasyVista is a step down from ServiceNow
- Private equity ownership and a US asset manager listed as a backer
- Broad product family that can be confusing to scope and buy
- No public prices
- Not an app platform on the scale of ServiceNow
Standout against ServiceNow. It is the only European vendor here that sells discovery and monitoring in the same platform as the service desk.
- Which law reaches it. United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA). ServiceNow is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Closed source, as ServiceNow is.
Best for: IT teams that want a modern service desk with a published price and no module tiers
HaloITSM is made by Halo Service Solutions Ltd, a UK company incorporated in 2001 per Companies House. Its standard end user agreement names the company and its affiliates but does not state a governing law or a company number, so we could not confirm which law applies.
Its pricing page lists GBP 66 per agent per month billed annually for UK prices, with named or concurrent licences at the same rate, no tiers and no add-ons. It includes IT and enterprise service management, customer service, asset management, a knowledge base and reporting. End users and portal customers are free, and onboarding costs extra at bespoke prices.
The single price is the point: you do not choose between editions. The trade-off is a smaller ecosystem and no public hosting information.
What HaloITSM does better than ServiceNow
- Publishes a clear per-agent price, where ServiceNow publishes none
- All features in one price, with no module licences to add up
- UK company, with end users and portal customers free
- Covers ITSM, enterprise service management and customer service together
Where HaloITSM is a step down from ServiceNow
- Governing law of its agreement could not be confirmed
- Hosting locations are not stated on the pages we checked
- Onboarding is an extra bespoke cost on top of the agent price
- No hosting information on the pages we checked
Standout against ServiceNow. It is the only tool here with a published, all-inclusive per-agent price.
Hornbill
ITSM, ESM and codeless automation on one London-built platform
Best for: Organisations that want to automate service delivery across departments without writing code
Hornbill Technologies Limited is registered in England and Wales and based in London. Its subscription agreement says that it is governed by English law with the English courts exclusively competent. A separate agreement exists for North America, and European customers use the UK one.
The platform has three parts: enterprise service management, IT service management with a service desk, catalog and knowledge, and an enterprise automation layer with codeless workflow, orchestration and an integration platform. It has a CMDB and AI tools it calls HAi.
No prices are published and hosting is not stated on the home page, so ask both questions in a first call.
What Hornbill does better than ServiceNow
- UK company under English law, where ServiceNow is a Delaware parent
- Codeless workflow and integration platform sits in the same product
- Built to extend service management to other departments
- Describes itself as a platform for automating routine workloads across the organisation
Where Hornbill is a step down from ServiceNow
- No public prices
- Hosting locations and certifications are not stated on its public pages
- The UK is outside the EU, so UK law and courts apply to your contract
- Much smaller marketplace and partner base than ServiceNow
Standout against ServiceNow. Its automation layer is the closest thing here to ServiceNow's workflow engine.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). ServiceNow is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Closed source, as ServiceNow is.
Best for: Organisations that want to run service desk and device management on one German platform
Matrix42 GmbH is registered at Frankfurt am Main (HRB 129344). It is owned by funds advised by Corten Capital in the UK, and in 2024 it acquired Efecte, the Finnish service management company, so the Efecte product line now sits under Matrix42. Its terms are published by region, with separate terms for EMEA and APAC and for the Americas.
The product covers enterprise service management, digital workspace experience management and unified endpoint management, so the service desk and the devices it supports sit together. That suits IT teams who used ServiceNow mainly for requests against managed devices.
We checked the entity and the ownership but could not extract the governing law from its current terms, and prices are not published.
What Matrix42 does better than ServiceNow
- German company registered in Frankfurt, owned by a UK private equity firm
- Endpoint management and service management in the same product family
- Absorbed Efecte, the Finnish service management company, in 2024
- Terms published in German, Spanish, French, Italian and Finnish as well as English
Where Matrix42 is a step down from ServiceNow
- Private equity ownership (Corten Capital, UK)
- Governing law could not be confirmed from its terms
- No public prices
- Less of a workflow platform than ServiceNow or Hornbill
Standout against ServiceNow. It puts the service desk and the endpoint estate in one product.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). ServiceNow is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Open source, where ServiceNow is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Teams that want an ITIL service desk with a real CMDB and the option to self-host
iTop is made by Combodo SAS in Echirolles near Grenoble (SIREN 522 588 979, share capital EUR 279,045). It is released under the AGPL, and Combodo sells Community, Atelier and Forge editions, as SaaS or on-premise. We did not check which law governs an iTop contract.
It covers incident, request, problem and change management with a service catalog and a CMDB, plus project and release management and a low-code designer for configuration. Community is free for up to 10 agents, Atelier covers up to 50 and Forge is for larger teams.
It is much lighter than ServiceNow, but the CMDB is central rather than an add-on, and you can read and change the code.
What iTop does better than ServiceNow
- French company, with source code under the AGPL you can inspect and self-host
- Free Community edition for up to 10 agents
- CMDB, change and service catalog are core features, not extra modules
- You can leave without losing your data model, since the code is open
Where iTop is a step down from ServiceNow
- Far smaller marketplace and partner network than ServiceNow
- Prices for Atelier and Forge are not published
- Weaker on workflow automation than Hornbill or EasyVista
- Needs more in-house technical skill if you self-host
Standout against ServiceNow. It is the open-source option where the CMDB is the centre of the product.
- Which law reaches it. EU (France). ServiceNow is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Open source, where ServiceNow is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: IT teams that want a service desk joined to an automatic asset inventory, self-hosted or in the cloud
GLPI is published by TECLIB S.A.S. in Paris (RCS Paris 513 893 503, share capital EUR 445,930), which has maintained the project since 2015. It is released under the GPL, and Teclib sells GLPI Network, a hosted and supported version with a 45-day free trial. In its privacy policy Teclib says it is in principle a data processor for the customer's data.
GLPI handles incidents and requests with service catalog forms and SLAs, and adds inventory with network scanning, a CMDB, financial management of budgets and licences, and workflow automation. Version 11 is the current release, and the site names Airbus, Telefonica and La Poste as users.
It is free to download and run. Prices for GLPI Network were not checked.
What GLPI does better than ServiceNow
- French company with an open-source licence, so you are never locked in
- Free to download and run yourself
- Combines inventory, CMDB and service desk, with financial tracking built in
- Large user base and community for plugins and help
Where GLPI is a step down from ServiceNow
- Self-hosting means you handle updates and upgrades yourself
- Self-hosting needs sysadmin time and care with updates
- GLPI Network prices were not verified
- Weaker workflow tooling than ServiceNow
Standout against ServiceNow. It is the one open-source tool here that ships a service desk and an inventory together.
OTOBO
the actively maintained open-source ticket and ITSM system from Bavaria
Best for: Teams that run OTRS or want an ITIL-style ticket system with German managed hosting
OTOBO is made by Rother OSS GmbH in Leiblfing, Bavaria (Amtsgericht Straubing HRB 12744), which calls itself the source code owner and maintainer of OTOBO. The software is described as 100 percent open source and licence-free.
It is a modular platform with IT service management based on ITIL practices, customer service and enterprise service management modules. Rother OSS sells consulting, support, customising and a managed service in a German data centre, along with migration from OTRS.
Prices are not published. It is a good fit for OTRS users and a ticket-centred service desk, less so for teams that need ServiceNow's CMDB depth.
What OTOBO does better than ServiceNow
- German company with open source code, hosted in Germany if you buy the managed service
- No licence fee, with paid support only if you want it
- Migration service for teams leaving OTRS
- ITIL-style ITSM plus other service management modules from the same maker
Where OTOBO is a step down from ServiceNow
- No public prices for support and managed service
- Smaller than commercial suites, with fewer ready-made integrations
- Strongest for ticketing, less so for CMDB and discovery
- Needs technical skill if you run it yourself
Standout against ServiceNow. It is the open-source successor to OTRS with its maker offering German hosting.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). ServiceNow is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Self-hosted on your own infrastructure; Znuny's managed hosting runs in "ISO 27001-certified data centres" whose location and operator are not stated.
- Source code. Open source, where ServiceNow is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
- Independently checked. SOC 2 (since 2024), ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (since January 2025).
Best for: Teams already on OTRS Community Edition that want a supported, maintained path
Znuny GmbH is based in Berlin (Amtsgericht Charlottenburg HRB 139852 B). Znuny is the fork of OTRS Community Edition, offered with long-term support, and it provides corporate-level ticket management that is free to use. Its site lists version 6.5.25 as the LTS release and 7.3.7 as the latest.
Professional services around it, including support and customising, come from Znuny itself. The site does not present it as a full ITIL suite, so we describe it as a ticket system with a support organisation behind it.
No prices are shown, and CMDB and workflow depth are well below ServiceNow. It is the lightest and cheapest to run of the commercial-backed options here.
What Znuny does better than ServiceNow
- German company with open code you can run anywhere
- Free of licence fees, with long-term support versions
- Clear path for teams already running OTRS Community Edition
- Latest release is version 7.3.7, so it is still being developed
Where Znuny is a step down from ServiceNow
- Not a full ITIL or CMDB suite as far as we could verify
- Much narrower than ServiceNow in workflow and automation
- No public prices for professional services
- Does not publish a CMDB or change management module on its home page
Standout against ServiceNow. It keeps the OTRS Community Edition alive with long-term support.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). ServiceNow is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Source code. Open source, where ServiceNow is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Teams whose main need is a reliable CMDB, documentation and compliance mapping
i-doit GmbH is based at Kaistrasse in Duesseldorf and registered there under 33104. Main Capital Partners, a Dutch private equity firm, acquired a majority stake in the company in 2022. i-doit says it has over 2,000 customers and 20 years in operation.
It is a CMDB first, with IT documentation, IT asset management, GRC and business continuity on one database, available on-premise as i-doit or as the SaaS i-doit up. More than 40 add-ons include workflows and API integration, and the site names ISO 27001, NIS-2 and TISAX among compliance topics it supports. It offers a 30-day trial and publishes no prices.
It is not a complete service desk replacement for ServiceNow, but it takes over the CMDB part cleanly and connects to ticketing tools.
What i-doit does better than ServiceNow
- German company, with CMDB and compliance mapping as the core product
- Add-ons and APIs connect it to ticketing and monitoring tools
- On-premise and SaaS versions, with a 30-day trial
- Fits German compliance topics such as KRITIS and TISAX
Where i-doit is a step down from ServiceNow
- Service desk and workflows are secondary to the CMDB
- No published prices
- Private equity owner since 2022
- Needs a separate ticket tool for a full service desk
Standout against ServiceNow. It is the CMDB specialist, with compliance mapping built around it.
- Which law reaches it. EU (Germany). ServiceNow is run from the United States, so the CLOUD Act obliges the provider to hand over data on a valid order regardless of which country the servers are in.
- Where the data sits. Your own infrastructure, or German cloud.
- Source code. Open source, where ServiceNow is not: you can read what it does rather than take the description on trust.
Best for: Small and mid-sized IT teams that need a fast ticket queue across email, chat and phone
Zammad GmbH is based in Berlin (HRB 163946 B). Its hosted terms are governed by German law with Berlin as the exclusive place of jurisdiction, with 99.85 percent average annual availability guaranteed. The software is under the AGPLv3 and the source code is owned by a non-profit foundation.
Hosted plans on annual billing are EUR 7 per month for Starter (up to 5 agents), EUR 16 for Professional (up to 35 agents) and EUR 25 for Plus (unlimited agents). Self-hosted support packages cost EUR 2,999, EUR 5,999 or EUR 9,999 per year. AI features are charged per interaction.
It is a helpdesk, not an ITSM suite: no CMDB, no change management in the ITIL sense. It earns its place for IT teams whose ServiceNow use is mostly a ticket queue.
What Zammad does better than ServiceNow
- German company under German law, with AGPLv3 code owned by a foundation
- Published prices on hosted and self-hosted plans
- Fast to adopt, with email, chat, phone and social channels
- Starter plan from EUR 7 per month
Where Zammad is a step down from ServiceNow
- No CMDB or change management of the ITIL kind
- Not suited to large, process-heavy IT organisations
- AI features cost extra per interaction
- Few workflow tools compared with ServiceNow
Standout against ServiceNow. It is the only one here with published prices at every level, from EUR 7 per month.
What actually breaks when you switch
The hard part of leaving ServiceNow is not the tickets, which export, but the workflows. Flows, business rules and integrations built on its engine do not move, so list the ones that matter and decide which to rebuild, which to simplify and which to drop before you choose a tool.
Plan the CMDB separately. Decide whether you keep the data you have or rebuild it from discovery, and check how each tool imports and relates configuration items. A tool that does the service desk well can still be weak at the CMDB.
Give the new tool the same integrations from day one: identity provider, monitoring, email and chat. Open-source tools often need a plugin or a small script for the ones you rely on, and the commercial suites usually ask for a paid connector.
Is there a European tool that does everything ServiceNow does?
No. ServiceNow combines a service desk, a CMDB, discovery, a workflow engine and an app platform in one product. The nearest European answers are EasyVista, which bundles monitoring, discovery and orchestration, and Hornbill, which combines ITSM, ESM and a codeless automation platform. TOPdesk and Matrix42 are strong service management suites with a different emphasis, facilities and endpoint management.
The open-source tools split the job. GLPI and iTop cover the service desk and CMDB, OTOBO covers ticketing and ITIL processes, and i-doit is the documentation layer. A team that used ServiceNow as an application platform for custom apps will find the least to replace it with.
Which one is best for a mid-sized IT department?
TOPdesk, for most. It covers incident, change, problem and asset management, extends to facility and HR services, and is built for teams that want to configure rather than program. HaloITSM is the one to price first if you want a single number per agent, and Hornbill suits teams that want to automate across departments.
If your budget is tight or you want to host it yourself, iTop and GLPI are open source, run on your own servers and come with paid support from their publishers.
Which one is best for a CMDB?
GLPI, iTop and i-doit. GLPI combines an inventory with network discovery and a service desk. iTop is built around its CMDB, with a service catalog and change management. i-doit is the specialist: documentation, CMDB, ITAM and compliance on one database, with a service desk added through add-ons and integrations.
EasyVista has its own Discovery product for dependency mapping, which suits teams that want discovery and service desk from one vendor.
Where is my data hosted, and who owns these companies?
Hosting varies, and for TOPdesk, EasyVista, Halo, Hornbill and Matrix42 we could not verify locations from public pages, so ask each vendor before you rely on a region. OTOBO says its managed service runs in a German data centre, and self-hosted tools such as iTop, GLPI, Znuny, OTOBO and Zammad run wherever you put them.
Ownership we did check. TOPdesk has a minority investor (CVC Growth Funds) with the founders in control. EasyVista is backed by Eurazeo, and BlackRock is named as a backer in its press release. Matrix42 is owned by funds advised by Corten Capital (UK). i-doit is majority-owned by Main Capital Partners (Netherlands). Halo, Hornbill, Combodo, Teclib, Rother OSS, Znuny and Zammad appear independent.
Which one to pick
If you want one European suite that covers IT, facilities and other departments, start with TOPdesk. If workflow automation is what you used ServiceNow for, look at Hornbill and EasyVista, and if you want a single published price per agent, price HaloITSM first. Matrix42 is the choice when device management and service desk should sit together.
If the CMDB is central, GLPI and iTop give you service desk and CMDB in one open-source product, and i-doit is the specialist when documentation and compliance mapping matter most. OTOBO and Znuny are the choice for teams that already run OTRS, and Zammad suits a ticket-led team that wants published prices.
Be realistic about the gap. ServiceNow is an application platform as much as a service desk, and none of these eleven reproduces all of it. Switch if jurisdiction, ownership or price is the problem, and keep ServiceNow for as long as your workflows depend on what only it does.
Frequently Asked Questions
TOPdesk is the best all-round answer for most IT teams: a Dutch company with ITSM, enterprise service management and facility management on one platform. EasyVista and Hornbill are closer in workflow automation, HaloITSM is the one with a published per-agent price, and iTop and GLPI are the open-source options that include a CMDB. None replicates ServiceNow's full breadth.
Yes. ServiceNow, Inc. is a Delaware corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Customers in Europe usually contract with ServiceNow Ireland Limited, whose subscription agreement is governed by Irish law, but the parent company and its roadmap are American.
ServiceNow does not publish prices. Its annual reports describe workflow products as generally priced per user and IT operations products per subscription unit, and the amount you pay depends on the modules and the number of fulfiller users. Treat any number you find online as an estimate, and ask for a quote.
iTop has a free Community edition for up to 10 agents, GLPI and OTOBO are open source and can be self-hosted at no licence cost, Znuny is free as well, and Zammad is open source under AGPLv3. Free in every case means you run it yourself or pay the publisher for support and hosting.
Halo's pricing page lists GBP 66 per agent per month, billed annually, for its UK prices, with one price that includes all features rather than tiers. End users and portal customers are free, and onboarding packages cost extra at bespoke prices. Prices differ by currency and region, so check the page for your own.
Hosted plans are EUR 7 per month on annual billing for Starter (up to 5 agents), EUR 16 for Professional (up to 35 agents) and EUR 25 for Plus (unlimited agents), per its pricing page. Self-hosted support packages are EUR 2,999, EUR 5,999 and EUR 9,999 per year. AI features are charged at EUR 0.03 per interaction.
iTop is released under the AGPL and the Community edition is free for up to 10 agents. Combodo sells Atelier for up to 50 agents and Forge for 50 or more, as SaaS or on-premise. The site did not show prices for those two tiers, so ask Combodo for a quote.
Matrix42 is owned by funds advised by Corten Capital in the UK. i-doit has been majority-owned by Main Capital Partners since 2022. TOPdesk has a minority investor, CVC Growth Funds, since 2023. EasyVista is backed by Eurazeo and, per its own press release, BlackRock. The owners are European apart from BlackRock, which is named as a backer of EasyVista. We left out USU because Thoma Bravo of the United States took a majority stake in its product business in 2024.
Tickets, users, assets and CMDB records can generally be exported from ServiceNow as CSV or through its API and imported elsewhere. Workflows, business rules and flows are specific to ServiceNow and have to be rebuilt, which is the largest part of a migration. OTOBO advertises migration services from OTRS, and none of the vendors checked advertised a ServiceNow importer, so ask each one what import help it provides.
TOPdesk, EasyVista, Halo, Hornbill, Matrix42, iTop and OTOBO describe incident, request, problem and change processes. GLPI covers incidents, requests, a service catalog and SLAs with a CMDB. i-doit, Znuny and Zammad are narrower: a CMDB and documentation tool, a ticket system and a helpdesk respectively.
Yes. Hornbill Technologies Limited is registered in England and Wales and its subscription agreement is governed by English law with the English courts competent. It also offers a separate agreement for North America. The UK is not in the EU, but it is a European company under its own national law.
TOPdesk is the clearest case, covering IT, facilities and enterprise service management on one platform. OTOBO also lists HR and facility management among its service management modules, and Hornbill, Matrix42 and Halo describe enterprise service management for other departments. Check that the departments you need are in the plan you buy.
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