iTop vs ServiceNow IT Service Management
iTop and ServiceNow IT Service Management are both IT service management software. ITop is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 1.2k GitHub stars. ServiceNow IT Service Management is a commercial product from ServiceNow.
Which to pick
- Pick iTop when
- You need ITIL processes tied to a data model you can reshape, and want an open-source product with a commercial vendor behind it.
- Pick ServiceNow IT Service Management when
- A large enterprise needs ITIL-aligned service management at scale and will fund a platform team.
Side by side
IT Operations Portal: a web-based ITSM tool with a configurable CMDB, helpdesk, change, SLA and contract management, and impact analysis.
Enterprise IT service management covering incidents, problems, changes, requests, CMDB and service portal on the Now Platform.
Customising the data model means learning its XML extension system, and several useful extensions are paid.
Expensive, and it needs dedicated admins and developers to run well.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server
Cloud service
PHP, Symfony and MySQL
JavaScript
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Closed source, sold by ServiceNow
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
1.2k GitHub stars
No Wikipedia article of its own
Established: started 8 years ago, latest release 3.3.0.
Not known
Other comparisons
More IT service management (ITSM) and PSA tools
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.