Sifting through countless of stocks in the Software industry can be tedious, and sometimes two stocks are just too similar to judge which is the better investment. If you’re on the fence about investing in ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems or Inc. because you’re not sure how they measure up, it’s important to compare them on a few factors before making your decision.

Read on to learn how ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc. compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.

About ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc.

ServiceNow, Inc. provides cloud-based solution for digital workflows in the North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company provides asset management, integrated risk management, IT service management, Operational Technology management, Security Operations, strategic portfolio management, IT operations management products; customer service management product; field service management applications; and sales and order management services. It also offers human resources delivery; legal and contract operations; workplace service delivery products; app engine product; automation engine; platform privacy and security product; and source-to-pay operations. In addition, the company provides RaptorDB, a database built to manage workloads at scale; ServiceNow Impact that provides customers with software tools, guided plans, and AI-driven recommendations; customer support; and workflow data fabric. It serves government, financial services, healthcare and life science, manufacturing, Public Sector, retail, technology, and Telecom sectors through service providers and resale partners. The company has a strategic collaboration with Cohesity, Inc. to develop, operate, and safeguard autonomous AI agents and data with enterprise-grade reliability. The company was formerly known as Service-now.com and changed its name to ServiceNow, Inc. in May 2012. ServiceNow, Inc. was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, California.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. develops computational, AI-driven software, hardware, and silicon intellectual property products and solutions. The company offers functional verification services, such as Jasper, a formal verification platform; Xcelium, a parallel logic simulation platform; Verisium, a generative AI solution; Palladium, an enterprise emulation platform; and Protium, a prototyping platform for chip verification, as well as digital IC design and sign off products, including Innovus platform; and custom IC design and simulation product include Virtuoso, a platform to design and verify analog. It also provides Xcelium logic simulator and other front-end verification and virtual prototyping technologies; controllers and physical interfaces; PCI express, universal accelerator and compute express links, and multiple memory interfaces; and Tensilica, a digital signal processor. In addition, the company’s design IP portfolio includes serializer/deserializer, peripheral component interconnect, USB, and other standard protocols; and Secure-IC, a solution for embedded security IP. Additionally, it provides System Design and Analysis (SD&A) platform, a solution that enables end-to-end system-level design and verification across chips, packages, PCBs, and electronic systems; Allegro X and OrCAD X platforms for PCB and advanced packaging; Sigrity X for signal and power integrity; AWR for RF design; Fidelity for computational fluid dynamics; Celsius for thermal and airflow analysis; Clarity 3D solver for electromagnetic and power electronics analysis and simulation; Integrity 3D-IC solution for 3D-IC and multi-chiplet designs; the Optimality Intelligent System Explorer, Reality digital twin, and Millennium enterprise multiphysics platforms; Allegro system design platform; and molecular modeling and simulation solutions and services. The company has a strategic collaboration with NVIDIA for the development of engineering solutions tailored for agentic AI chip and system design. The company was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in San Jose, California.

Latest Software and ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Stock News

As of April 24, 2026, ServiceNow, Inc. had a $93.0 billion market capitalization, compared to the Software median of $944.0 million. ServiceNow, Inc.’s stock is down 41.1% in 2026, down 6.7% in the previous five trading days and down 44.52% in the past year.

Currently, ServiceNow, Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 53.7. ServiceNow, Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $14.0 billion with a 12.6% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 22.1%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $4.122 per share for the current fiscal year. ServiceNow, Inc. does not currently pay a dividend.

As of April 24, 2026, Cadence Design Systems, Inc. had a $91.9 billion market cap, putting it in the 97th percentile of all stocks. Cadence Design Systems, Inc.’s stock is up 6.5% in 2026, up 7% in the previous five trading days and up 25.42% in the past year.

Currently, Cadence Design Systems, Inc.’s price-earnings ratio is 82.0. Cadence Design Systems, Inc.’s trailing 12-month revenue is $5.3 billion with a 20.9% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 6.2%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $7.912 per share for the current fiscal year. Cadence Design Systems, Inc. does not currently pay a dividend.

How We Compare ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc. Stock Grades

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data and the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movements. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors streamline and work through such data.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A‐F grades for each of five key investing factors: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality. Here, we’ll take a closer look at ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc.’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.

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ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc. Stock Value Grades

Company	Ticker	Value
ServiceNow, Inc.	NOW	F
Cadence Design Systems, Inc.	CDNS	F

Successful stock investing involves buying low and selling high, so stock valuation is an important consideration for stock selection.

Buying stocks that are going to go up typically means buying stocks that are undervalued in the first place, although momentum investors may argue that point.

AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade derives from a stock’s value score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are a good value and so on.

ServiceNow, Inc. has a Value Score of 13, which is Ultra Expensive. Cadence Design Systems, Inc. has a Value Score of 6, which is Ultra Expensive.

The Value Stock Winner: No Clear Winner

Neither ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems or Inc. has a high enough value grade to be considered a “winner.” Investors who are considering these companies should do additional due diligence and research to see if either could be a good addition to their portfolio. It’s important to look at a wide range of financial metrics in order to determine if ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems or Inc. is the better investment when it comes to value.

ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc. Growth Grades

Company	Ticker	Growth
ServiceNow, Inc.	NOW	B
Cadence Design Systems, Inc.	CDNS	A

The foundation of growth investing is seeking out stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth that is expected to continue into the future.

In order to compute the growth score and assign it a letter grade, the percentile ranks for each of three components‐consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations‐must be determined. These three rank figures are added together, and the sum is ranked against the entire stock universe to arrive at a company’s Growth Score to create an equal distribution of grades.

The companies in the bottom 20% of the stock universe receive Growth Grades of F, considered to be very weak, while those in the top 20% receive A grades, which are considered very strong.

ServiceNow, Inc. has a Growth Score of 69, which is Strong. Cadence Design Systems, Inc. has a Growth Score of 89, which is Very Strong.

The Growth Grade Winner: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

As you can clearly see from the Growth Grade breakdown above, Cadence Design Systems, Inc. has a more attractive growth grade than ServiceNow, Inc.. For investors who focus solely on how a company is growing relative to other companies in the same industry, Cadence Design Systems, Inc. could be a good stock to add to their portfolio. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc.’s Quality Grades

Company	Ticker	Quality
ServiceNow, Inc.	NOW	A
Cadence Design Systems, Inc.	CDNS	A

Like the Value Grade, AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the percentile rank of key metrics. Specifically, the Quality Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit relative to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and the F-Score.

The score is variable, meaning it can consider all eight measures or, should any of the eight measures not be valid, the remaining measures that are valid. To be assigned a Quality Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) measure and corresponding ranking for at least four of the eight quality measures.

The Quality Score is used to assess the underlying “quality” of a particular stock. A higher-quality stock possesses traits associated with upside potential and reduced downside risk. Backtesting of the Quality Grade shows that stocks with higher grades, on average, outperformed stocks with lower grades over the period of 1998 through 2019.

Stocks receive better grades (higher scores) for having higher scores for the quality subcomponents and worse grades (lower scores) for lower scores for the subcomponents.

ServiceNow, Inc. has a Quality Score of 91, which is Very Strong. Cadence Design Systems, Inc. has a Quality Score of 95, which is Very Strong.

The Quality Grade Winner: It’s a Tie!

Looking at the Quality Grade breakdown above, both ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc. have a grade of A. For investors who focus solely on a company’s overall quality, you will need to conduct further research into both companies to see if they are a good fit for your portfolio. As a good rule of thumb, you should always analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before choosing a company to invest in.

Other ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc. Grades

In addition to Value, Growth and Quality, A+ Investor also provides grades for Momentum and Estimate Revisions.

Momentum grades help uncover stocks experiencing anomalously high rates of return; research finds that stocks with high relative levels of momentum tend to outperform, whereas those with low levels of momentum tend to continue underperforming.

Earnings estimate revisions scores take into account the magnitude of a company’s earnings surprise in its last two reported fiscal quarters. Often, surprises beget further surprises‐or at least continued sales growth (the exact opposite is generally true, too).

These 2 key factors, when combined with the above, provide a holistic view into a particular stock. Further, by joining A+ Investor you can see whether ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc. pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.

So, Which Is the Better Investment, ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems or Inc. Stock?

Overall, ServiceNow, Inc. stock has a Value Score of 13, Growth Score of 69 and Quality Score of 91.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. stock has a Value Score of 6, Growth Score of 89 and Quality Score of 95.

Comparing ServiceNow, Inc., Cadence Design Systems and Inc.’s grades, scores and metrics can act as a solid basis to determine whether they may be a good investment or not. You’ll also want to look at your portfolio’s asset allocation as well as your risk tolerance and financial goals to see if either of these stocks would make a good fit for you. AAII can help you figure out which investments align with your individual needs and preferences.

Investors are encouraged to do their own due diligence and research. In this way, individuals can effectively become managers of their own assets‐without having to rely on others for financial independence. You can count on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis.

A+ Investor adds to our qualitative teaching with a powerful data suite to help you whittle down investment choices to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith, and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.