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ConnectWise Automate vs Freshservice comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

ConnectWise Automate
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) (9th)
Freshservice
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (5th), Project Management Software (10th), Cloud Management (12th), IT Asset Management (4th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (4th), Configuration Management Databases (5th), IT Alerting and Incident Management (8th), AI IT Support (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Systems Management solutions, they serve different purposes. ConnectWise Automate is designed for Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) and holds a mindshare of 6.6%, down 6.8% compared to last year.
Freshservice, on the other hand, focuses on Help Desk Software, holds 3.9% mindshare, up 3.6% since last year.
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ConnectWise Automate6.6%
Kaseya VSA15.2%
NinjaOne11.7%
Other66.5%
Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM)
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Freshservice3.9%
ServiceNow12.6%
JIRA Service Management6.3%
Other77.2%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Sean Saeb - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner and CIO at Caspian IT Group
Responsive, integrates well with other applications, and the technical support is helpful
There is always room for improvement. I haven't had any problems, and they're doing a great job, in my opinion. They're doing quite well. In most cases, when we discover an issue, we report it to their engineers, who then schedule a fix. Normally, when we request something, I can see it happening within three to four months. This is a raw system. Of course, it has some flaws that could be improved. But, it's something that we will have to work with to get to the point where we need this, we request it and they do their best to make it happen. There is a lot of integration with other applications through Automate, and I believe they are working with all of the industry leaders to get the integration going. I am very pleased to be working with them.
RF
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
Automation and AI have transformed our service delivery and have made IT support faster and more efficient
I always keep up with Freshservice's roadmaps and new features. Freshservice has been very good at listening to feedback and adding those feature requests into their next iterations. I wish they would offer more granular data export options for utilizing in Power BI, along with predictive analytics for capacity planning and SLA breaches to enable more proactive support management and reduce firefighting. While the dashboards are effective, some users find custom reporting limited compared to ServiceNow or Jira. I would also appreciate deeper integrations, especially for niche apps requiring development coding work to enable advanced orchestration. Native integrations for DevOps pipelines such as GitHub Actions and Jenkins, along with stronger API flexibility for complex workflows, would enhance functionality. Although the CMDB and asset management are solid, they do lack advanced dependency mapping compared to other enterprise tools. My wishlist includes automated impact analysis for changes and improved visualization of asset relationships, enabling quicker resolutions from an agent's perspective when alerts come in. I acknowledge that Device42 may enhance this, but it is an extra cost beyond what we already pay. While Freddy AI is excellent for triage and suggestions, some users desire more proactive automation, such as predictive ticket routing based on historical patterns and AI-driven capacity forecasting. Lastly, the pricing tiers might seem rigid for mid-sized teams, so a more granular add-on option for features such as Device42 or pay-per-use for orchestration workflows could be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most value we get from this solution is that everything is on a patch cycle."
"It is very scalable."
"It allows us to manage all client requests, jobs and invoicing."
"It's a very good IT tool for a company that provides IT services. It is very helpful for technicians to work with the tool to see all of the customers in one place and then manage all of the computers in one place."
"The implementation is nice and easy."
"The initial setup is easy and the deployment is quick."
"This product saves us a lot of time and increases our efficiency."
"It's definitely improved the help-desk servicing, et cetera."
"Depending on the size of your organization, is pretty standard and useful."
"Ultimately, we saw a 77% reduction in average resolution times with a return on investment realized within 6 months."
"All features explored in Freshservice have proven to be helpful in reducing workload and ticket redundancy."
"One of the things I liked about Freshservice was how easy it was to implement. While it doesn't have extensive customization capabilities, the available options are sufficient for certain sizes of companies. You don't need to customize your ticketing system much. Freshservice is a great solution because you can implement it very quickly. You can upload your catalog, and you're done in maybe a week or two."
"Freshservice has had a significant positive impact, especially when managing AWS-related IT operations by centralizing incident management and automating repetitive tasks."
"Ability to scan barcodes and a great search feature."
"We have definitely seen a return on investment based on the use cases we have implemented."
"It's very handy and very easy to use."
 

Cons

"We would love to get feature updates and cumulative updates fixed. I know they aren't really supposed to be pushed with Patch Manager. We've got recommendations from ConnectWise to use the scripted feature update installs, scripted KB updates, etc. Having these in Patch Manager itself would be great."
"I have a problem with the reports available on the solution. I don't understand how to work with the reporting functionality. For example, when I want to give a report for a specific machine, ConnectWise doesn't seem to have this as an option. I'm not sure if I'm missing something, or if the reporting functionality is just poorly conceived."
"The menu doesn't always load properly."
"There could be better linkages between ConnectWise Automate and Manage from a ticketing perspective. Automate and Manage each has its own ticketing system. We use the one in Manage, but it'd be nice if they were linked directly to the one in Automate."
"Their support needs to be better."
"This is a raw system. Of course, it has some flaws that could be improved. But, it's something that we will have to work with to get to the point where we need this, we request it and they do their best to make it happen."
"The fixed client for Automate is slow. The web client is not very intuitive."
"Scheduling of automation could be improved and made more simple."
"Freshservice has an AI agent that needs improvement for finding knowledge base articles."
"There is a need for improvement in terms of automatic escalation to the next level if an issue is not resolved."
"Some of the ways that tasks are reported on and shown can be better. You can't see tasks in your regular ticket list view. You can't see a combo view of tasks and tickets. It is a little bit difficult to get a solid overview of your list of things to do. You can only see them in separate views, instead of one single view."
"Asset management can definitely be improved because it doesn't pick up every single device on the network or every single piece of information. Some manual information still needs to be entered."
"On the reporting side, when we were doing reporting, one thing that was a bit of a limitation was when you had a data list containing a list of changes that have occurred for the whole time and you had to fit the list onto a page. If the list went over the page, it would just truncate it at the page. You wouldn't get all your data. So, it didn't work. That was one big stand-out for me. What we tended to do was convert things into a more readable format, and then we had more targeted exception reporting, but it would be nice to have a full list of things that could be automatically generated and that can flow over pages."
"The chat portal is not that great."
"Asset management can definitely be improved because it doesn't pick up every single device on the network or every single piece of information."
"You can't implement a complicated delivery workflow. We don't have the same problems with incident and change workflows. It's only for delivery workflow. They have a mechanism for modifying your incident or change workflow. There's a visual interface for that, so there's no reason not to have the same function for request management."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"I pay $85 a month per user for a ConnectWise package that contains multiple solutions."
"I believe Automate is available for around $2."
"From what I've overheard, it is pretty comparable to other solutions in terms of price."
"Its price is great. Its pricing is supposedly a lot less than ServiceNow and other alternatives."
"It is $34 per license, per agent. Currently, we don't see any add-ons at extra fees."
"One of the key benefits of Freshservice is license management. Asset management has the possibility to keep track of licenses and that's very useful. The price of the solution is very good."
"Compared to other tools, Freshservice is affordable."
"There are some additional costs but not that many. For example, we have unlimited assets, which is something for which we pay extra. We also paid for additional orchestration. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing. They are right in the middle."
"Freshservice is a fairly cheap solution. Though monthly payments can be made towards the licensing costs of the solution, my company prefers to make annual payments."
"Freshservice's licensing costs are pretty good, and it has different categories of pricing based on what modules and features you choose, which gives a lot of flexibility."
"It is good for the price you pay. It has different plans. If you need all features, you need to go for a higher plan. Currently, with the second tier plan, you cannot completely separate the group of agents. So, the agent in each group can see another person's ticket. You also cannot modify the rules based on the viewable, readable stuff and cannot have a custom role in this plan. If you want to do that, you have to go for a higher plan. It works in our case because it doesn't matter if the other group can see our ticket because it doesn't contain anything sensitive. We also didn't need the project or change management features. That's why we didn't go with a higher plan."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
University
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Freshservice?
I do not have any experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing, as it was assigned to the infrastructure team.
What needs improvement with Freshservice?
Freshservice has an AI agent that needs improvement for finding knowledge base articles. When issues or incidents are received in Freshservice, new users should be able to receive direct help from ...
What is your primary use case for Freshservice?
Freshservice is used to redirect ticket handling and acknowledge tickets and incidents received. Tickets are redirected with their short description and subject line in Freshservice, which allows f...
 

Also Known As

LabTech for IT Service Providers, ConnectWise Automate for Corporate IT Departments, ConnectWise Automate for IT Service Providers
Flint
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

I-M Technology, Mainstay Technologies, PC Works Plus, Integrity IT, Kerkhoff Technologies Inc., Marathon Consulting, Christenberry Sales Company, EDTS, Secom Technology, Ready to View, ARRC Technology, DaVinci Digital, JNR Networks, Quinn Technology Solutions, PCIT, Liberty Technology, Capital Computers & Networks, Atlanta Technology Force, Doberman Technologies, First Column Enterprises, CisCom Solutions
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport
Find out what your peers are saying about NinjaOne, Kaseya, datto and others in Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM). Updated: February 2026.
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