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Freshdesk vs ServiceNow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
8.2
Freshdesk offers efficient customer service and time management, providing significant financial benefits and excellent return on investment.
Sentiment score
6.9
ServiceNow enhances efficiency, reduces costs, and improves ROI with automation and streamlined processes, providing long-term organizational value.
The return on investment is good when implementing for ourselves and for other clients.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Freshdesk's efficient support resolves issues quickly, though setup challenges and process delays occasionally occur; technical capabilities are highly rated.
Sentiment score
7.0
ServiceNow's customer service is generally praised, but technical support experiences vary and rely on community resources.
We have not needed to contact technical support, as Freshdesk has met our needs efficiently.
The support is exemplary and deserves a perfect rating.
Most of the support comes from partners, and customers heavily rely on them.
I have contacted them four to five times over the past two years, and they have been quite helpful.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Freshdesk is highly scalable, handling increased users and ticket volumes efficiently while facilitating easy growth for organizations.
Sentiment score
7.4
ServiceNow is highly scalable, integrates well with systems, and offers flexibility, making it ideal for diverse organizations.
Additional features like email, WhatsApp, and SMS ticketing, along with Slack integration, can be enabled as required.
In our environment, which is a fairly small company in one country, Freshdesk is easy to scale.
It is capable of vertical scaling with no issues.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Freshdesk is praised for its reliability with minimal downtime, efficient service recovery, despite occasional support concerns and related service issues.
Sentiment score
7.7
ServiceNow is highly stable with minimal disruptions, often due to external factors, offering reliable SaaS performance and support.
ServiceNow is already a stable tool.
ServiceNow is stable enough.
 

Room For Improvement

Freshdesk requires enhancements in interface, customization, support, integration, and pricing, with opportunities in translation and asset management.
ServiceNow users seek improvements in interface, navigation, pricing, documentation, mobile functionality, support, updates, and third-party integrations.
Currently, some features like SMS or WhatsApp integration are only available to larger user groups, but even smaller teams should have access based on their specific needs.
The current integration is more complicated and doesn’t work as well.
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow.
Their customer support could make it a great solution, not just product support but also their relationship with partners and training initiatives in different regions.
There are sometimes challenges with the portal being a bit confusing for new users.
 

Setup Cost

Freshdesk's pricing is flexible and affordable compared to Zendesk, with customization options and potential additional costs.
ServiceNow's pricing is higher than competitors, suited for large enterprises but challenging for smaller companies due to cost complexity.
Our organization pays about 200,000 Indian rupees per year for the license.
ServiceNow's pricing can be justified if more functionality is required.
ServiceNow is expensive for all regions.
 

Valuable Features

Freshdesk enhances customer service efficiency with features like automation, scalable APIs, and seamless integration, supporting team collaboration and performance tracking.
ServiceNow excels in customization, integration, and user-friendliness, offering versatile workflows, ITIL processes, and strong community support.
The auto-assignment feature is particularly valuable as it alleviates the administrative task of manually checking for available engineers to assign tickets.
These features are easy to use, and the filtering is really good, providing a good overview of active tickets and who's working on them.
ServiceNow provides a wide range of functionality, covering all the necessary modules, unlike Jira which is primarily for IT.
Automation capabilities are impressive, bolstered by a vast repository of out-of-the-box connectors and plugins that facilitate integration with various applications worldwide.
The most valuable features of ServiceNow for me are its ticketing and reporting capabilities.
 

Categories and Ranking

Freshdesk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (4th), Field Service Management (3rd), Knowledge Management Software (5th)
ServiceNow
Ranking in Help Desk Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Freshdesk is 3.5%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 24.1%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Alexey Timchenko - PeerSpot reviewer
Incredibly user-friendly, flexible, and affordable
Automation and ticket routing rules in Freshdesk save us daily by streamlining routine tasks. We use reports to identify issues, allocate resources, and continuously improve our processes. It is a vital part of our daily operations, helping us stay proactive and efficient in handling various types of tickets. The reporting and analytics tools in Freshdesk are effective for measuring customer service performance. While our current subscription level has some limitations in terms of reporting, the next level provides more options. Budget constraints currently prevent us from upgrading, but the available reporting features still meet our basic needs. I highly recommend Freshdesk, especially for companies in their early stages. It is user-friendly, easy to configure, and great for those with a moderate volume of customer requests. The cost is reasonable, making it a quick and efficient solution to implement. Overall, I would rate Freshdesk as an eight out of ten.
Somnath Kand - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom integration and reporting lead to efficient ticket management
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow. Although there are child incidents or tickets, tracking primary issues or bugs within enhancements is not present. The reporting features in the new portal could be more user-friendly. While it provides options to minimize chart and image sizes, actual implementation doesn't always reflect these changes.
report
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
27%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Freshdesk?
Freshdesk significantly improved our customer issue resolution process. We can now easily record and track all customer requests, ensuring that no tickets are lost.
What needs improvement with Freshdesk?
An area for improvement in Freshdesk would be enabling all features regardless of company or user size. Currently, some features like SMS or WhatsApp integration are only available to larger user g...
What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?
We utilize Freshdesk ( /products/freshdesk-reviews ) primarily for handling incoming tickets. The system auto-assigns these tickets to the available engineer, who then troubleshoots the issue, upda...
Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?
The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?
Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow    
Find out what your peers are saying about Freshdesk vs. ServiceNow and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.