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Freshservice vs Kayako 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

Freshservice
Ranking in Help Desk Software
8th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Project Management Software (12th), Cloud Management (15th), IT Asset Management (6th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (5th)
Kayako
Ranking in Help Desk Software
44th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Shared Inbox (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Freshservice is 3.9%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kayako is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Trilochana Gouda - PeerSpot reviewer
Smooth incident management and easy to use while needing better escalation management
We are using Freshservice for the IT ticketing system for business users We use the ticketing system primarily, which is very easy to use for all users. Freshservice is helpful, especially in incident management. Incident management is very helpful, and the system is straightforward, making it…
reviewer1712472 - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, straightforward implementation, and helpful support
We are in the process of switching from Kayako to ManageEngine Desktop Central. We went through a full review of our service desk processing and one of the solutions we purchased was a ManageEngine Desktop Central. When we were looking at the integrations into the Kayako system and how it works, we found that ManageEngine Desktop Central did very similar things. It had better layers of classification, other templating, and additional features that we did not have with Kayako. Our service manager made the decision to switch at that time. My advice to others wanting to implement Kayako would be for them to plan out their service processes first, prior to trying to implement them in the tool. We made the mistake of jumping in too soon back 10 years ago. I started using it in a way that we could have tooled it in a different way to make it better. We could have had more implementation process information to make sure we received what we wanted to out of the solution. I rate Kayako an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I do like the workflow automation capabilities, where based upon certain actions, it will automatically go and route tickets to a particular person. It is fairly user-friendly."
"It is a stable solution. My company hasn't faced any problems with the solution."
"The most valuable feature of Freshservice is you can assign downloaded tickets and the reports are useful."
"It allowed the development team to concentrate on the client’s requirements instead."
"We use the ticketing system primarily, which is very easy to use for all users."
"The solution facilitates a transition from an organizational structure that is function-based to a process-oriented approach."
"The most valuable features of Freshservice are the notifications, customization, and flexibility."
"Freshservice's best feature is its user-friendliness."
"The most valuable feature of Kayako is its flexibility. We can do anything we want with it, which is nice."
 

Cons

"There are some limitations in reporting. For example, I would like to have a report of conversations or replies."
"Asset management can definitely be improved because it doesn't pick up every single device on the network or every single piece of information."
"Their analytics need improvement."
"The analytics could be better."
"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."
"I think it would be great if the tool had another version that is more customizable. From what I remember, there were some limitations regarding the number of assets you could track. In a more robust version, the number of assets increases, but I think it would be better to have something more customizable for all versions, especially the most robust version. This would be great for larger customers."
"The chat portal is not that great."
"There is room for improvement in reporting for project management."
"Some of the reporting in Kayako could be improved. It only has two levels of classification and if there were additional levels added for reporting purposes it would be awesome for our environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Freshservice price is competitive, it is not more than other solutions on the market."
"Our licensing fee for Freshservice is $2,500 a year."
"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."
"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."
"The price of Freshservice could improve, it is expensive."
"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."
"The pricing information is on their website. It's my understanding that their Pro Plan, for example, is around $89/month."
"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Freshservice?
The solution has been very helpful engineering insights into the client's environment. We have been able to manage calls and incidence very efficiently which provides us with a clear understanding...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Freshservice?
The solution offers flat licensing and appears to be cost-effective.
What needs improvement with Freshservice?
There is a need for improvement in terms of automatic escalation to the next level if an issue is not resolved. It should optimize and allow customization. Additionally, asset management needs impr...
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Comparisons

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Also Known As

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport
Toshiba Canada, Disney, Avast, Namecheap, Texas Tech University
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: April 2025.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.