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Freshservice vs Zendesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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
6.6
Freshservice delivers ROI through effective ticketing and asset management, improving efficiency and satisfaction despite cost concerns and measurement challenges.
Sentiment score
6.2
Zendesk enhances productivity and efficiency, providing substantial ROI through team downsizing, seamless integration, and improved ticket management.
Faster resolution means the average ticket resolution time decreased by roughly twenty-five to thirty percent since alerts are automatically converted into tickets and routed to the right team.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Automation has contributed significantly, resulting in reduced resource counts, which equates to savings in money and time.
Technical support manager at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
With using Freshservice, only two technicians are needed per one shift, but without Freshservice, for the same company size, we need about four technicians per shift, so it saved money and time.
Systems Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
I can tell you that we probably saved at least three employees full-time with the ticket management and the automation and the macros and the user follow-up being built in.
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
Time saved is definitely a benefit because it puts all of our tickets in one spot.
Technical Solutions Lead at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I feel that Zendesk helped us set up our platform for providing support way faster than other platforms due to its easy configuration.
Junior system analyst at Wevt clous
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Freshservice support is fast and helpful, but some users face communication challenges, particularly with complex issues and translations.
Sentiment score
6.3
Zendesk is known for professional, responsive customer service with efficient tech support and valuable 24/7 availability for enterprise users.
Ultimately, we saw a 77% reduction in average resolution times with a return on investment realized within 6 months.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
However, they have improved over the period of two years.
IT & Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Their documentation is also good, making setup easy without needing frequent support requests.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
There appears to be a lack of connection between the bot and the agents, making it feel scripted rather than helpful.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The technical support provided by Zendesk has been very satisfactory.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
Their support team from Zendesk is excellent, similar to what you have in Freshdesk.
Customer Success Manager at Mimshackworks Endeavors
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Freshservice scales well with flexible licensing but has customization limits in large setups, supporting multiple departments effectively.
Sentiment score
7.3
Zendesk adapts well for organizations, offering scalability and customization, though initial data handling and cost can pose challenges.
As our organization has grown and ticket volume related to AWS resources increased, Freshservice handled the extra load without any performance issues.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It offers global performance with multi-region data centers to ensure faster responses while adhering to strong security and compliance standards such as GDPR and SOC 2.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
Freshservice is easy to use for scalability.
IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
We have not hit a peak or a turn yet that Zendesk has not been able to go with us or been able to grow with us in the process, change or pivot that the company is making.
Project Manager III at City of Union City Government
Zendesk can scale from very small companies to very large ones.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
Zendesk's scalability is excellent.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Freshservice is stable, reliable, with minor third-party integration and data import issues, excelling in high ticket volumes.
Sentiment score
7.8
Zendesk is generally stable and reliable, with rare outages, promptly communicated issues, and potential instability for larger groups.
The service runs smoothly most of the time, and performance has been consistent even when ticket volumes and AWS alerts are high.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Freshservice is quite stable as they host it on AWS.
IT & Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Freshservice provides a stable environment for our needs.
IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
They are always informing us with a status update and an ETA, and the turnaround time is usually within the same day with no extended downtime that would cause a detriment to our company.
Project Manager III at City of Union City Government
Zendesk is quite stable; we experience major outages only once or twice a year, making it very reliable.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The stability has been quite reliable.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
 

Room For Improvement

Freshservice requires improved reporting, project management, automation, integrations, user support, and customization for larger organizations.
Zendesk users seek better UI navigation, integration, reporting, ticket management, and improvements in pricing, language support, speed, AI, and collaboration.
There's limited experience with the CMDB or asset management features.
IT Technician at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Asset management can definitely be improved because it doesn't pick up every single device on the network or every single piece of information.
IT & Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Reporting is useful, but the customization is still restricted, and it would be great to build more detailed reports that combine multiple data sources, especially for cloud-related operations.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Zendesk could actually support HTML on the tickets so we could format our text better than the current options such as size, bold, italic, or underscored, because the text processing is too simple.
Junior system analyst at Wevt clous
Zendesk is missing an AI aspect that could help provide quick answers based on the knowledge housed within the platform.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Zendesk is amazing, and because they are always working on a new upgrade or a new integration, they are very forward-thinking from an engineering perspective.
Project Manager III at City of Union City Government
 

Setup Cost

Freshservice offers transparent, flexible pricing that is often more cost-effective than competitors, appealing to various organizational needs.
Enterprise users find Zendesk costly but valuable for time savings, improved customer experience, and comprehensive data management.
Switching from previous ITSM tools has led to a 50% reduction in licensing costs.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
The solution offers flat licensing and appears to be cost-effective.
IT Technician at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
The price was very comfortable for our organization to proceed with the migration from Freshdesk to Freshservice.
Technical support manager at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive.
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
 

Valuable Features

Freshservice streamlines IT operations with automated ticket management, self-service tools, integrations, and analytics, enhancing productivity and efficiency.
Zendesk excels with ease of use, powerful integrations, customizable features, and robust APIs enhancing productivity and customer interaction.
The most valuable features include ticket routing, automation in triage, data control, and flat licensing.
IT Technician at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Incident management is very helpful, and the system is straightforward, making it easy to use for our enterprise-level company.
IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Overall, Freshservice provides cutting-edge AI automation for agents and end-users, effortless no-code workflows and ITIL-aligned operations, robust asset, incident, change, problem, and major incident management backed by the live CMDB, unified service desk with self-service and multi-channel support, and strong analytics reporting features, making it a powerful tool for any IT function.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
Zendesk is way cheaper than other ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow, providing a good platform at a lower price so we could offer good support with a low budget for the license.
Junior system analyst at Wevt clous
Being able to put response counters on certain tickets and have certain ones that are high priority and have a tighter SLA than lower priority items, being able to categorize them as a question versus an urgent request, and being able to bucket them as feature requests or product enhancements.
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
 

Categories and Ranking

Freshservice
Ranking in Help Desk Software
5th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
5th
Ranking in AI IT Support
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Project Management Software (9th), Cloud Management (12th), IT Asset Management (5th)
Zendesk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
4th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
6th
Ranking in AI IT Support
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (4th), CRM (8th), Sales Force Automation (4th), Reporting (10th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), Community Platforms (1st), AI Customer Support (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Freshservice is 4.0%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 5.1%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zendesk5.1%
Freshservice4.0%
Other90.9%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AmandaSanchez - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams
The ability to communicate on the Zendesk ticket through the actual user software, so TOPs, would have been helpful. Somehow seeing a user's ticket history within our app would have been beneficial. That is the only thing that I do not think existed at the time that might have been helpful. Some people struggled with Zendesk, but it was always easy enough to show them how to use it and what they were missing. The only times we really had people report concerns about it was when they did not understand that it could do that or how to use it in that way.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
9%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise11
 

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?
Regarding cost savings, switching from previous ITSM tools has led to a 50% reduction in licensing costs, flexibility to scale for different business areas, which included service catalog items, ag...
What needs improvement with Freshservice?
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 wo...
What do you like most about Zendesk Support?
I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that is what prohibited us from expanding usage of it into more users and using more o...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
As of right now, I have nothing that comes to mind as an improvement needed or a feature that could work differently or be enhanced. I think across the board, Zendesk is amazing, and because they a...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Flint
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Freshservice vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.