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Kayako vs ServiceNow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Kayako
Ranking in Help Desk Software
41st
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Shared Inbox (11th)
ServiceNow
Ranking in Help Desk Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
214
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (4th), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Kayako is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 25.3%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

DM
Feb 18, 2022
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.
Fabio QUINTANILHA - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 29, 2024
A stable and scalable solution that has excellent features and is useful for collecting data and building KPIs
I use the solution to collect data to build KPIs. We promote and foster the usage of workflows in the company We use the data to compare and review situations, propose improvements, and promote action items. SPM and ITSM features are the most helpful. The product’s standard user experience is…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Kayako is its flexibility. We can do anything we want with it, which is nice."
"I like that it's always up and running."
"Will give us better control over asset management and technical debt once we can centralize all contract information."
"There are a lot of features within ServiceNow. There are plenty of add-ons that go beyond the typical core helpdesk operations, such as HR facilities, BRM functionality, and various compliance and governance capabilities."
"ServiceNow is a cloud solution. That fact was very important for us, that it is not an on-prem solution, as it reduces our internal cost of support."
"You can put information in or export it out quickly, which is very useful when you have weekly or monthly reports."
"It allows us to filter the data, create graphs, and get detailed reports."
"Discovery has reduced, on average, the time to build/deploy devices within our environment by one hour. This may not seem like much but it adds up over time. It also reaps additional time savings with its ability to capture changes through subsequent discoveries over the life of the device."
"It facilitates the monitoring of major incidents and provides insights into the effort expended to resolve each incident."
 

Cons

"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."
"Loads slower than expected, and its user interface needs improvement. Support for this product also needs to improve on their response time."
"For healthcare, which is a pretty audited environment, there are no concrete solutions for digital signatures, apart from our license with Adobe, so it requires orchestration."
"There are a few things that it needs to improve, like automation of most things out-of-the-box. For example, when it comes to cloud management, we are still going with manual intervention. Instead of that, if we had an out-of-the-box feature available, that would be great."
"If you have advanced questions, technical support often doesn't know the answer."
"Their GUI could be updated."
"One thing I don't care for is the reporting and the way it functions."
"The ability to embed help information onto the screens."
"ServiceNow might need to improve its capabilities to integrate with third-party tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."
"For the modules we use, we found it competitive. I can't think of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."
"Getting the solution up and running is expensive."
"The mandatory minimum is US$ 20,000 for licensing."
"The price of this solution is expensive."
"The licensing cost is based on your partnership with ServiceNow and what you have selected for implementation. There is an annual license cost which is calculated based on your number of devices."
"I'm not aware of any additional costs. I'm pretty sure that the current client is paying just the licensing fee per user. I do know that they've got some support agreement with ServiceNow, but I don't think that is broken out or specific to Project Management. It is just inclusive."
"The license model is based on a number of fulfillers (active users who play some role within the ServiceNow functionality). Therefore, you can serve as many end-users as you want, without additional costs."
"There are licensing fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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

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Sample Customers

Toshiba Canada, Disney, Avast, Namecheap, Texas Tech University
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 ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: October 2024.
814,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.