ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs Zendesk comparison

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus and Zendesk compete in the domain of IT service management and customer service solutions. Based on feature offerings and flexibility, Zendesk shows an advantage in seamless integration and user-friendly interfaces for managing multiple communication channels effectively.

Features:ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers a customizable platform suitable for IT service management with ITIL compliance, robust asset tracking, and strong integration capabilities. Its flexibility in customizing workflows and automation suits various business needs. Zendesk stands out with its elegant ticket management, seamless integration with third-party applications, and is particularly recognized for its efficiency in handling multiple communication channels. The system provides options to configure and use chat, social media functionalities, and offers a robust self-service community platform.

Room for Improvement:ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus can enhance its reporting capabilities, cloud integration, and the customization options available for workflows and automation. Zendesk could improve on customizing the Help Center and reporting, streamline management of complex workflows, and provide a more intuitive user interface alongside more flexible ticketing options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service:ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus provides diverse deployment options including on-premises, public cloud, and hybrid cloud solutions, catering to varied business needs. However, it should work on providing more consistently responsive customer support. Zendesk, primarily cloud-based, is noted for quick and straightforward setup, with some room for improvement in support responsiveness. Both offer technical support, with mixed user feedback regarding specific service issues.

Pricing and ROI:ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is generally considered cost-effective with pricing models that accommodate diverse business sizes, often being more affordable than other products like ServiceNow. Zendesk, while offering extensive features and integrations, tends to have higher pricing, which might not fit all budgets, though its cost is often justified by the utility provided. ROI timelines vary for both products based on company scale and specific usage patterns.

To learn more, read our detailed ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: November 2024).

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs. Zendesk

November 2024

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Helped 815,854 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Ranking in Help Desk Software

3rd

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

4th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zendesk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

11th

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (5th), CRM (21st), Sales Force Automation (7th), Reporting (13th), Knowledge Management Software (2nd), Community Platforms (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is 7.3%, down from 8.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 4.2%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

CarlosPerez7

Director of IT at Health Choice Network, Inc.

Mar 15, 2023

Easy to configure and affordable compared to other software options

In my experience, I have implemented it at four different companies including Banyan Health Systems, Jessie Trice Health Systems, Harvard Maintenance, and another service-based company. I primarily use it to maintain different health systems One of the most valuable features of Service Desk Plus…

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Ahmed Nassar

Technical Consultant at Spectrum Group

Oct 17, 2023

Stable tool, making it reliable for handling tasks but difficult initial setup

It has a huge problem regarding the price. The price increases every year. Every year, they raise the price of the licenses, which makes a lot of limitations, and you have to pay more. So that's some conditions. Actually, most of the companies that use Zendesk need a customer experience or customer care department. However, Zendesk only works with chatbox or emailing services, but it can also use Genesys, VoIP, or voice sensors. Additionally, Zendesk needs the administration panels to be easier because it's a very complex panel. You need to search for a lot of things to do, like a small job. So you have to do a lot of setup regarding the integration, and it's a little bit challenging to integrate any software in the vendor.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is meeting all my needs, it is a good solution. The integration and security are good. The solution is under-friendly."

"It is excellent from the service management perspective."

"The ticketing function is very straightforward and easy to use."

"There are a lot of great templates that you can take advantage of."

"Overall, its integration is good. There is a lot of integration that we have done. All alerts are coming to ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus. Its VIP feature is also very useful where you can specify who are our VIPs. When the service desk engineer picks up the call and gets the name, he or she knows that the person is a VIP and treats him or her accordingly. It also has a mobile interface. Anybody can use the app to log cases. It is easy for the end users as well as for the approving party. For the workflow, it is easier for senior managers to give approvals through the mobile interface."

"The software deployment we find quite valuable - being able to deploy software to multiple endpoints without having to worry about getting in touch with the end users."

"The ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus SaaS model helped us because it was easy on our pockets but also easy to use, configure, and manage."

"What I found most valuable in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is its ticketing function plus change management, which helps us monitor all service requests within the team and even extend the requests to level two support."

More ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus pros

"It is very easy to connect back and forth between the requester and the person fulfilling the ticket."

"One of the most valuable features is that Zendesk gives you a lot of configurability, and a lot of leeway in terms of customizing the look and theme. Zendesk offers you the facility to design your own landing page, as well as the look and feel of the entire knowledge base. At the same time, they offer themes that you can simply purchase and implement. Either way, it can really be turned into the right look and feel of the knowledge base required by our company, which is very important—if you have a bland-looking page, most of the time, people will lose interest. Zendesk also allows you to test the customizations before you publish it. It gives you a sandbox location where you can test everything new that you're trying to create and publish, which is very interesting."

"It's a very stable tool, very powerful."

"The most valuable feature is the trackability of incoming requests. The system keeps a comprehensive history of work requests, making it a useful tool for our internal processes."

"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use. If you take the standalone product, it is so easy to use, but if you want a tailor-made Zendesk Guide, you can't do it yourself. However, you can use a template that already exists—they have a lot, and they're very cheap, around 300-400 euros—and use it on all your brands. It's a very easy product to use."

"The product offers very good management. It has a great ability to assign tickets based on content."

"What is cool about Zendesk Guide is how it works together with others Zendesk products. Especially with support and with the analytics. Put those together for a small or medium-sized company and it's a really powerful tool."

"Zendesk Support has a lot of good APIs."

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus could improve by making asset management better. The professional version has asset management but it should be available in the free version, it would help my organization."

"For ITIL functions, it should be more complex, including financial functions. We are expecting it to be easier for customization within workflows and templates."

"I'd like to understand more technical features due to the fact that I want to teach globally. I understand all the questions in the search engine. I want to find more technical information about the product."

"Customization has room for improvement in ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus."

"Its reporting could be improved. The current list of predefined reports seems to be fine for most of the customers, but there should be some tools to allow us to create highly customized reports for measuring different KPIs. We should also be able to connect some kind of BI to it. We haven't yet implemented it, and we are currently evaluating it. We are looking for advanced integration options where we could integrate it with our SCCM and Azure environments as well as with other Office solutions. For direct communication with customers, we are looking for a chatbot or a similar feature."

"I would like to improve the task management module and analytics."

"The solution does not have an automated approach to integration with other ManageEngine products."

"I expected more features than it has. The flexibility is missing. I also was expecting a different level of configuration and segregation."

More ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus cons

"It needs to improve in terms of its flexibility, price, and installation."

"Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries."

"As per me, there arent much significant issues or areas for improvement with Zendesk, as my usage of it is limited. I appreciate its ability to organize tickets effectively based on tags, allowing me to easily gather and analyze customer feedback and requests."

"Zendesk Guide's customization could be improved. I would like it to be easier and maybe open-sourced, so that if you have a developer in your company, you can do it yourself. Right now, that isn't allowed, so you need to have it done via the integrator. Another improvement—this is nit-picking—is that it could be less easy to make changes. Some things are so easy that they sometimes look a little amateur-ish. Most of the templates are built-in so they can be used directly, so they are very simple."

"It wasn't easy to set up so we're only using a third of all of the features,"

"The support team is time-consuming, and they don't find the answer to our problem."

"The dashboard could be better."

"You couldn't give administrative access to new hires."

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For our 500 assets that are using the professional version of the solution, we pay somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 per year."

"The cost of licensing is approximately ten dollars per suite, per month. When scaling up, there are a lot of other expenses such as infrastructure, the telecommunication companies, etc."

"Cost-wise, we're quite happy."

"For 90 service agents and our need for a cloud solution with incident management and service request management, it annually costs around 12,000. If you need additional development or deployment support from the vendor, there might be an additional cost."

"Pricing can always be improved and made more affordable."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The tool's price is okay and in line with other products, maybe even cheaper than some products."

"Its price is very lucrative. It would be great if the price can come down, but overall, its price is great. It is half or maybe one-third of the price of other market leaders."

More ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus pricing and cost advice

"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."

"The price is very competitive."

"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."

"Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."

"There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."

"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

60%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

22%

Educational Organization

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

The platform's most beneficial features are incident management, change management, request management, and asset management.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

I am not directly involved with the pricing and negotiations, but I am aware they are managed by the higher management of the company.

What needs improvement with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus could improve by offering a user-friendly environment similar to ServiceNow. It should also include more compatibility with different types of devices, especially conc...

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 hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive. One of the reasons for shifting from Zendesk to Talkdesk was cost efficiency.

What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?

Sometimes, the calls do not record, and your conversation is cut midway. When you want to do a call calibration, you realize that the call is incomplete. Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could ...

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Comparisons

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ServiceNow vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Compared 28% of the time

Freshservice vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Compared 5% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Compared 5% of the time

SCSM vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Compared 4% of the time

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ServiceNow vs Zendesk

Compared 22% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs Zendesk

Compared 12% of the time

Atlassian Confluence vs Zendesk

Compared 12% of the time

Freshservice vs Zendesk

Compared 9% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs Zendesk

Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

November 2024

Download ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus product report

Download Zendesk product report

October 2024

Also Known As

No data available

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Learn More

ManageEngine

Overview

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus (MSP) is a comprehensive help desk tool that has built-in asset and project management. MSP can be deployed in the cloud or on premises. The solution enables its users to track configuration changes, map relationships, and view graphical displays of data for more informed decision making.

The two main focus points of MSP are IT request tracking and asset management. MSP’s integrated centralized management console enables technicians and system administrators to efficiently resolve complex issues and keep track of their organization’s needs and ensure constant availability.

With MSP's automation of multiple service desk processes, you can easily save time by automating repetitive and simple tasks such as task assignment, notifications, and categorizations. The automation of multiple processes helps reduce errors and lower costs while ensuring a fast turnaround of ticket handling processes.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Features and Benefits

MSP has a wide variety of features to help you optimize your help desk management:

Dynamically update workflows: Create visual change workflows on a drag-and-drop canvas and customize these workflows on demand according to your organization’s needs.

Implement your workflow’s actions: Define actions such as notifications, switches, and automatic updates and approvals throughout the lifecycle of your workflow.

Flexible role administration: Provide custom viewing, editing, and approval access levels to various stakeholders and users.

Perform seamless integrations: Integrate with popular third-party products and access them from your IT help desk console.

Rapid troubleshooting: Improve your customer service by communicating with users by launching remote sessions directly from their tickets to quickly resolve their issues.
Control end-user workstations: Trigger software installation and removal on remote workstations from within the management console.

Automatic anomaly notification: Resolve issues before they affect your enterprise. Automatically receive notification when a performance anomaly is detected in your servers or applications.

Auto-assign tickets: The technician auto-assign tool, which can be set up using a load balancing algorithm, eliminates the need to assign tickets to technicians manually. This helps ensure that tickets are distributed to technicians fairly and on time.

Automatic notifications and reports: Set up a notification system to guarantee that the necessary notifications reach stakeholders on time, and that customers are kept updated regarding the status of their tickets. In addition, schedule reports to be sent to users periodically.

Implement your custom code: Program flexible automation enhancements with your own custom scripts and run them directly from the main dashboard.

Customize templates: Create custom and user-friendly templates using the solution’s simple drag-and-drop canvas.

Reviews from Real Users

MSP stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its comprehensive workflow management toolset and the flexibility it offers its users.

Mykola S., head of global IT delivery at Acino Pharma AG, writes, “CMDB as a baseline, incident management, service request management, and license management are valuable features. It offers really interesting features for complete use in an enterprise. You have one platform, and you could set up different service functions for HR, engineering, or another team in the same platform.

Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

Sample Customers

Tranter IT Infrastructure Services Limited, Sterlite Technologies, averda, Radiology Associates

Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber