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Salesforce Community Cloud vs Zendesk 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

Salesforce Community Cloud
Ranking in Community Platforms
1st
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (4th)
Zendesk
Ranking in Community Platforms
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
59
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (6th), CRM (20th), Help Desk Software (9th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (7th), Sales Force Automation (7th), Reporting (13th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Community Platforms category, the mindshare of Salesforce Community Cloud is 16.7%, down from 28.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 18.3%, up from 14.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Community Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Abhishek-Mehta - PeerSpot reviewer
Shows where every sales employee stands, what the pipeline is and how healthy it is, but lacks an auto-population feature
In the last twelve months, there are two primary technologies I work extensively with. I've used Salesforce CRM and other similar technology. I'm not aware which version of Salesforce CRM I'm using, because I'm just a user, not the buyer. It's deployed on the public cloud, via Salesforce. Salesforce as a CRM tool becomes the source of truth in terms of what the standing of every sales employee is in the organization, what the pipeline is and how healthy it is, and what needs to be done to add to that pipeline. My advice to people looking into using Salesforce CRM is to understand their requirements and see why they need such an expensive tool. Data is very important in an organization, but then there are alternatives such as Zoho CRM and other CRMs available in the market. Understand how important it is that they want to work with data. If they have a vision of scaling the organization to a very large number, then Salesforce CRM makes sense. If they don't have more than two hundred or three hundred people in sales, Salesforce CRM is probably not the best solution because it will not give the best value for money. They can look at other options that can give better value for money. If they're part of large organizations beyond three hundred, then Salesforce CRM is a must-have. I'm giving Salesforce CRM a rating of seven. It's a great solution, and it's very user-friendly and has great reporting. However, the pricing is expensive and there could be better population features, for example, auto-population, with less manual activity.
Ahmed Nassar - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I found most valuable in Salesforce CRM is its reporting feature because it's extensive and it's very accurate. I also like that you can move opportunities by stages. I find that feature very important and very useful because it helps you understand where opportunities get stuck, and at what stage it is currently."
"All the business intelligence included in the tool gives more information about the cycle of the sales stage."
"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."
"The most valuable features of Zendesk Support are collaboration, reports, and a self-service portal. The customer and team can see all the information needed from the portal."
"It's very convenient to use."
"Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly."
"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 use, and I haven't encountered any issues with delays or communication gaps in ticket resolutions."
"It is very easy to connect back and forth between the requester and the person fulfilling the ticket."
"Zendesk Support has a lot of good APIs."
"The product offers very good management. It has a great ability to assign tickets based on content."
 

Cons

"An area for improvement in Salesforce CRM is that there's still a lot of manual input you need to make. If it could pick up things automatically from an email and auto-populate, that would make the tool better. Another area for improvement is that the Salesforce CRM connector for G-suite does not work effectively."
"The user interface can be improved."
"The support team is time-consuming, and they don't find the answer to our problem."
"The dashboard could be better."
"The solution itself wasn't easy to set up."
"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."
"There is always a network issue with Zendesk. But we don’t know whether it is managed. The network issue is that when I call, it does not let us."
"They have something called Zendesk Explore, which isn't as good as what they had in place previously."
"The price of the solution should be reduced."
"If I write an article, and I have a team of 30 people, and they all have a Zendesk account, when I write an article, I send them an email. "Hey guys, I just wrote this article. It's one of the most popular topics this month on which we are not covered. Please check it and make sure that you include it in your resolutions". The issue is, once I send it to those 30 people, and they open it, the next morning, that article is the most popular article."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing for Salesforce CRM is extremely expensive."
"The price is very competitive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
University
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
22%
Educational Organization
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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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?
I am not currently aware of the exact pricing, but since we are still using Zendesk, it appears to be at a reasonable price point.
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries. It would be advantageous to have an AI layer that can analyze incoming requests and generate summaries, as ...
 

Comparisons

No data available
 

Also Known As

No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brown-Forman, GE Aviation, Pernod Ricard, Toyota, Virgin America, GE, IAVA
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce Community Cloud vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,651 professionals have used our research since 2012.