ServiceNow vs TOPdesk vs Zendesk comparison

ServiceNow and TOPdesk are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. ServiceNow is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5, while TOPdesk is ranked #14 with an average rating of 7.6. ServiceNow holds a 24.1% mindshare in HDS, compared to TOPdesk’s 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of ServiceNow users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 84% of TOPdesk users who would recommend it.

ServiceNow

Read 217 ServiceNow reviews

11,161 Views
7,664 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

TOPdesk

Read 10 TOPdesk reviews

1,034 Views
515 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Zendesk

Read 60 Zendesk reviews

1,602 Views
1,273 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

ServiceNow

TOPdesk

Zendesk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ServiceNow, TOPdesk, and Zendesk based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Help Desk Software Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

April 2025

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Helped 848,989 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of ServiceNow is 24.1%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TOPdesk is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 4.1%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Somnath Kand

Team Lead at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech

Custom integration and reporting lead to efficient ticket management

There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow. Although there are child incidents or tickets, tracking primary issues or bugs within enhancements is not present. The reporting features in the new portal could be more user-friendly. While it provides options to minimize chart and image sizes, actual implementation doesn't always reflect these changes.

Read full review

Martina Peneva

People Technology Lead at Scandinavian Tobacco Group

Implement service management changes while addressing UI improvements

Topdesk's user interface makes it easy to handle requests and escalate them to other groups or reassign them when working on a single ticket. Additionally, the service management tool in HR allows for a change in delivering services, replacing email communication with ticket raising. The knowledge library enables the local HR to store and share relevant information and frequently asked cases, enhancing collaboration. The ticket system also facilitates escalating cases to other involved departments. IT, HR, and some other teams primarily use this system.

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JohanSkibdahl

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Automating customer support with advanced AI capabilities and seamless communication

Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls. It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. This intelligent tool can manage complex queries before users even realize they are interacting with a non-human. Additionally, we have integrated Zendesk with Datto and Klaviyo ( /products/klaviyo-reviews ), enhancing our workflows.

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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

"The look and feel is a valuable benefit for adoption."

"It gave us professionalized, faster incident turn around times. Improved quality of information shared with our customers. Over time we build an extensive knowledge base that assists in both self-service as in services provided by the servicedesk when handling incidents."

"The solution has very good automation tools."

"The most impactful feature in our day-to-day operations is the ticket status, which provides crucial visibility into the progress of each resource or incident."

"A workflow automation platform that's reliable, performs well, and has good reporting and integration."

"If it is a high priority, they will respond very quickly. If it is a low priority issue, it might take some time, some three or four days. I would rate the technical support as a 10 out of 10."

"It's more about the ease of use of ServiceNow. Plus, everything is there in a single platform. If you need any additional functionality, you just need to enable the plugins without even installing anything on the servers"

"In terms of the most valuable features, it's nice to have everything in one place. Things are easy to follow up on. ServiceNow provides that workflow. I know at some level it is in the pipeline and then if I need to follow up, everything's there. Those are the key benefits of ServiceNow."

More ServiceNow pros

"The most valuable feature of TOPdesk is its ease of use if you have implemented it in the right way. If you're not implementing it in the right way, then it's very difficult."

"Its ITSM approach is quite useful."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ticketing feature."

"The most valuable feature of TOPdesk is the reports."

"When it comes to implementing new features, they listen to what their customers want via a suggestion forum that they have."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the incident management module."

"This solution has provided me with a well-defined process and interaction, compared to my previous tool, GLPI."

"TOPdesk is overall very stable."

More TOPdesk pros

"It's very convenient to use."

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

"Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls."

"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."

"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."

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

"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 feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"Before implementing this solution, you should have the ITSM model in place for chain management requests. That is a prerequisite because you cannot perform tasks without it."

"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 sometimes challenges with the portal being a bit confusing for new users. The implementation of the portal and workspaces is quite different, and improvements in this area would be beneficial."

"Change Management is the area I have found that this tool can be improved because there are so many fields which are missing, such as urgency of the customer request and how the priority is defined. These are some of the areas in which I found that BMC Remedy is much better than ServiceNow."

"The RPA needs improvement. That's a new area for them that they're just entering into now."

"There are Virtual Task Boards in the tool in the latest releases. There are many of them in the Scaled Agile Framework. There is some room there for improvement. It's really quite promising but, at the same time, it could be improved and I believe it will be improved soon."

"It should enhance its offerings by providing the chance to obtain course certifications at an affordable fee."

"The visuals are the one area where there is opportunity for improvement."

More ServiceNow cons

"If I open a ticket on the infrastructure team, I can't move it to the financial team for them to manage the ticket."

"An operator is also a user but requires creating two different records."

"The solution should be made more user-friendly."

"The solution's change management could be better."

"All companies have processes that need to be adjusted. When you have a change, you need to name it, and many companies have a set of changes you can use. It would be helpful if there were more space in TOPdesk to name the change or use metadata to record the kinds of changes."

"It is time-consuming to add new users."

"One of the disadvantages of TOPdesk is the reporting tool. It is very poor and not in real-time. You do not always receive the correct information."

"From a UI perspective, there is room for improvement. It sometimes takes many steps to do something simple, like creating or moving a knowledge item."

More TOPdesk cons

"Zendesk Guide could be improved by allowing us to put our assets in one location. What happens now for each article, for example, is we have to upload the images for that article to that location, so the image reuse is still not something that they have perfected. If they could allow us to update all the images in one location, and then pull the image from there, it would be easier when working on Multibrand projects. There are no Multibrand updates available—we have to update each brand manually. For my company, I have come up with an API tool which allows me to push the content to multiple brands together, but if you don't have something like that, you have to manually do it."

"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."

"The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook."

"The solution itself wasn't easy to set up."

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

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

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

"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's."

"The first impact for the customer is that it is expensive, but do not forget that it is a solution that includes infrastructure; a single cost, easy to justify."

"The licenses are expensive."

"The mandatory minimum is US$ 20,000 for licensing."

"We know that ServiceNow is not cheap, it's more expensive than other solutions. But we are trying to increase our ability to handle tickets so that the cost per ticket is less."

"The CapEx version is great."

"For the modules we use, we found it competitive. I can't think of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."

"ServiceNow is a leader and its pricing is quite good, quite competitive... Sometimes some plugins are not priced reasonably but, generally, the platform itself, its modules, are priced reasonably."

More ServiceNow pricing and cost advice

"The solution's pricing is reasonable and not expensive."

"There are three fee options to choose from for a company and these options compared to market prices are very high. For example, if I use one of the first options for 10 assets, then it costs 20,000 Euros. If you went to competitors, then you pay less."

"Compared to other products in this segment, I think that they are priced well and not too expensive."

"The cost of the solution on a yearly basis is $20,000. Technical support is not extra. It's included in the yearly cost. Updates are also included. The solution is good at keeping its product up to date."

"The solution is inexpensive compared to competitors."

"TOPdesk's pricing is cheaper than Jira's."

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

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

50%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Computer Software Company

23%

Educational Organization

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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 t...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

What do you like most about ServiceNow?

The solution has a user-friendly interface.

See all answers

What do you like most about TOPdesk?

The most valuable feature of TOPdesk is the reports.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TOPdesk?

The solution's pricing is reasonable and not expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with TOPdesk?

From a UI perspective, there is room for improvement, as some tasks like creating or moving a knowledge item within t...

See all answers

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 ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

BMC Helix ITSM vs ServiceNow

Compared 8% of the time

Microsoft Power Apps vs ServiceNow

Compared 7% of the time

Pega Platform vs ServiceNow

Compared 6% of the time

IBM Maximo vs ServiceNow

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Dynamics CRM vs ServiceNow

Compared 5% of the time

More ServiceNow Competitors

JIRA Service Management vs TOPdesk

Compared 26% of the time

Freshdesk vs TOPdesk

Compared 17% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs TOPdesk

Compared 14% of the time

More TOPdesk Competitors

Atlassian Confluence vs Zendesk

Compared 8% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs Zendesk

Compared 8% of the time

Freshservice vs Zendesk

Compared 7% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs Zendesk

Compared 6% of the time

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service vs Zendesk

Compared 6% of the time

More Zendesk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow

March 2025

Download ServiceNow product report

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

April 2025

Download TOPdesk product report

Buyer's Guide

Zendesk

March 2025

Download Zendesk product report

Also Known As

No data available

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Overview

ServiceNow is a cloud-based task-management platform that specializes in IT operations management (ITOM), IT services management (ITSM), and IT business management (ITBM). ServiceNow allows users to manage their teams, projects, and customer interactions using a variety of different plugins and apps with which it easily integrates.

ServiceNow offers prebuilt applications to support any process, as well as a framework and tools that allow you to build your own.

ServiceNow’s service management solutions include change, request, incident, problem, and cost management, as well as HR, IT, field service, and facilities management solutions. They also cover business management solutions such as vendor performance management, financial management, performance analytics and project portfolio suite, as well as governance, risk, and compliance.

“The Smarter Way to Workflow”

ServiceNow’s activities, processes, and tasks are overseen as part of a comprehensive managed workflow that supports such features as real-time collaboration, communication, and resource sharing. ServiceNow’s suite of products allow for operation using serverless computing, and include the categories of Business Apps, Customer Service, HR, IT, and Security.

ServiceNow can be used to support most workflows because of the wide range of tools it offers. These include on-suite ticketing tools, predictive modeling to manage workflows, and benchmarking for the tracking of progress. ServiceNow can assist with artificial intelligence and machine learning processes and can be used to organize the cases of a help/service desk as well as for instance management and problem management. It also smoothly integrates with many legacy systems.

ServiceNow offers service management software for industries including:

Cloud services
Education
Financial services
Government
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Telecommunications

Reviews from Real Users

PeerSpot users prefer ServiceNow to its competitors because of its scalability, stability, and ease of use. It helps everyone in the company to be on the same page by creating a single source of record across all departments. One user stated that “I’ve definitely used over 20 project management solutions, but they can't be compared with ServiceNow.” Another said that “ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI.”

ServiceNow

Excellent service management made easy : Happy customers are the goal of every supporting department. We understand. That’s why we’ve created a solution that helps you improve customer communication, manage workflows and keep track of assets. But above all: our software is simple and attractive. This not only makes it pleasant to use, but also quick to adopt. You’re looking to deliver excellent service from day one – and TOPdesk is here to help. TOPdesk delivers one integrated service platform for IT, FM, HR and other Service departments with a build Self Service Portal, asset management, reporting and integration platform( see also our TOPdesk Marketplace for selection of connectors). Some key features include : Call Management, Incident and Service Request Management, Service Catalogue, Asset & Configuration Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Project Management, Operations Management, Reservations Management, Stock & Order Management, Contract Management and SLA's, Survey Management, Self Service Portal, Form designer, Portal designer, Event & Action Management, Knowlegde Base, Report wizards, Resource Management, Barcode, CAD and Exchange integration TOPdesk helps you streamline your ITIL, Agile, Sox, KCS, ASL/BISL, GDPR compliance Result at our global customer base : 98% customer retention rate 99% of our implementations within budget and timeframe 90% up and running within 3 month NPS score of 35 (4500 cusotmers) 98% customer recommondation score 4,7 score at Gartner Peer Insights Our ecosystem consist of : 4500 customers across 45 countries > 300.000 daily users > 15.000.000 supported end-users 40+ partners What makes TOPdesk unique? • ITIL-based modules for all your service needs: from Ticket and Asset Management to Reservations Management • License based on end users or service agents, whateveris best for you • Unlimited number of assets or self service users • Easy to implement: get up and running quickly • Choose between on-premises or SaaS

TOPdesk

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.

Zendesk

Sample Customers

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

City of Amsterdam, University of Edinbroughm, IKEA, KLM Catering Services, FloraHolland, BOVAG, PostNL, Total, Hilton, Oce, Canon, Agip, Compass Group, Serco, Danone, BMW, Eneco, And many more.

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

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: April 2025.

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