What users are saying about
Top Rated
329 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 7.8 out of 100
Based on 329 reviews and ratings
44 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 7.1 out of 100
Based on 44 reviews and ratings
Feature Set Ratings
- ConnectWise Manage ranks higher in 2 feature sets: Incident and problem management, Self Help Community
- Kayako ranks higher in 1 feature set: Multi-Channel Help
Incident and problem management

7.9
ConnectWise Manage
79%
7.0
Kayako
70%
ConnectWise Manage ranks higher in 5/6 features
ConnectWise Manage ranks higher in 5/6 features
Organize and prioritize service tickets

8.1
81%
79 Ratings
8.0
80%
10 Ratings
Expert directory

7.4
74%
45 Ratings
3.1
31%
4 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications

7.5
75%
52 Ratings
7.1
71%
7 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation

8.0
80%
59 Ratings
7.9
79%
6 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission

7.9
79%
79 Ratings
8.0
80%
10 Ratings
Ticket response

8.3
83%
78 Ratings
8.0
80%
10 Ratings
Self Help Community

7.8
ConnectWise Manage
78%
7.3
Kayako
73%
ConnectWise Manage ranks higher in 1/2 features
ConnectWise Manage ranks higher in 1/2 features
External knowledge base

8.4
84%
60 Ratings
6.7
67%
8 Ratings
Internal knowledge base

7.2
72%
70 Ratings
7.8
78%
7 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help

7.6
ConnectWise Manage
76%
8.4
Kayako
84%
Kayako ranks higher in 4/5 features
Kayako ranks higher in 4/5 features
Customer portal

7.3
73%
71 Ratings
9.3
93%
6 Ratings
IVR

8.9
89%
18 Ratings
8.0
80%
1 Rating
Social integration

7.0
70%
25 Ratings
7.0
70%
3 Ratings
Email support

7.8
78%
71 Ratings
8.1
81%
9 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration

7.2
72%
67 Ratings
9.3
93%
5 Ratings
Attribute Ratings
- ConnectWise Manage is rated higher in 3 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Availability, Support Rating
- Kayako is rated higher in 3 areas: Likelihood to Renew, Usability, Implementation Rating
Likelihood to Recommend

7.0
ConnectWise Manage
70%
111 Ratings
6.0
Kayako
60%
21 Ratings
Likelihood to Renew

4.7
ConnectWise Manage
47%
26 Ratings
7.8
Kayako
78%
11 Ratings
Usability

5.7
ConnectWise Manage
57%
25 Ratings
10.0
Kayako
100%
1 Rating
Availability

8.0
ConnectWise Manage
80%
7 Ratings
7.5
Kayako
75%
4 Ratings
Performance

1.0
ConnectWise Manage
10%
13 Ratings
Kayako
N/A
0 Ratings
Support Rating

4.6
ConnectWise Manage
46%
32 Ratings
2.6
Kayako
26%
7 Ratings
Online Training

5.0
ConnectWise Manage
50%
8 Ratings
Kayako
N/A
0 Ratings
Implementation Rating

1.0
ConnectWise Manage
10%
8 Ratings
9.0
Kayako
90%
4 Ratings
Product Scalability

1.0
ConnectWise Manage
10%
7 Ratings
Kayako
N/A
0 Ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
ConnectWise Manage
I really enjoy ConnectWise, it is a massive step forward. The ability to see all departments working towards the same goal and having full visibility on account activity is massive to our business. Only some small tweaks would go a long way to making this even easier for sales managers to keep tabs on active prospects and lead generation.

Verified User
Consultant in Information Technology
Telecommunications Company, 11-50 employeesKayako
When it works, It's without a doubt a great help desk solution. It is perfect for our usage, and have rolled it out company-wide. It's great if you have multiple departments. We have it set up so most items come through a single desk that then hands out tickets to their proper department. There may be cheaper options for smaller organizations but for one that is as service-driven as ours, we really think Kayako is a great fit.

Verified User
Technician in Information Technology
Education Management Company, 51-200 employeesPros
ConnectWise Manage
- Tickets- Customers can email and a ticket is generated and falls under their profile for historical records. You can save documents and select if they are customer facing or only internal facing. The option as well to have communication in tickets whether its internal facing or customer facing is nice to have when you're trying to keep a record or important details for just internal means and the customer doesn't have to see all the jargon.
- Procurement - It's great to have this integrate with Quosal Sell. Quotes being processed into opportunities and then into a sales order which connects to a ticket or project is pretty easy to use. It does have a learning curve but once you get the hang of it, it's straightforward. Everything is pretty connected, whether keeping track of products customers have purchased historically through us, to knowing what ticket is associated to an RMA.
Purchasing Agent
CIO Solutions, LPInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees
Kayako
- Gives a very good report on an individual level of what is being done for a customer or corporate issue.
- Easy to understand who has what, what the tickets are about, how long they have been opened and how many times the customer/employee have gone back and forth with each other.
- Nice dashboard view.

Verified User
Executive in Customer Service
Telecommunications Company, 51-200 employeesCons
ConnectWise Manage
- I will say the calendar option needs a little bit of work.
- A calendar that looks more like lets say a Google Calendar would a nice feature.
- Better Knowledge base section.
- We attempted to get very good use out of the Knowledge however due to not really being able to organize it and it being very hard to navigate we had to go a different route for our documentation.
- Possibly adding a cleaner user interface and adding more customization for the organization of companies would help.
- A better layout for reporting would also be something good to have.
- The layouts available are so difficult to put together to get what you want out of a report. Virtually makes it impossible to get what you want out of them.
Director of IT
W3ITComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees
Kayako
- Departments need a bit of work. Even though you can have multiple departments, the only changes that can be made are globally. If you want independent queues within the departments, you have to do a lot of work that can be very confusing.
- Survey system is not up to speed. Kayako really needs to add Net Promoter Score into their system. Also, if a staff user removes their name from an incident ticket, it removes them from the survey so you really can't even get a good estimate of how well your staff is in the eyes of the customer.
- Very difficult to implement when you already have a customer base. Setting them up in organizations is difficult. Also, the sign-up for new customers is quirky. If you send an email to Kayako, it will say you are not an authorized user, however, it will store your email address. If you try to send an email a second time, it will go through. This is one of many reasons why we decided to move from Kayako to Oracle Service Cloud.
General Manager
HOSTINGInternet, 11-50 employees
Pricing Details
ConnectWise Manage
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
$35 Per Tech Per Month
ConnectWise Manage Editions & Modules
Edition
Subscription | $35.001 |
---|
- Per Tech Per Month
Additional Pricing Details
—Kayako
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
$29 per month
Kayako Editions & Modules
Edition
Inbox | $15.001 |
---|---|
Growth | $30.001 |
Scale | $60.001 |
- Per User Per Month
Additional Pricing Details
—Likelihood to Renew
ConnectWise Manage
ConnectWise Manage 4.7
Based on 26 answers
ConnectWise has uniquely positioned themselves with the Modern Office Suite to have direct integration with a nearly full suite of tools for MSPs. Although each tool may not necessarily be the absolute best tool on the market, the efficiencies leveraged through direct integration make the entire suite an obvious choice for most companies.
Chief Information Officer
EDTS, LLCComputer & Network Security, 51-200 employees
Kayako
Kayako 7.8
Based on 11 answers
- We are grandfathered in on their old Software-assurance pricing and our continued use costs us only a few hundred dollars a year (excluding hosting expenses)
- Our team's processes are now heavily ingrained in the system
- We have not been shown a more compelling option that is more cost-effective while still offering all the features we've come to expect
System Administrator
Shore Power IncRetail, 11-50 employees
Usability
ConnectWise Manage
ConnectWise Manage 5.7
Based on 25 answers
I have been using ConnectWise since 2004 and I am impressed with the progress they have made. However, there are still bugs that don't work quite like they should. If I were to run reports and get consistent answers along with a couple other annoyances, then I would score CW as a 10
Chief Anxiety Eliminator
Carefree Technology ManagementInformation Technology and Services, 1-10 employees
Kayako
Kayako 10.0
Based on 1 answer
I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
Application Support Specialist
ImageTrendHealth, Wellness and Fitness, 51-200 employees
Reliability and Availability
ConnectWise Manage
ConnectWise Manage 8.0
Based on 7 answers
We use the cloud version of ConnectWise and in the last 5 years it has never been down for us during business hours. I can only recall 1 time when it was not available during off hours when we wanted to use it.
CEO
Stepfar ITComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees
Kayako
Kayako 7.5
Based on 4 answers
They are really good, but it takes a while to get back, because of the large time difference to the Eastern US. However, they are very helpful.
Sales and Support Manager
StyleEase Software, LLCComputer Software, 1-10 employees
Performance
ConnectWise Manage
ConnectWise Manage 1.0
Based on 13 answers
Some tab for certain areas load speeds could be better. Dashboards can load slowly when they reference multiple reports. Some reports can load slowly based on the tables and views they are accessing. At times the SQL queries being performed in the background can actually timeout and a tab or screen will fail to load.
Director of Compliance and Efficiency
Trivalent GroupInformation Technology and Services, 51-200 employees
Kayako
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
ConnectWise Manage
ConnectWise Manage 4.6
Based on 32 answers
The front line support techs are wildly inconsistent when it comes to the level of support. Sometimes you get someone who just wants to throw links to University documentation at you, sometimes you get someone who truly tries to understand your issue and confers with peers and managers to find an answer, and sometimes you get someone who just wants to create a ticket and escalate immediately. If you ask three different techs the same question you will probably get three different answers, one of them being, "That's not possible."
Systems Analyst
Netrix ITInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Kayako
Kayako 2.6
Based on 7 answers
- We didn't have to use support too much, but when we did, they were able to assist us and help us make everything work.
- Mostly we used their Online KB and step by step instructions to get all of our issues resolved.
Vice President of Information Technology
3formPlastics, 501-1000 employees
Online Training
ConnectWise Manage
ConnectWise Manage 5.0
Based on 8 answers
We are a telecoms company. Whilst CW were very happy to sell us their product and tell us how good it is for telecoms. All the training material is geared towards IT MSP's. The on-line training material was virtually useless. We found the implementation a bit of a joke. They tried telling us 12 hours of implementation time would be sufficient to launch the product. We erred on the side of caution and paid for 24 hours. This was quickly eaten away and we were nowhere near ready to go-live. I find the on-line chat facility is of much more use for us.
Commercial Manager
Solution IPTelecommunications, 11-50 employees
Kayako
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
ConnectWise Manage
ConnectWise Manage 1.0
Based on 8 answers
Rather than letting them sell you a block of time for implementation, create a list of things that must be completed do declare the implementation complete. The implementer will have the discretion on what they set up and in what order. They will be trying to end their services in as little time as possible and may not get things set up right. You are best advised to hire a third-party wizard that has done many of these setups. Record the audio and video of all of your implementation sessions.
President
SudoraInformation Technology & Services, 1-10 employees
Kayako
Kayako 9.0
Based on 4 answers
Three years in we are about as happy with Kayako as we could be. We've had several employee's leave and on-boarding new hires was easier than it has ever been as things are uniform and consistent across the entire application.
System Administrator
Shore Power IncRetail, 11-50 employees
Alternatives Considered
ConnectWise Manage
We reviewed a lot more products than those listed above but in the end, we are told by our business mentors to just pick one and use it - everything has its learning curves. However, all of the other products we tried couldn't even come close to what Connectwise Manage could provide. The information is detailed and a great way to keep track of your techs, your inventory, your support tickets and so much more.
President
Big D Technology Solutions, Inc.Information Technology and Services, 1-10 employees
Kayako
We were using Spiceworks for a few years before switching to Kayako but found that it wasn't as customizable or as user friendly for our customers. The SNMP scanning and inventory features with Spiceworks was nice but we needed more of a Help Desk that would allow us to scale our services to more companies.
IT Project Coordinator
SwiftTech Technology Solutions LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Scalability
ConnectWise Manage
ConnectWise Manage 1.0
Based on 7 answers
ConnectWise seems to have a good understanding of the IT service industry. During the required onboarding training, they even preach configuring only features that you need right now, as you can always scale up later. The feature set for the most part takes into considerations all aspects of an IT business, whether small or enterprise, or growing from one to the next.
NOC/Design Technician
One2One IncInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Kayako
No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
ConnectWise Manage
- At this stage in the game, we have been using the Connectwise Manage product for just one year. This basically means we're just getting out of the honeymoon part of the relationship and will now venture into getting our full value out of the software as we also begin to grow our business. We can't report on our ROI yet but we can't see ourselves living without a great PSA tool either.
- The software has definitely enabled our projects manager to operate with more focus on the project itself, knowing that the finance details will be visible and closely scrutinized by the CFO prior to having an invoice or agreement created.
CFO and I.T. Guy
IT Guys, LLCComputer & Network Security, 1-10 employees
Kayako
- Tickets were definitely responded to faster once we implemented the audible alarm that would go off when new tickets came into the queue. This was possible because of the API.
- Since the system was email based we could set our monitoring software up to generate tickets automatically via email for customers when it found something out of the ordinary.
Technical Support Engineer
CoverMyMedsTelecommunications, 11-50 employees