Datto Autotask PSA vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Autotask PSA
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Autotask PSA is designed as a complete IT Business Management Platform for MSPs, now from Datto (resulting from the Autotask merger with Datto in 2017).N/A
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
The Zendesk Support suite is a cloud-based customer support software built for better customer relationships. Designed to improve customer satisfaction and to support customers on any channel: text SMS, web, mobile app, phone, email, social media. The vendor states more than 200,000 companies such as Uber, Groupon, Box, Airbnb, and Slack are using Zendesk to lower their support costs, raise productivity, and increase customer satisfaction. Zendesk offers a full suite of products to meet customer…
$55
per month agent
Pricing
Datto Autotask PSAZendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Support Team (Foundational Support Only)
$19
per month agent
Suite Team
$55
per month agent
Support Professional
$55
per month agent
Suite Growth
$89
per month agent
Suite Professional
$115
per month agent
Support Enterprise
$115
per month agent
Suite Enterprise
$169
per month agent
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Autotask PSAZendesk Suite
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Datto Autotask PSAZendesk Suite
Considered Both Products
Autotask PSA
Chose Datto Autotask PSA
Datto Autotask PSA is probably the best all-in-one platform for MSPs. It's targeted and designed specifically for MSPs, whilst most service desk software/PSA is often just general service desk software.
Chose Datto Autotask PSA
Autotask is more robust than simple ticketing systems. It provides better billing ability that many ticketing systems and works well with existing clients. The invoicing options provided are beneficial to the business and streamline the process. The ticketing system provides …
Zendesk Suite

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Datto Autotask PSAZendesk Suite
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Datto Autotask PSA
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
8.1
109 Ratings
3% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings8.4108 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings7.268 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings7.374 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings7.970 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.1109 Ratings
Ticket response00 Ratings8.8108 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Datto Autotask PSA
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
7.9
97 Ratings
2% above category average
External knowledge base00 Ratings7.893 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.088 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Datto Autotask PSA
-
Ratings
Zendesk Suite
7.9
107 Ratings
3% above category average
Customer portal00 Ratings7.484 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings7.835 Ratings
Social integration00 Ratings7.366 Ratings
Email support00 Ratings8.5105 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings8.579 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Datto Autotask PSAZendesk Suite
Small Businesses
Atera
Atera
Score 8.9 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.8 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Planview AdaptiveWork
Planview AdaptiveWork
Score 6.8 out of 10
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Datto Autotask PSAZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
7.6
(29 ratings)
8.3
(147 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(40 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
6.9
(20 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
8.6
(13 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(10 ratings)
Support Rating
8.4
(4 ratings)
9.0
(29 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(9 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(18 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.3
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
Datto Autotask PSAZendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
Kaseya
In my opinion, Datto Autotask is exceptionally complicated to set up, manage, and use on a daily basis. I would think the target market for this product would be someone managing a team of 20 - 50 people, possibly more. In my experience, for it to run properly you will need to dedicate at least half an FTE to running this product in an organization of that size per month. I would not recommend it for companies with less than 10 people or for companies that value quick communication with their clients. I would not recommend it for companies using Datto's RMM product. The integration exists, but it is clearly a bolt-on. They were not developed together and they are slow to talk to each other. Frequently you cannot add details from RMM sessions into the PSA without manually copying the ticket number, and if the ticket is more than a week old, then you can't even find it with the ticket number.
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Zendesk
The ability to Merge tickets is a good to have feature. Navigation is easy from one ticket to another ticket without having to go back to the list. Admin options should be more clear, internal menu navigation is complex and creates more confusion while arranging the sections and articles. Channel Management is good but Forum management can be brought in with more flexibility. More Apps integration or flexibility in APIs so that a newbie can also integrate the application into the software. A redundant software that brings in 360-degree communication of support/service concepts into practicality however if the option to compile texting with platforms like ringcentral, Twilio or Dialpad will be an awesome thing to share ticket updates with custom templates.
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Pros
Kaseya
  • The graphical calculations on time spent on requests, how long they were open for, who worked on a ticket last.
  • Grouping by priority so you can determine easier what needs to be addressed sooner rather then later. This also helps if Account Management has conversations a technician is not aware of so they can prioritize efficiently.
  • The email updates that are sent out to the technicians so they are aware of upcoming or stale tickets.
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Zendesk
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • Ease of Agent Training and Use
  • Able to add multiple brands with related custom reports and dashboards
  • Adding a new brand and basic help center is easy to do without the need of an expert or web team
  • Ability of agents and supervisors to see customer history across multiple channels
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Cons
Kaseya
  • The GUI is a little dated.
  • Some integrations are limited for not being a Datto product.
  • While not as complex to set up as Connectwise, it definitely requires some serious thought during the initial setup.
  • Email processing could offer more options for parsing keywords and allow for more automation.
  • The mobile app is just not worth using in my experience.
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Zendesk
  • I think the Graphical User Interface could use a facelift. It not the most aesthetically pleasing platform in my experience.
  • Particular things like where the default is when you click on each and every dropdown menu.
  • The macro integration could be a little more simplified.
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Likelihood to Renew
Kaseya
After using multiple products on the market, Autotask was intuitive and easy to manage.
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Zendesk
Zendesk is super easy to use and navigate. I really enjoy the sleek layout, the ability to tailor tickets, the macro option, and the quick key guide they have to make your use of time even more effective. My whole team loves working with Zendesk and rarely ever has problems.
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Usability
Kaseya
The work flow is much better then other competitors
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Zendesk
As an agent it's very simple to use. As an admin it's also easy to use, but sometimes lacks some functionality that would be nice to have such as expanded native 2 way sync functionality for many major apps that are commonly used today like HubSpot and Salesforce. The ability to add followers to tickets to they get updates and are in the know without the customer seeing this agent cc'd is a nice touch. This ensures additional visibility and easily following the communication without having to appear as a CC to the customer, who could accidentally remove that person in a response, thus breaking the visibility
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Reliability and Availability
Kaseya
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
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Performance
Kaseya
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
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Support Rating
Kaseya
They are fairly quick at returning a response to a problem and have been able to fix all issues for the most part.
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Zendesk
Every time I contacted them they were not only very responsive and knowledgable, but always seemed to have a positive upbeat attitude. It probably helps that we did not have significant service outages or sev 1 level issues, but even my lower severity issues were quickly answered. And the positive and upbeat attitude really made things feel comfortable.
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Online Training
Kaseya
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
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Implementation Rating
Kaseya
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
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Alternatives Considered
Kaseya
The portion of Autotask that we've used other companies for prior to using Autotask is the Endpoint Management. The Autotask Endpoint Management (AEM) portal integrates perfectly with their PSA/CRM tools. It's alerting features are much better than the above software as there aren't a bunch of superfluous and unneeded alerts. Instead, it only alerts for things that you specify that you want. Alerts aside, for the PSA/CRM, I don't have much to compare it to as Autotask was the first PSA we tried. It's hard to imagine a PSA having more features or doing a better job than Autotask.
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Zendesk
Although a bit pricey, it does the job well. We are happy with the results it provides; our team is also quite satisfied on how easy it is to use, login and start working. Compared to the other two we have tried, Zendesk takes the cake. It makes Customer Management much easier, more efficient, and more effective.
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Return on Investment
Kaseya
  • We were able to identify the profitability of our entire client base.
  • We identified a loss of over 1 million dollars for time unbilled consultancy fees using metrics derived from Autotask.
  • Autotask helped us serve our client base in a professional manner, it's like having an entire department at your finger tips.
  • Autotask is the heartbeat of our operation.
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Zendesk
  • The positives weigh more than the negatives here, as it gives us a one-stop portal where we can tend to customer needs using one web app
  • It has also helped us identify areas of improvement based on the reporting feature
  • The value it provides outweighs any missing or lacking features that I'm sure will be available in the future
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ScreenShots

Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations