Freshdesk vs. Pendo.io

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Freshdesk
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer service software that helps businesses of all sizes to deliver customer support. Freshdesk converts requests coming in via email, web, phone, chat, and social into tickets, and unifies ticket resolution across channels. Additionally, Freshdesk lets the user automate workflows, provide self-service, manage SLAs, and measure metrics, to stay on top of customer support. Freshdesk also offers out-of-the-box features like an AI-powered support chatbot,…
$0
Up to 2 agents
Pendo.io
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Pendo.io is a product engagement platform with features for in-app analytics, surveys and feedback, and guidance.N/A
Pricing
FreshdeskPendo.io
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Up to 2 agents
Growth
$15
per month (billed annually) per agent
Pro
$49
per month (billed annually) per agent
Enterprise
$79
per month (billed annually) per agent
*Free
Free
Base
Contact sales team
Core
Contact sales team
Pulse
Contact sales team
Ultimate
Contact sales team
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreshdeskPendo.io
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FreshdeskPendo.io
Considered Both Products
Freshdesk
Chose Freshdesk
Value for Money and Ease of Use put it ahead of the competing products when making our decision.

Whilst they all offer similar services, our time to implement, set-up and get the platform running the way we needed was shortest. It was also an easy to use tool for agents - …
Pendo.io

No answer on this topic

Features
FreshdeskPendo.io
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.6
194 Ratings
4% above category average
Pendo.io
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.2190 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory8.1128 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.43 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation7.64 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission9.2190 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response9.0190 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.4
174 Ratings
5% above category average
Pendo.io
-
Ratings
External knowledge base8.4158 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.3162 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.8
183 Ratings
10% above category average
Pendo.io
-
Ratings
Customer portal8.8155 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR8.957 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration8.598 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support9.2182 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.6116 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FreshdeskPendo.io
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
ChurnZero
ChurnZero
Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
ChurnZero
ChurnZero
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
Whatfix
Whatfix
Score 8.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreshdeskPendo.io
Likelihood to Recommend
8.7
(253 ratings)
8.3
(105 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(22 ratings)
9.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
9.8
(42 ratings)
7.8
(18 ratings)
Availability
7.7
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
5.7
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.8
(40 ratings)
9.7
(4 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.1
(2 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(184 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Configurability
6.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
6.5
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.5
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.7
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.9
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
6.9
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreshdeskPendo.io
Likelihood to Recommend
Freshworks Inc
I recommend Freshdesk for people who need to handle a large volume of inquiries through tickets and follow-ups. This platform provides tools that will improve problem-solving efficiency, ensuring customers are satisfied with the speed with which their issues are resolved. Overall, it will optimize customer service support operations and the resolution of their problems.
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Pendo.io
Pendo.io is useful in generating great dashboards that present user analytics in the best possible view that could be used for analysis & derive key insights on what could be done if there's a feature that's not being recognized by end users or if there are any pain points where users are struggling more around a workflow which is technically not that difficult. Pendo.io also can be used to create impactful guides where intercatoin of a user with the Guide can be created in less steps & have relevant information about that workflow that the user is completing. Pendo.io's resource center can act as a one stop hub to present any sidewide updates which could be information of Prod releases, New KB Articles, Register to any event, & much more. Segments can be created in as many variation as one can. In fact, Segments are the ruling property or feature that works so handy, which reduces a lot of iterative work.
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Pros
Freshworks Inc
  • The price is great for small startups just large enough to need a support ticketing system.
  • This may seem minor, but many tools don't have this: the ability to link a contact to multiple companies/accounts.
  • Agent collision detection is great for making sure agents don't duplicate each others' work!
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Pendo.io
  • NPS Surveys
  • Feature usage insights
  • Identifying user behaviors using Replay feature
  • Clearly segmenting users in a way we want it to be
  • Identifying time spent on a feature/product to better understand what customers actually use
  • Documentation, in-app guides and help section
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Cons
Freshworks Inc
  • Data Security.
  • SLA Policies where it is not customer / contract driven but agents / groups driven.
  • Audit Trail is not available in Pro version makes the tool adoption difficult from compliance perspective.
  • Chat Bot and Fresh Chat Services has greater potential to explode, but the pricing model tagged to chat bot sessions .are illogical as it limits the ability to use the fresh chat feature
  • Agent Logon Screen use earlier version of Captcha as it is annoying for the agents to login. Very frustrating experience.
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Pendo.io
  • Dashboard is sometimes very slow to load
  • Preview is problematic if the Pendo.io user doesn't have access to the target environment or application where the guide is going to display
  • It would be ideal to have a gallery of thumbnail images of previously used guides to select from, either to pull a screen capture or to use as a template. It's cumbersome to go to the guides, find the one you want, click on Preview, etc.
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Likelihood to Renew
Freshworks Inc
We are extremely happy with Freshdesk and can foresee using it for the next year. We might only consider using a different platform if our average daily ticket volume reaches four digits and its AI isn’t enough to handle our needs by then. While we haven’t tested this yet, we have read reviews that it’s AI capabilities are lacking
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Pendo.io
We have had an excellent experience with Pendo. When we've had questions or concerns, Pendo is very quick to respond and communicate with us. We have experienced top-notch customer support and customer engagement. We have actually modeled some of our implementation and product processes after Pendo's examples.
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Usability
Freshworks Inc
I gave it a rating of 9 out of 10 because they delivered on everything we asked them to do. Easy to setup, easy to deploy to end users, easy to customize, easy to enter tickets and so much more. Our experience with their support is top notch! After opening a ticket for support they call use back within 10 minutes every time!
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Pendo.io
It is intuitive for core tasks like tracking feature usage, building Guides, and viewing dashboards. The interface is clean and well structured, making it easy for product managers and operational teams to get value quickly without heavy technical support. However, there is a noticeable learning curve when setting up advanced custom events, reports, or integrations, which can take some time and internal knowledge-sharing to master.
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Reliability and Availability
Freshworks Inc
I have encountered a lot of errors in the Freshdesk, however, they tend to resolve it on priority or at least they will share the timeline by when this can be resolved. Most of the time the issue has been from the other partner's end. They take time to resolve their vendor issues and they don't have any timelines in case of developed app errors.
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Pendo.io
Every time I have logged into Pendo, the service has been available for me to use. The page has never been down when I am trying to get info from there.
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Performance
Freshworks Inc
The reports take a lot of time to download if the time period is large. Also, the tickets take their sweet time to open and load. It is not fast as Zendesk. Only 30 tickets are visible in a single go and there isn't any option to select all. If we need to change the pages and dashboards it takes a lot of time to open.
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Pendo.io
Everything loads fairly quickly and it's not slow. I don't use an integration, I log in straight in the webpage.
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Support Rating
Freshworks Inc
The main thing about Freshdesk user service is that once a request has been made for information about a feature of the platform, the support team responds to tickets quickly, within a day of writing and submitting them, with information that is concise enough so that there is no need to ask for help on the same topic again.
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Pendo.io
They've been great anytime that we have needed help with something. They also have some really great help articles. We're able to figure most things out through their articles, but when we've had to call in they've been very helpful and we haven't had any problems. I'd highly recommend working with them.
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In-Person Training
Freshworks Inc
Support Team's knowledge and understood the company's requirement, and always shared the insight of the usage of the tool to it s full potential, moreover the team checks periodically to check if we using the tool right and if we are facing any kind of challenges. Also they would update us on new features that can make the work easy.
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Pendo.io
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Freshworks Inc
Video tutorials, questions answers round before and after testing and Fresh desk team would always share best practices on the needs. Furthermore would periodically check if we are able to work smoothly. Would send alerts to known any issues, send recommendation on new features. Freshdesk team always available when we need certain advise.
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Pendo.io
The training schedule was well thought out and tailored to meet our needs. Chantelle stayed with us through the whole implementation and made sure that we were good to go.
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Implementation Rating
Freshworks Inc
Our team easily implemented Freshdesk, and as soon as we started, we were pros with it. In a matter of days, we had integrated signatures and canned responses. The biggest problem was the Help Center part, but after some time, that was also integrated. We did not know some features when we started, but that is normal.
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Pendo.io
Use Segment to install and cut developers out of the work cycle!
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Alternatives Considered
Freshworks Inc
Freshdesk has a more modern and intuitive user interface, while Help Scout's interface is simpler and more minimalist.In case of features, Freshdesk offers a wider range of features, includes omnichannel support, AI powered automations, and advanced analytics. Help Scout is more focused on providing a simple and efficient ticketing system.
Read full review
Pendo.io
I have just very superficial experience with Google Analytics but I do believe that Pendo.io is a much much better tool in pretty much all aspects of it. It has a ton more features and capabilities and even for the capabilities where there is overlap, Pendo seems to come out ahead easily. There are aspects that Pendo could improve for sure such as what metadata it captures from the users; an example of this is screen resolution which Google Analytics captures but Pendo does not.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Freshworks Inc
I was not very involved with the purchase/contract (my company purchased Fresjdesk before I was brought on), but I will say that pricing per agent made it difficult to grow our support team. Additionally, we were kind of disappointed after our upgrade because it didn't solve our pain points as much as we expected.
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Pendo.io
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Freshworks Inc
My company had Freshdesk agents from support and success. It's generally difficult to customize permissions for different agent "roles." We were a fully distributed company, so "multiple sites" doesn't apply to us. We found Freshdesk features lacking as we grew our customer base, and adding agents wasn't easy because price steeply increases with number of agents.
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Pendo.io
The system is pretty flexible and scalable, I have used it in different browsers and devices without issues.
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Professional Services
Freshworks Inc
Very professional, they would always ask for the steps followed and where we went wrong, they would politely share the video recording to review in case any other team member faces the same issue
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Pendo.io
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Freshworks Inc
  • Increased response times - Client Success maintains at 98% SLA for resolution
  • Categorization of feedback and issues - custom ticket fields make it easier for us to review why clients contact us on a high level
  • Standardization of internal procedures via templates, canned responses and automations
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Pendo.io
  • Reducing development time with in-app guides and resource center, with product management being able to agilely create guides in real time, this could be as much as 1 full time developer in savings.
  • Reducing business time scoping "rock fetches" than are proven to be invaluable based on analytics, each time 1 single piece of analtical data saves around ~20 hours across multiple resources.
  • Increasing user satisfaction with in-app guides and resource center
  • Increasing usage of key features through targetted messaging, those key features either drive costs ou of our business or add value to customers business.
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ScreenShots