Freshdesk vs. Socialcast (discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Freshdesk
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Freshdesk (a product of Freshworks Inc.) is a customer service solution with enterprise capability. Freshdesk unifies channels, conversations, AI capabilities, customer insights, and advanced ticketing into the Freshdesk Command Center so agents are ready to resolve. With Freddy, People-first AI, customer service teams can take AI agents live in minutes to fully resolve complex and simple queries, get response and resolution assistance from AI copilot, and stay ahead with AI insights.…
$18
per month per user
Socialcast (discontinued)
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Socialcast was an enterprise social networking and collaboration platform acquired by VMware in 2011. The platform allowed an organization's employees to share information and documents with co-workers in real time through a Facebook- or Twitter-like news feed. VMware announced its end of availability (EOA) effective May 2018.
$250
per month
Pricing
FreshdeskSocialcast (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
Growth
$18
per month per agent
Pro
$59
per month per agent
Enterprise
$95
per month per agent
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreshdeskSocialcast (discontinued)
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FreshdeskSocialcast (discontinued)
Features
FreshdeskSocialcast (discontinued)
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.6
203 Ratings
5% above category average
Socialcast (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.2198 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory8.2134 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications7.06 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation9.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission9.2199 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response8.9199 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.4
180 Ratings
5% above category average
Socialcast (discontinued)
-
Ratings
External knowledge base8.4163 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.5168 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.8
190 Ratings
10% above category average
Socialcast (discontinued)
-
Ratings
Customer portal8.7161 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR9.259 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration8.4103 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support9.1189 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.7120 Ratings00 Ratings
Project Management
Comparison of Project Management features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Socialcast (discontinued)
6.3
4 Ratings
21% below category average
Task Management00 Ratings7.74 Ratings
Gantt Charts00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Scheduling00 Ratings6.33 Ratings
Workflow Automation00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Mobile Access00 Ratings3.83 Ratings
Search00 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Visual planning tools00 Ratings3.43 Ratings
Communication
Comparison of Communication features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Socialcast (discontinued)
7.5
4 Ratings
6% below category average
Chat00 Ratings8.74 Ratings
Notifications00 Ratings8.24 Ratings
Discussions00 Ratings8.14 Ratings
Surveys00 Ratings8.73 Ratings
Internal knowledgebase00 Ratings6.14 Ratings
Integrates with GoToMeeting00 Ratings5.01 Ratings
Integrates with Gmail and Google Hangouts00 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Integrates with Outlook00 Ratings7.92 Ratings
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
-
Ratings
Socialcast (discontinued)
5.7
4 Ratings
34% below category average
Versioning00 Ratings2.12 Ratings
Video files00 Ratings7.23 Ratings
Audio files00 Ratings7.23 Ratings
Document collaboration00 Ratings6.74 Ratings
Access control00 Ratings7.23 Ratings
Advanced security features00 Ratings5.83 Ratings
Integrates with Google Drive00 Ratings5.02 Ratings
Device sync00 Ratings4.02 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FreshdeskSocialcast (discontinued)
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Stackby
Stackby
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Troop Messenger
Troop Messenger
Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
HCL Connections
HCL Connections
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreshdeskSocialcast (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(269 ratings)
7.7
(6 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.4
(25 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(42 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
7.2
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.4
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(41 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.8
(200 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
6.2
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
8.3
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.8
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.6
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
8.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
7.5
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.5
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreshdeskSocialcast (discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
Freshworks Inc
I believe Freshdesk is well-suited for companies that manage multiple accounts, such as those in the Business Process Outsourcing industry. It has all the necessary capabilities, such as ticket management that uses omnichannel to receive ticket requests from service requests (managed internally) in the system, emails, etc. There are also several workflow automations that can be built within the platform/system. What is lacking is the API documentation, which limits the possibilities for further automations. Overall, it is a highly recommended tool for managing employee productivity and timeliness.
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Discontinued Products
Socialcast has been a great tool for FactSet. I would recommend it to any firm looking for an easy-to-use tool to centralize communication and collaborate on a global scale.
Read full review
Pros
Freshworks Inc
  • No prior experience with similar platforms is required to use Freshdesk. I found its interface to be quite intuitive, at least for the end user.
  • It's easy to connect with other platforms, so you can sync and manage data from other platforms because the integrations work correctly.
  • Freshdesk's technical support is quite responsive, with short and effective response times. They have easily handled my questions and issues.
  • It has tools for customizing automated chats, answering frequently asked questions before transferring to an agent. Its configuration is extensive and highly customizable.
Read full review
Discontinued Products
  • Socialcast has an exceptional user experience. With very few idiosyncrasies, it works well on every platform I've tried.
  • The platform has such a high level of ease of use, it becomes somewhat addicting.
  • Social analytics are superb.
  • The platform is highly intuitive and requires zero training or coaching in order for network members to become productive with it.
  • It's extremely reliable. Only once in 4 years, was the product not available, and that was only for about a half-hour. In that half-hour, we realized how dependent we were on it. (Very.)
  • The multi-device and deployment options are excellent. On-premise, Private Cloud, and Multi-tenant SaaS all available.
  • The mobile apps for iPhone, tablets, and Android render well with a beautiful UI/UX. The desktop AIR app is equally highly usable.
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Cons
Freshworks Inc
  • Freshdesk is buggy, full stop. I don't know how many support tickets I submitted related to user login.
  • There can be a language barrier with support and sales.
  • There were a couple of hours-long outages that significantly impacted my company's customer experience.
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Discontinued Products
  • The software is a little bit pricey because it is charged by user/month and depending on the deployment method.
  • For companies with a lot of workers the price can increase significantly.
  • The mobile app usability and notifications are poor. Need to be improved.
  • If there were more administrative features available the product would be improved
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Likelihood to Renew
Freshworks Inc
New support agents can learn the system quickly, minimizing training time and maximizing productivity from day one. Agents are more willing to use a system that is simple, reducing resistance to change and ensuring all interactions are logged (a common problem with complex systems). The platform is known for being easy to set up and customize, allowing teams (especially smaller ones) to get started with minimal technical expertise.The platform makes it easy to set and monitor Service Level Agreements (SLAs), ensuring customers get timely responses and helping managers enforce performance standards.
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Discontinued Products
Beyond the value FactSet derives from using the platform, Socialcast (the firm) has been a good partner to FactSet. We've experienced very little downtime with the service and they have been responsive and fair with enhancement requests and questions
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Usability
Freshworks Inc
Freshdesk is extremely easy to use as implemented it on our own with average technical skills. A lot of the options are straightforward and Freshdesk provides easy-to-understand explanations for some of the more complex-sounding ones. We recently onboarded new specialists and they were able to learn Freshdesk with minimal training.
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Discontinued Products
The UX is its best feature
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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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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
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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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Freshworks Inc
Because I never worked with a company that responds so quickly to their customer! They are always fast at responding and very open to new ideas and quickly turning them around to include them in future releases. They walk us through when we need assistance and are very good at communicating. Overall top notch support
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Discontinued Products
Excellent support; of course not perfect. :-)
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In-Person Training
Freshworks Inc
In-person training is provided to all the agents and it is very easy to learn the basics of the Freshdesk interface. Solving tickets via dashboards, replying to the guest queries in bulk via Freshdesk. The training which is a bit hard is creating the logic according to the ticket flow and intergeration.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Freshworks Inc
This tool is no doubt easy to learn but in-person training is a lot better than online training. It takes time to grasp things in the online training, however, in pandemic we have done all the training online. Apart from a bit more time we haven't faced any issues with online training.
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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Freshworks Inc
Was a fairly quick implementation for us. However, we are only doing email integration and not some of the more complex integrations that are possible. One clarification on an earlier question. I selected that Freshdesk doesn't have a given feature, but this is not true. I selected this because there wasn't a selection for I don't use the feature. This is a weakness in the survey.
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Discontinued Products
Not applicable, as it is a SaaS platform with minimal implementation
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Alternatives Considered
Freshworks Inc
Compared to Crisp, Freshdesk offers much more organization and is just much more helpful when it comes to having more than one region/team. Not that Crisp is bad, but with Freshdesk, internal communication and collaboration are much easier, which was quite important for our team to grow.
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Discontinued Products
Socialcast is great for collaboration & light project management, but anything complex doesn't work well.

Using it as an email notification curator works nice for us.
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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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Discontinued Products
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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Discontinued Products
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Freshworks Inc
- good customer support
- personal contact
- usage limited to basic product features, individually designed solutions seem unlikely
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Discontinued Products
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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Discontinued Products
  • Definitely more organized project management and team collaboration.
  • Efficiency in carrying out tasks.
  • Creates a spirit of collaboration and friendliness among colleagues.
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ScreenShots