Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Freshdesk
Score 8.6 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 10 agents per user
Spiceworks Help Desk
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Spiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management. The Spiceworks Network Monitor provides information on observed IT for problem tracking and server performance monitoring. And finally, the Spiceworks Help Desk Software lets IT personnel stay on top of issues across the network with a ticketing system. Help desk roles with role-based…N/A
Pricing
FreshdeskSpiceworks Help Desk
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
Up to 10 agents
Growth
$15
per month per agent
Pro
$49
per month per agent
Enterprise
$69
per month per agent
All Tiers
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreshdeskSpiceworks Help Desk
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FreshdeskSpiceworks Help Desk
Considered Both Products
Freshdesk
Chose Freshdesk
We used to use Spiceworks but it was extremely clunky and not very customisable at the time. When we started looking at other options we ended up focusing on Freshdesk, Zendesk and Zoho as they seemed like the best out of all the ones we found. We eventually went with Freshdesk …
Chose Freshdesk
The ticket system from Freshdesk was a breath of fresh air for us compared to Spiceworks. Freshdesk has yet to crash or stop responding (Spiceworks was on-prem and we had to re-install many times.) The reports were also far more informational to our management than Spiceworks.
Chose Freshdesk
I have no experience using Spiceworks, as the first project I undertook at my current place of employment was researching and implementing the new Freshdesk helpdesk. However, the feedback I have received since the implementation has been that it is simpler to use and has …
Chose Freshdesk
Spiceworks was powerful, but we also found it quite clunky and heavy-duty. Freshdesk is a lot lighter, quicker, and generally feels easier to use.
Chose Freshdesk
We used Spiceworks before Freshdesk because it was free, and we had nothing but trouble out of it. I couldn’t do all the automations I wanted to do, customers found it difficult to use, and the interface was terrible. Since switching to Freshdesk all of those areas are improved …
Chose Freshdesk
These other softwares do some of the same things as Freshdesk, but Freshdesk excels at doing them better. They make it easier to set up, configure, and start using. They make the user interface enjoyable for both technicians and users. These other softwares are largely text …
Chose Freshdesk
Spiceworks was too much work to get off the road and didn't offer much on the user's side. Freshservice is a lot more focused on IT work and I'd recommend starting with it. Desk.com is great for a whole organization, but rules frequently break with a mixed bag of how useful the …
Spiceworks Help Desk
Chose Spiceworks Help Desk
Spiceworks is a great option for a free help desk. In terms of features, it is similar to the free level of Freshdesk. If you want a lot of features and customization though, you should look at JitBit Help Desk or the paid tiers of Freshdesk. Both offer better reporting, …
Chose Spiceworks Help Desk
Overall, Spiceworks Help Desk is an easy-to-use option at a GREAT cost. We didn't feel that any other products offered anything that Spiceworks couldn't so we haven't felt the need to explore any more companies. The Spiceworks FREE option is great on its own and it's hard to …
Chose Spiceworks Help Desk
We found that for entry-level SMB in-house needs that Spiceworks had an impressive range of features and options at an unbeatable price-free! For our in-house and multi-tenant needs, we use a different product that is more appropriate to our particular needs, but with no cost …
Chose Spiceworks Help Desk
Spiceworks has all of the features we would require. It matched up well in features and definitely price!
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
FreshdeskSpiceworks Help Desk
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.4
145 Ratings
6% above category average
Spiceworks Help Desk
7.5
54 Ratings
5% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets8.7141 Ratings7.553 Ratings
Expert directory8.195 Ratings5.746 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.43 Ratings7.341 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation7.64 Ratings6.544 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission8.8142 Ratings9.353 Ratings
Ticket response8.7142 Ratings8.952 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.3
130 Ratings
7% above category average
Spiceworks Help Desk
7.4
51 Ratings
5% below category average
External knowledge base8.4116 Ratings8.847 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.3120 Ratings5.947 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Freshdesk
8.4
138 Ratings
9% above category average
Spiceworks Help Desk
5.2
51 Ratings
38% below category average
Customer portal8.1116 Ratings6.145 Ratings
IVR8.143 Ratings4.010 Ratings
Social integration8.572 Ratings3.126 Ratings
Email support8.7138 Ratings8.045 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.284 Ratings5.027 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FreshdeskSpiceworks Help Desk
Small Businesses
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Agiloft Flexible Service Desk Suite
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
Salesforce Service Cloud
Salesforce Service Cloud
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreshdeskSpiceworks Help Desk
Likelihood to Recommend
8.8
(212 ratings)
8.8
(82 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.8
(14 ratings)
10.0
(29 ratings)
Usability
8.9
(35 ratings)
8.6
(8 ratings)
Availability
9.1
(4 ratings)
10.0
(3 ratings)
Performance
8.6
(4 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.6
(33 ratings)
8.7
(26 ratings)
In-Person Training
8.2
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.4
(142 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
8.5
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
9.1
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.8
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.1
(4 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.8
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreshdeskSpiceworks Help Desk
Likelihood to Recommend
Freshworks Inc
Using a collection of Skill Based Ticket Assignment, Ticket Allocation, and alerts, we’ve been able to bring our average resolution time to under half our previous time. This is done by making sure the right tickets get to the right agents, and by ensuring agents are followed up on to ensure they do not forget deadlines on tickets in their queue. Furthermore, tickets which would be open for weeks due to lack of a client response are now closed automatically following a prompt email to the end-user
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
It's a great helpdesk solution - we currently have five years of data within it, roughly 25,000 tickets. The older edition is a great inventory and software license tracking tool. It is easy for users to use the interface and submit tickets and requests on the web, and its email integration is solid. The new version is a below-average system monitoring tool, only giving up/down status and a few other metrics.
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Pros
Freshworks Inc
  • Follow up on all conversations that enter and are easy to use by the employee and save responses ready for use.
  • Find out the average rate of the number of conversations that occur in the company and conduct the analysis.
  • There is a feature it allows one to take a permit in the name of the employee who responds to the conversation and to know the problem faced by the customer and the solution.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
  • It helps to multitask, even on the go with the mobile App.
  • We can customize to meet your needs with automated responses, notifications, and templates.
  • Detailed reports allow managers to keep track [of] and analyze data.
  • Allows for a database to store notes helpful for future tickets.
Read full review
Cons
Freshworks Inc
  • Ticket templates and canned responses should be able to be used interchangeably. We frequently have the same response in both fields.
  • The spam filter can be a little too aggressive. We have had issues with tickets being accidentally marked as spam then filtering incorrectly for weeks at a time.
  • Freshdesk doesn't quite have the right integrations with our other providers (Vonage, and Avochato, to name a few).
Read full review
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
  • I have always wanted a way to redirect a support request into another IS bin, such as a development task.
  • It's possible to extract the data from the Spiceworks database, but it would be helpful if the process to do so were easier.
  • Improved ability to customize the system generated emails to improve the formatting and company branding.
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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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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
Spiceworks is a free tool, so there would be no hesitation if we are required to upgrade it. We have installed Spiceworks on a dedicated server with more than enough resources to get the most from this tool, so we will have this running in our department for years to come.
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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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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
Spiceworks is user friendly and easy to set up. It can be customized to suit your needs. If there are any problems, you can go to the community forums for support and be in contact with many IT Pros, as well as the Spiceworks support staff and development teams who are always happy to help users out
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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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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
We use it both locally on our own server so up time is decided by us and we also use the hosted help desk. We have never had an outage of that.
Read full review
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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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
No answers on this topic
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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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
Spiceworks has been working out of the box, and some of the basic customizations have been successful with just our internal staff handling. We don't have any other issues with the tool. It provides us with the inventory information we want in a quick and concise report in a variety of formats for our team.
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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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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
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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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Freshworks Inc
Not applicable. I have never used a support desk system before and FreshDesk had already been implemented at my company before I joined. I am not involved in financial decisions and I have no opinion on buzzwords like "time to productivity" and "time to value"
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
If you can spin up a VM to run it on, you'll thank yourself later. If you have remote sites, set up a local server (or dedicated computer) at each site and set them up as remote collectors for the main site. You'll save time and bandwidth
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Alternatives Considered
Freshworks Inc
FreshDesk was the best combination of ease of use and price. While inexpensive, even the lowest tier offered more functionality than the other guys, and the learning curve is almost nonexistent so it's easy to add new agents and get them up to speed quickly instead of having them spend days getting use to the UI.
Read full review
Spiceworks Ziff Davis
EGroupware UI is clunky and hard to use, Jira is great but the pricing is expensive in comparison with spice works that has a free version and you can test it out properly before buying and make a correct decision based on your business plan and company objectives with the right software.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Freshworks Inc
The pricing we had taken is on yearly basis but the subscription and billing frequency that we have is on monthly basis. I would not want to make any changes to it, it is a seamless process with all the contract terms and we both agreed on it. It should be as per the customer's need.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Freshworks Inc
The product they have developed is amazing. They have made different products for emails, tickets, chats & calls as well. It is flexible according to multiple departments. The finance team can use it, the Customer support team is using it, we can use it in call centres, emails etc. We can use these tickets internally as well to create child tickets and assign them to different departments for query resolution.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Freshworks Inc
  • Freshdesk is certainly better than nothing, or a simple shared inbox
  • Freshdesk is frustrating to incorporate social media with
  • Freshdesk excels at ticket management
  • Freshdesk needs to do more to bring it into alignment with business, rather than 'just' service desk needs.
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Spiceworks Ziff Davis
  • Positive - Allow organizations to implement structured Help Desk procedures.
  • Positive - IT can begin to quantify their tickets and uncover needs within the organization.
  • Positive - IT can develop a solid roadmap with [the] management of future needs, equipment refresh schedules, etc.
  • Positive - IT can pinpoint employees who may need extra training or updated equipment based on historical ticketing data.
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