Freshservice vs. Microsoft System Center Service Manager

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Freshservice
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Freshservice is a cloud-based service desk and IT service management (ITSM) solution that currently serves more than 10,000 SMB, mid-market, and enterprise customers worldwide.
$29
per month per agent
Microsoft System Center Service Manager
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft System Center Service Manager is an integrated platform that is designed for automating and adapting IT Service Management best practices to an organization’s requirements. The platform includes built-in processes for incident and problem resolution, change control and asset lifecycle management.N/A
Pricing
FreshserviceMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
Editions & Modules
Starter
$29.00
per month per agent
Growth
$59.00
per month per agent
Pro
$119.00
per month per agent
Enterprise
Custom
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreshserviceMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FreshserviceMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
Features
FreshserviceMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Freshservice
8.2
171 Ratings
0% below category average
Microsoft System Center Service Manager
7.8
7 Ratings
5% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.1171 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Expert directory8.0120 Ratings7.03 Ratings
Service restoration8.0105 Ratings7.04 Ratings
Self-service tools8.4152 Ratings8.75 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.2123 Ratings7.04 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation8.0142 Ratings9.76 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards8.0148 Ratings7.16 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
Freshservice
7.7
136 Ratings
7% below category average
Microsoft System Center Service Manager
8.2
7 Ratings
1% below category average
Configuration mangement7.8127 Ratings9.86 Ratings
Asset management dashboard7.4131 Ratings8.77 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement7.894 Ratings6.05 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
Freshservice
7.9
132 Ratings
7% below category average
Microsoft System Center Service Manager
6.7
6 Ratings
24% below category average
Change requests repository7.9125 Ratings6.16 Ratings
Change calendar7.6106 Ratings6.05 Ratings
Service-level management8.2122 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FreshserviceMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
Small Businesses
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.1 out of 10
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.1 out of 10
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User Ratings
FreshserviceMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(171 ratings)
8.8
(7 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.7
(14 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(15 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.8
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(136 ratings)
8.9
(2 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.3
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.2
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.9
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
7.6
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.6
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.1
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
8.6
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.3
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.1
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreshserviceMicrosoft System Center Service Manager
Likelihood to Recommend
Freshworks Inc
Freshservice is well suited for companies looking to implement ticketing / case management across the organization, but only if IT will be using it. Otherwise, I'd recommend Freshdesk. IT departments that don't function in the ITIL style of incident, request, change, and project management may find it overkill if they are only looking for a simple Help Desk solution.
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Microsoft
I think any organization that runs windows on their computers that is size over 50 workstations and looking for a complete package to manage their windows machines must have Microsoft System Center Service Manager, especially if they have Windows servers and VMs. The capability of managing multiple devices at ones can save a lot of time for the IT jobs.
Read full review
Pros
Freshworks Inc
  • The smartphone app is very well designed and adding assets from there is very easy
  • If you have questions or support, the support desk is fast to respond and setup a meeting to explain the features
  • Very customizable and everything can be easily changed with a wizard
  • Reporting feature does what it needs to do and is not complicated to work with
  • The overall ticketing system is very good and we have not run into any issues
  • The whole system is incredibly responsive and does not hang or freeze
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Microsoft
  • This tool is used to track support requests among our IT staff.
  • We use this tool to automate some more routine tasks.
Read full review
Cons
Freshworks Inc
  • To have more options on what to do with the emails that arrive in the support mailbox (which goes to Freshservice), Setting some special rules or detailed filtering is not possible.
  • Non 3rd party tools to connect to Intune are missing. Additionally, the third-party tool available in the store is not satisfactory. It would be nice to have native support for importing devices from our Azure cloud.
  • The contract requires you to prolong your contract end-date by two years instead of just one year, which to us is a bit aggressive.
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Microsoft
  • Kind of clunky.
  • Takes a lot a lot a lot of configuration.
  • There is a lot of jargon to learn to be able to use it to its full ability.
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Likelihood to Renew
Freshworks Inc
We are pretty invested in Freshservice right now and have integrated it pretty heavily into our environment, so it would be hard to move away from it. For the most part, we are happy with Freshservice and the ease of use it gives us in managing tickets through the system. The only complaint we've had is customer service.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Usability
Freshworks Inc
The UI design of Freshservice is simple and intuitive. You don't have to be a technical expert to navigate your way into the different pages/modules available. There are no buttons that are hidden in plain sight. Even our HR team required little to no help when they started using Freshservice.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Freshworks Inc
Downtime is minimal (it does happen but not often)
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Performance
Freshworks Inc
Most reports are quick, however, it can take some time for emailed exports to come via email. It would be helpful to have the exports live in the system rather than having to wait on emails.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Freshworks Inc
Support from OEM is decent but needs improvement. Sometimes OEM also needs to understand the criticality of the customer and help as an Ad-hoc, which is somewhat lacking at Feshservice. Although the normal support team is well-equipped and helps according to the matrix, if something critical for the partner or customer requires immediate attention, it still goes through the L1-L2-L3 levels, which wastes a lot of time.
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Microsoft
The customer support service is excellent. They help from start/deployment through to any time later on. They responded quickly and resolved our issues professionally and in no time.
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In-Person Training
Freshworks Inc
Training was enough to use the base website
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Freshworks Inc
Their documentation is pretty good, but only available in English. This makes it difficult for some of our users to understand. There are also some basic video courses available.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Freshworks Inc
Creating the correct groups for the stakeholders and enabling the right notifications are one of the most important aspect of the implementation. Creating Change templates will also help in the long run and it's a good practice to create one, if applicable.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Freshworks Inc
Easy setup and a lot of customization which can be made. They offer the full ITSM tool for 75$ per agent and all the PRO are included in the package, which makes it easy to calculate and use. There are only a few add-ins that you need to pay for, based on the number of agents or the number of executions.
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Microsoft
We selected MCSM because it is a solid product that we could use very quickly, compared to other tools there is a lot more effort for integration into the infrastructure, costing time and money. We implemented the tool very quickly and since it integrates with other Microsoft products, it was very easy to get up and running.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Freshworks Inc
Was not able to update us proactively about our renewal causing lost of access
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Freshworks Inc
The software is very scalable from a small to mid sized team. The features have seemed to scale exceptionally well.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Freshworks Inc
We did not have professional services.
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Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Freshworks Inc
  • We had no ticketing system at all so we had no idea of the workload, we now do
  • We have been able to go from nothing to seeing workload to identifying areas for improvement by having the metrics
  • We have lowered MTTR every month since turning on fresh service
  • We have increased 1st all resolution every month
  • We have been able to start talking about real SLA's with the business
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Microsoft
  • Save a world of time when imaging
  • Save a world of time with patch management
  • Provides decent reports to get a snapshot quickly
Read full review
ScreenShots

Freshservice Screenshots

Screenshot of Android App SupportScreenshot of Asset ManagementScreenshot of Project ManagementScreenshot of Asset ManagementScreenshot of Change ManagementScreenshot of Project Management