Front vs. SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Front
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Front is a communication hub that helps businesses keep the human touch in every interaction.
$29
per month per user
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Score 6.5 out of 10
N/A
SolarWinds Web Help Desk is ticketing and IT asset management software. It is designed to simplify help desk management. This solution includes built-in ticketing management, asset management, change management, and knowledge base capabilities.
$533
per year per user
Pricing
FrontSolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Editions & Modules
Starter
$29
per month per user
Growth
$79
per month per user
Scale
$99
per month (billed annually) per user
Premier
$229
per month (billed annually) per seat (50 seat minimum)
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FrontSolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscount for annual pricing on Starter and Growth plans. Scale and Premier plans are annual price only.SolarWinds also offers Perpetual licensing starting at $1129 per technician.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FrontSolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Features
FrontSolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Front
7.8
6 Ratings
5% below category average
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
9.2
20 Ratings
12% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets8.46 Ratings8.020 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications7.04 Ratings9.817 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission7.94 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Ticket response7.94 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Expert directory00 Ratings8.014 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings9.014 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
Front
7.2
6 Ratings
11% below category average
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
8.0
9 Ratings
0% below category average
External knowledge base7.26 Ratings7.07 Ratings
Internal knowledge base00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
Front
8.8
4 Ratings
9% above category average
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
9.2
10 Ratings
14% above category average
Customer portal8.43 Ratings9.78 Ratings
Social integration9.33 Ratings10.04 Ratings
Email support9.14 Ratings9.010 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.52 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FrontSolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
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
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FrontSolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(35 ratings)
6.5
(20 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Usability
9.4
(9 ratings)
6.5
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
9.8
(5 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
FrontSolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Likelihood to Recommend
Front
I think Front is very useful for every company with multiple teams working together on different emails from clients. Not so useful if a lot of different teams need to work on a request at the same time, because when an email is sitting in multiple shared inboxes things can get messy. Also would not recommend for teams that work is individualized, as team work is the main point of Front.
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SolarWinds
SolarWinds WHD is well suited if you have a limited budget, as it costs less than many help desk software packages that are more full featured and modern in their design. It is not well suited to an environment where you want to manage inventory, users, purchases and tickets all in one package. It has an asset feature that we don't use but that looks quite limited. We track our assets and users separately from this.
Read full review
Pros
Front
  • Even if you are just trying to compose a single email, Front gives a smart system that has options such [as] organized templates, tags, alerts, [and] changing your outbound dpt email.
  • Tasks- with Front you will not miss any interaction. When you are required to get assistance from a coworker, you only need to mention him/her and that notification will appear automatically in their inboxes.
  • Smart Notifications- sometimes we are just overwhelmed about the several notifications on our devices that we tend to miss some of them, but Front offers a new way to notify every email, discussion, mentioning, or tag that you really would not want to miss.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • Customized reporting allows us to track our service and support better, and find where we need improvements. This allows us to constantly upgrade our service levels and keep the customers happy.
  • Detailed tracking and response to the end users have led to quicker remediation of tickets. We are able to see where we need a better response or where to add additional resources for support.
  • Overall metrics allow us to staff properly for our tickets by location and remote users.
Read full review
Cons
Front
  • Their integration to Salesforce is lacking. As the owner of our productivity tools and how they are used, I have very little control over what things to enforce, or even change what objects are available. For example, we don't use Cases in Salesforce but with the Salesforce integration the Cases object shows up. There's no need to have that there. I've heard there is a roadmap improvement forthcoming.
  • One of our uses is for our sales development reps to prospect with visitors. Because of the high volume of inquiries it's difficult for our reps to efficiently manage all their follow ups. It would be nice if we could run a "scheduled campaign" where a predesigned cadence of email follow ups can be sent automatically. To be clear, they do have a scheduling capability, but it just can't be used as a prebuilt option.
  • Integrations to other systems require you have a user account to those systems. We have SSO and therefore we don't always have a user account. For example, out integration to Jira uses SSO so we don't each have individual Jira logins. This is an outage for us.
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SolarWinds
  • Because of AD integration, users sometimes try logging in with their email address and not AD credentials. The user then calls stating they can't put a ticket in, it would be nice if there was a method of matching the AD Email field with a login.
  • Setting up new techs with the building they are responsible for can be a little messy
  • I would like to see the UI updated. It looks old, even in the latest releases.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Front
We are very happy with Front and don't anticipate changing
Read full review
SolarWinds
We are definitely going to be sticking with Web Help Desk for the foreseeable future since the product is very inexpensive for the features that it provides, the integration that it has with our existing systems, and the ease for managing users, assets, locations, and tickets. Web Help Desk is a great product that is backed by even better support, which is well worth looking into if you are considering moving to a new ticketing system.
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Usability
Front
It's very easy to understand and use by new customer support agents as well. Be it a technology, product, or marketing person, we have trained most of the company folks to read and respond to customer conversations in their free time with the help of the Front app. It is also easy to set up for an admin and manage his/her team with communication rules.
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SolarWinds
I give it this rating based on my experience with SNOW which I would rate lower because it is so difficult to find anything in SNOW. It might be better with more time to configure but we "had a box to check" and it met that requirement and I haven't had time to refine it.
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Support Rating
Front
The support is good, and it's definitely prompt, but still lags when it comes to technical requirements, as I guess they are slow in developing newer features fast. So no complaints in terms of responsiveness, but yeah, at times it's not very helpful when you need certain features or are blocked on things which can't be unblocked.
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SolarWinds
SolarWinds is a great customizable and affordable ticketing system. We use SolarWinds Web Help Desk for IT and Software
Development trouble ticket tracking and resolution. The reporting that
SolarWinds provides is great since it helps us discover problem areas and fix
those areas so they don't keep reoccurring
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Front
No answers on this topic
SolarWinds
Take the time to roll out a test VM to configure and make changes to before doing a live deployment, this way you don't end up with a VM that has been tweaked and re-tweaked until it's perfect and instead end up with a final, polished product. I would also recommend taking the time to read through the support forums for figuring out minor issues that may pop up, chances are that you aren't going to be the first one to encounter them. When all is said and done, SolarWinds Support is VERY responsive and you shouldn't hesitate to contact them.
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Alternatives Considered
Front
This is something I am not familiar but it seems like it is [available] in Gmail. Thus I cannot give any feedback about it. What I am sure about is Front works for our team and I see Zoom using the service in the Customer Success Organization in a long run.
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SolarWinds
Web Help Desk is definitely lacking in the UI/UX department compared to most other ticketing systems I have used int he past. It's very utilitarian; however, what it lacks in UI it makes up for in extensibility and customization. The main issue that the developers need to address is the use of a Web Objects back-end.
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Return on Investment
Front
  • Saved our executive team considerable amount of time chasing support questions through different channels.
  • Gave our team clear accountability for who was lead on a support issue and how to escalate.
  • Customer regularly say our support is the best in the industry.
Read full review
SolarWinds
  • Amazing impact on our Organization, we are much more organized since we implemented SolarWinds Web Help Desk
  • The ROI is in the statistics! The application cost pennies to run compared to what the product will do for your organization.
  • I challenge you to find a better product for the price!
  • Our documentation has improved since we implemented SolarWinds Web Help Desk
Read full review
ScreenShots

Front Screenshots

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SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) Screenshots

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