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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Kayako

    Score6.8 out of 10
    N/AKayako is a help desk and customer support platform that helps businesses automate workflows, improve agent productivity, and deliver personalized customer experiences across email, chat, and social media.

    $79

    per month

    Magnolia

    Score9.9 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Founded in Switzerland in 1997, Magnolia is a CMS used to build composable digital experiences. Magnolia helps create fully integrated customer experiences and speeds up digital delivery of content. Magnolia boasts 480 enterprise customers, thousands of Community Edition deployments, and more than 200 certified Magnolia Partners around the world. They further state that their enterprise customers include Sanofi, Generali, the Atlassian, The New York Times, Harley Davidson, and Union…

    $3,500

    per month

    Pricing
    KayakoMagnolia
    Editions & Modules
    Kayako One
    $79
    per month
    Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    DX Core
    $3500
    per month
    DX Cloud
    $6000
    per month
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    KayakoMagnolia
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    KayakoMagnolia
    Considered Both Products
    Kayako
    No answer on this topic
    Magnolia
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    58 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    49 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    58 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    39 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    53 Answers
    Features
    KayakoMagnolia
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Kayako and Magnolia
    Feature
    Kayako
    2.0
    11 Ratings
    122% below category average
    Magnolia
    -
    Ratings
    Organize and prioritize service tickets1.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Expert directory1.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission7.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket response1.011 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Kayako and Magnolia
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    9 Ratings
    156% below category average
    Magnolia
    -
    Ratings
    External knowledge base1.09 Ratings00 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base1.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Kayako and Magnolia
    Feature
    Kayako
    1.0
    10 Ratings
    156% below category average
    Magnolia
    -
    Ratings
    Customer portal1.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    IVR1.02 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social integration1.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Email support1.010 Ratings00 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration1.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security
    Comparison of Security features of Kayako and Magnolia
    Feature
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    Magnolia
    8.1
    69 Ratings
    2% below category average
    Role-based user permissions00 Ratings8.169 Ratings
    Platform & Infrastructure
    Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Kayako and Magnolia
    Feature
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    Magnolia
    8.1
    68 Ratings
    4% above category average
    API00 Ratings8.561 Ratings
    Internationalization / multi-language00 Ratings7.761 Ratings
    Web Content Creation
    Comparison of Web Content Creation features of Kayako and Magnolia
    Feature
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    Magnolia
    8.0
    74 Ratings
    2% above category average
    WYSIWYG editor00 Ratings8.565 Ratings
    Code quality / cleanliness00 Ratings8.465 Ratings
    Admin section00 Ratings8.070 Ratings
    Page templates00 Ratings8.972 Ratings
    Library of website themes00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
    Mobile optimization / responsive design00 Ratings8.563 Ratings
    Publishing workflow00 Ratings7.573 Ratings
    Form generator00 Ratings6.958 Ratings
    Web Content Management
    Comparison of Web Content Management features of Kayako and Magnolia
    Feature
    Kayako
    -
    Ratings
    Magnolia
    7.5
    69 Ratings
    0% below category average
    Content taxonomy00 Ratings7.663 Ratings
    SEO support00 Ratings7.263 Ratings
    Bulk management00 Ratings7.657 Ratings
    Availability / breadth of extensions00 Ratings7.962 Ratings
    Community / comment management00 Ratings6.951 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    KayakoMagnolia
    Small Businesses
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Umbraco CMS
    Score7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Square Online
    Score7.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    RWS Tridion Sites
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    KayakoMagnolia
    Likelihood to Recommend
    1.0
    (22 ratings)
    8.1
    (78 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.8
    (11 ratings)
    8.1
    (9 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (68 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (67 ratings)
    Support Rating
    2.1
    (4 ratings)
    9.1
    (3 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.2
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    KayakoMagnolia
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Kayako
    When it works, It's without a doubt a great help desk solution. It is perfect for our usage, and have rolled it out company-wide. It's great if you have multiple departments. We have it set up so most items come through a single desk that then hands out tickets to their proper department. There may be cheaper options for smaller organizations but for one that is as service-driven as ours, we really think Kayako is a great fit.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    Magnolia is a very capable DXP, that provides client with lots of flexibility in composing its own stack. While the core of the platform is a content management system, the open architecture of Magnolia DXP allows it to connect to any platform, allowing client to extend the capabilities. One scenario would be a centralized content hub - where through a single platform, content authors can choose which channel to distribute what content. For example, long form content for consumers viewing on a laptop, short form content for those using a mobile browser. This allow the client to personalized the experience based on channels. Another scenarios would be leveraging on GenAI - using Magnolia's built-in connector to ChatGPT. If that is not the service that one desire, you can always connect to another AI service such as Google Gemini. With GenAI, connected, content author can use AI as co-pilot to help them scale up their content production.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Kayako
    • Gives a very good report on an individual level of what is being done for a customer or corporate issue.
    • Easy to understand who has what, what the tickets are about, how long they have been opened and how many times the customer/employee have gone back and forth with each other.
    • Nice dashboard view.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    • Speed of development - time to delivery from zero to MVP was excellent
    • Ease of use - the authoring experience is very easy to build and train
    • PAAS/SAAS - the managed service platform removed the traditional overhead of running in-house technologies, meaning we could focus on value add, with less time spent keeping the lights on.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Kayako
    • Departments need a bit of work. Even though you can have multiple departments, the only changes that can be made are globally. If you want independent queues within the departments, you have to do a lot of work that can be very confusing.
    • Survey system is not up to speed. Kayako really needs to add Net Promoter Score into their system. Also, if a staff user removes their name from an incident ticket, it removes them from the survey so you really can't even get a good estimate of how well your staff is in the eyes of the customer.
    • Very difficult to implement when you already have a customer base. Setting them up in organizations is difficult. Also, the sign-up for new customers is quirky. If you send an email to Kayako, it will say you are not an authorized user, however, it will store your email address. If you try to send an email a second time, it will go through. This is one of many reasons why we decided to move from Kayako to Oracle Service Cloud.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    • The documentation provides samples that are often out of context, and difficult to know where the provided example code should be implemented. More tutorials providing the full project or step-by-step instructions on how to implement subject material would help greatly. Baeldung is a resource I would consider the gold standard in how this is done in other spaces.
    • The use of JCR and Nodes makes object serialization/deserialization painful. Jackson compatibility or similar would be a welcome enhancement to the developer experience. Maybe leveraging code-gen from light modules to build model classes when possible could help accomplish this.
    • Modifying the home layout from light modules is frustrating. It seems that any configuration overrides made merge with the default rather than overwriting, which makes for a difficult combination of guess-and-check while referencing the documentation to see what should be in each row/column when making changes.
    • Including "mark all as read" or "delete all" in the notifications app would be a great quality of life improvement. It seems that by default, users have to individually select messages and operate them.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Kayako
    • We are grandfathered in on their old Software-assurance pricing and our continued use costs us only a few hundred dollars a year (excluding hosting expenses)
    • Our team's processes are now heavily ingrained in the system
    • We have not been shown a more compelling option that is more cost-effective while still offering all the features we've come to expect
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    We have invested a lot of time and energy into tailoring a solution that works for the company.
    We think the new features in v6.2 will help us get to the next level
    We also don't have the resources to rebuild a website platform from scratch even if we wanted to
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Kayako
    I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    We've shown it to a number of users both clients and our own team and despite initial apprehensions, they "get it" very quickly. It's intuitive and friendly and quick to perform daily tasks. We once had a client tell us "Using Magnolia makes me smile" which says it all for us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Kayako
    They are really good, but it takes a while to get back, because of the large time difference to the Eastern US. However, they are very helpful.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Kayako
    No answers on this topic
    Magnolia
    I gave [it] 7/10 only because of the loading time of pages. Otherwise, I think it deserves an 8. Normally this is not an issue per [se] but considering the rating matrix and as I have been asked to honestly write about it. Yes, the page loading times could be improved.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Kayako
    • We didn't have to use support too much, but when we did, they were able to assist us and help us make everything work.
    • Mostly we used their Online KB and step by step instructions to get all of our issues resolved.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    You always get an answer based on your SLA. But you always get a solution. That's the successfactor in this case. To often i was frustrated about people in a company without even a clue what there product is about or how to solve a problem. Magnolia's Support Team does a very good job and try to help you in most of the cases
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Kayako
    Three years in we are about as happy with Kayako as we could be. We've had several employee's leave and on-boarding new hires was easier than it has ever been as things are uniform and consistent across the entire application.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Kayako
    We were using Spiceworks for a few years before switching to Kayako but found that it wasn't as customizable or as user friendly for our customers. The SNMP scanning and inventory features with Spiceworks was nice but we needed more of a Help Desk that would allow us to scale our services to more companies.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    I've used several CMSs like AEM and EpiServer, and comparatively, they all excel at different things. Magnolia is the best to develop for/against. Episerver has the best/most fluid UI in terms of content editing, and the overall admin experience AEM is just all around sucks.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Kayako
    • Tickets were definitely responded to faster once we implemented the audible alarm that would go off when new tickets came into the queue. This was possible because of the API.
    • Since the system was email based we could set our monitoring software up to generate tickets automatically via email for customers when it found something out of the ordinary.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Magnolia
    • Magnolia has brought about positive impacts. For instance, we need not outsource web design and marketing services because thanks to this software, we can handle most work inhouse
    • The software is affordable with no compromises on capabilities and therefore it is gives us value for money.
    • The templates makes the whole process easy
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Magnolia Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Magnolia App Launcher, used to switch between workspaces and manage pagesScreenshot of the customer experience. This brings together content and audiovisual digital assets to form more compelling digital experiences.Screenshot of global search that brings relevant content, no matter where it resides.Screenshot of customizing the ecommerce experience.Screenshot of Magnolia Orchestratem where users can manage and track campaignsScreenshot of the WYSIWYG page editor