What users are saying about
44 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 7.1 out of 100
Based on 44 reviews and ratings
Top Rated
239 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.7 out of 100
Based on 239 reviews and ratings
Feature Set Ratings
- Kayako ranks higher in 1 feature set: Multi-Channel Help
- Spiceworks Help Desk ranks higher in 2 feature sets: Incident and problem management, Self Help Community
Incident and problem management
7.0
Kayako
70%

8.5
Spiceworks Help Desk
85%
Spiceworks Help Desk ranks higher in 6/6 features
Spiceworks Help Desk ranks higher in 6/6 features
Organize and prioritize service tickets
8.0
80%
10 Ratings

8.8
88%
51 Ratings
Expert directory
3.1
31%
4 Ratings

7.6
76%
44 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications
7.1
71%
7 Ratings

8.3
83%
39 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation
7.9
79%
6 Ratings

8.2
82%
42 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission
8.0
80%
10 Ratings

9.1
91%
51 Ratings
Ticket response
8.0
80%
10 Ratings

9.1
91%
50 Ratings
Self Help Community
7.3
Kayako
73%

8.7
Spiceworks Help Desk
87%
Spiceworks Help Desk ranks higher in 2/2 features
Spiceworks Help Desk ranks higher in 2/2 features
External knowledge base
6.7
67%
8 Ratings

8.9
89%
45 Ratings
Internal knowledge base
7.8
78%
7 Ratings

8.4
84%
45 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
8.4
Kayako
84%

7.5
Spiceworks Help Desk
75%
Kayako ranks higher in 4/5 features
Kayako ranks higher in 4/5 features
Customer portal
9.3
93%
6 Ratings

8.3
83%
43 Ratings
IVR
8.0
80%
1 Rating

7.0
70%
9 Ratings
Social integration
7.0
70%
3 Ratings

6.6
66%
25 Ratings
Email support
8.1
81%
9 Ratings

8.7
87%
44 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration
9.3
93%
5 Ratings

6.9
69%
26 Ratings
Attribute Ratings
- Kayako is rated higher in 1 area: Usability
- Spiceworks Help Desk is rated higher in 5 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Likelihood to Renew, Availability, Support Rating, Implementation Rating
Likelihood to Recommend
6.0
Kayako
60%
21 Ratings

8.8
Spiceworks Help Desk
88%
80 Ratings
Likelihood to Renew
7.8
Kayako
78%
11 Ratings

10.0
Spiceworks Help Desk
100%
29 Ratings
Usability
10.0
Kayako
100%
1 Rating

8.5
Spiceworks Help Desk
85%
8 Ratings
Availability
7.5
Kayako
75%
4 Ratings

10.0
Spiceworks Help Desk
100%
6 Ratings
Performance
Kayako
N/A
0 Ratings

8.0
Spiceworks Help Desk
80%
2 Ratings
Support Rating
2.6
Kayako
26%
7 Ratings

8.6
Spiceworks Help Desk
86%
49 Ratings
Implementation Rating
9.0
Kayako
90%
4 Ratings

10.0
Spiceworks Help Desk
100%
13 Ratings
Product Scalability
Kayako
N/A
0 Ratings

10.0
Spiceworks Help Desk
100%
1 Rating
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.

Verified User
Technician in Information Technology
Education Management Company, 51-200 employeesSpiceworks Help Desk
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.
Director Of Information Technology and HIPAA Privacy Officer
Continuum of CareHospital & Health Care, 501-1000 employees
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.

Verified User
Executive in Customer Service
Telecommunications Company, 51-200 employeesSpiceworks Help Desk
- 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.
Software Support Specialist
Kerkering, Barberio & Co.Accounting, 51-200 employees
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.
General Manager
HOSTINGInternet, 11-50 employees
Spiceworks Help Desk
- 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.

Verified User
Supervisor in Information Technology
Chemicals Company, 51-200 employeesPricing Details
Kayako
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
$29 per month
Kayako Editions & Modules
Edition
Inbox | $15.001 |
---|---|
Growth | $30.001 |
Scale | $60.001 |
- Per User Per Month
Additional Pricing Details
—Spiceworks Help Desk
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Starting Price
—Spiceworks Help Desk Editions & Modules
—
Additional Pricing Details
—Likelihood to Renew
Kayako
Kayako 7.8
Based on 11 answers
- 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
System Administrator
Shore Power IncRetail, 11-50 employees
Spiceworks Help Desk
Spiceworks Help Desk 10.0
Based on 29 answers
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.
CISO (Chief Information Security Officer)
SAVANNAH STATE UNIVERSITYHigher Education, 501-1000 employees
Usability
Kayako
Kayako 10.0
Based on 1 answer
I did not come from an IT background and I picked this program up quickly
Application Support Specialist
ImageTrendHealth, Wellness and Fitness, 51-200 employees
Spiceworks Help Desk
Spiceworks Help Desk 8.5
Based on 8 answers
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
Systems Administrator
Withers & RavenelCivil Engineering, 51-200 employees
Reliability and Availability
Kayako
Kayako 7.5
Based on 4 answers
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.
Sales and Support Manager
StyleEase Software, LLCComputer Software, 1-10 employees
Spiceworks Help Desk
Spiceworks Help Desk 10.0
Based on 6 answers
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.
Systems Administrator
Costa Del MarSporting Goods, 51-200 employees
Support Rating
Kayako
Kayako 2.6
Based on 7 answers
- 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.
Vice President of Information Technology
3formPlastics, 501-1000 employees
Spiceworks Help Desk
Spiceworks Help Desk 8.6
Based on 49 answers
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.

Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology
Retail Company, 201-500 employeesImplementation Rating
Kayako
Kayako 9.0
Based on 4 answers
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.
System Administrator
Shore Power IncRetail, 11-50 employees
Spiceworks Help Desk
Spiceworks Help Desk 10.0
Based on 13 answers
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
Systems Analyst II
ClaycoConstruction, 501-1000 employees
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.
IT Project Coordinator
SwiftTech Technology Solutions LLCInformation Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Spiceworks Help Desk
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.
Ruby on Rails Developer
Chunch.esInformation Technology & Services, 1-10 employees
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.
Technical Support Engineer
CoverMyMedsTelecommunications, 11-50 employees
Spiceworks Help Desk
- 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.
President
Geeks-r-Us, Inc.Computer & Network Security, 1-10 employees