SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) vs. Zendesk Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Zendesk Suite
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.
$69
per month per agent
Pricing
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)Zendesk Suite
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Suite Team
$69
per month per agent
Suite Growth
$115
per month per agent
Suite Professional
$149
per month per agent
Suite Enterprise
Contact Sales
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)Zendesk Suite
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsSolarWinds also offers Perpetual licensing starting at $1129 per technician.20% discount available with annual pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)Zendesk Suite
Considered Both Products
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
Chose SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
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 …
Chose SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
We primarily selected SolarWinds Web Help Desk because of the rich feature set and low price point. When we were doing comparisons of the different suites available, we wanted to find an easy to deploy, feature rich, and inexpensive solution. Web Help Desk met all these …
Zendesk Suite

No answer on this topic

Features
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)Zendesk Suite
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
9.2
20 Ratings
12% above category average
Zendesk Suite
8.9
172 Ratings
8% above category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets8.020 Ratings9.3171 Ratings
Expert directory8.014 Ratings8.2118 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications9.817 Ratings8.7119 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation9.014 Ratings8.2122 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission9.010 Ratings9.4172 Ratings
Ticket response9.010 Ratings9.3171 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
8.0
9 Ratings
0% below category average
Zendesk Suite
8.4
156 Ratings
4% above category average
External knowledge base7.07 Ratings8.3150 Ratings
Internal knowledge base9.09 Ratings8.5143 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)
9.2
10 Ratings
14% above category average
Zendesk Suite
8.8
168 Ratings
9% above category average
Customer portal9.78 Ratings9.1138 Ratings
Social integration10.04 Ratings8.4112 Ratings
Email support9.010 Ratings9.3165 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.04 Ratings9.0128 Ratings
IVR00 Ratings8.570 Ratings
Best Alternatives
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)Zendesk Suite
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
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)Zendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
6.5
(20 ratings)
9.0
(209 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(43 ratings)
Usability
6.5
(5 ratings)
8.8
(82 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(14 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(11 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(5 ratings)
5.6
(31 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
6.4
(10 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(19 ratings)
Configurability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(4 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD)Zendesk Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
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
Zendesk
Being a customer support agent, I found it very good when it comes to send an email or call or chat- with the user. I can do all that from the one single platform which is so easy and time saving for you. It does not take much time to use this, We can chat- with the user and at the same time we can send an email to them as well.
Read full review
Pros
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
Zendesk
  • UI/UX; mature macros and automations, slick and well thought out UI.
  • Reporting, reporting, reporting. With user, org, and ticket level tags, we can track every aspect of our ticket flow.
  • Extensibility; the app marketplace is a great resource for expanding functionality from the baseline offering.
Read full review
Cons
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
Zendesk
  • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
  • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
Read full review
Zendesk
Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
Read full review
Usability
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.
Read full review
Zendesk
Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
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Reliability and Availability
SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
Read full review
Performance
SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
Read full review
Support Rating
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
Zendesk
We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
Read full review
Online Training
SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
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.
Read full review
Zendesk
I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
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Alternatives Considered
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.
Read full review
Zendesk
The customisable reporting every time. Our leadership reply on me to run my team and want to know what customers are telling us so they can elevate our products. We have extensive custom reports that tie up all aspects of our product and customer journeys. I've not found another product that allows me as much freedom as Zendesk Suite explore does, so far.
Read full review
Scalability
SolarWinds
No answers on this topic
Zendesk
WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
Read full review
Return on Investment
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
Zendesk
  • Integrating other AI solutions for an organization with high volumes can cost about USD5000 monthly. With Zendesk AI and by building onto the same with AI powered apps built for Zendesk Suite we save a projected USD4000 monthly.
  • Robust Zendesk APIs have enabled us to integrate our internal system with a customized app saving us hundreds of hours every quarter spent loading customer profiles that are not loaded instantly from the app.
  • Plug and play apps like Round robin save us weeks of sprint delay timelines as they do not require additional coding or developer support to install and start using.
Read full review
ScreenShots

SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) Screenshots

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

Zendesk Suite Screenshots

Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations