TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

    Score8.2 out of 10
    N/ASpiceworks offers a set of free tools for IT network management and help desk support ticketing. The inventory management system essentially provides comprehensive device information for asset management.

    $0

    (free for 1-5 Seats)

    Zendesk Suite

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AZendesk 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
    Spiceworks Cloud Help DeskZendesk Suite
    Editions & Modules
    Core Plan
    $0
    Premium
    $6
    per month per user
    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
    Spiceworks Cloud Help DeskZendesk Suite
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details20% discount available with annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Spiceworks Cloud Help DeskZendesk Suite
    Considered Both Products
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    Chose Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    A lot of the competition starts with some free options, but bare minimum or "paid only modules" etc. And their support is often either non existent or convoluted while Spiceworks Help Desk is both great and responsive as well as having an open community and forums. You can …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    We are in the process of looking at Remote Monitoring & Management tools as we are growing so rapidly. We have been checking out demos & reading reviews of these other applications and they are way more feature-rich than Spiceworks - however, they come at a cost and will …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Spiceworks was free and already in place at the organization. Users are comfortable with the process and transparency offered.
    Incentivized
    Chose Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    The main commercial alternative product evaluated was Zendesk, which was not selected because of the price. The second alternative researched was the osTicket, which was not selected as it was complicated to configure. With hindsight, I would suggest using osTicket instead of …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Spiceworks was the best solution by far, and it was also free, so it was impossible to beat. Also the community of IT pros using Spiceworks is huge and makes it even more of a clear winner. When it comes to help desk and inventory software, there was not really any …
    Incentivized
    Chose Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    Footprints, Zendesk, and TrackIt.
    Incentivized
    Zendesk
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Zendesk is used in conjunction with ConnectWise Manage to communicate to us in our ticketing system. Zendesk has more features than Spiceworks, and I believe the increased cost justifies itself. The ability for our users to text in to the ticketing system makes it easy to …
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    No comparison to TSC2. We used it years ago and it was very limited (no automation, customizations, etc). We used Kace for 3 years and hated it as a support desk solution. It was great for asset inventory, but that was all. Spiceworks was just too busy to look at. JitBit was a …
    Incentivized
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    In my searches I have come across a lot of alternatives and I try to keep and open mind on each of them, here are a few of the tools I heard and saw a lot of chatter about while reviewing a looking for Helpdesk tools.

    SpiceWorks -
    This was a freeware program that i had used in …
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Samanage
    Spiceworks
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    97%
    Would buy again
    35 Answers
    87%
    Would buy again
    123 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    35 Answers
    85%
    Delivers good value for the price
    108 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    34 Answers
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    131 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    27 Answers
    85%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    82 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    31 Answers
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    94 Answers
    Features
    Spiceworks Cloud Help DeskZendesk Suite
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    8.1
    56 Ratings
    1% below category average
    Zendesk Suite
    8.6
    187 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets8.855 Ratings9.1186 Ratings
    Expert directory5.648 Ratings7.9127 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications5.043 Ratings8.4130 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation9.246 Ratings7.8131 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission10.055 Ratings9.3186 Ratings
    Ticket response10.054 Ratings9.0185 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    9.4
    53 Ratings
    16% above category average
    Zendesk Suite
    8.5
    169 Ratings
    6% above category average
    External knowledge base9.449 Ratings8.5163 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base9.449 Ratings8.4156 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk
    8.7
    53 Ratings
    8% above category average
    Zendesk Suite
    8.4
    182 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Customer portal9.847 Ratings9.1150 Ratings
    IVR4.612 Ratings8.076 Ratings
    Social integration9.028 Ratings7.4119 Ratings
    Email support10.047 Ratings9.2178 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration10.029 Ratings8.4138 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Spiceworks Cloud Help DeskZendesk Suite
    Small Businesses
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Spiceworks Cloud Help DeskZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (84 ratings)
    8.7
    (225 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (29 ratings)
    10.0
    (43 ratings)
    Usability
    9.8
    (10 ratings)
    8.6
    (98 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    9.1
    (14 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (11 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.7
    (26 ratings)
    5.5
    (31 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    6.4
    (10 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    9.1
    (19 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (4 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Spiceworks Cloud Help DeskZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk is good for small teams where work is not passed along to internal teams or situations where escalations lead to further customer interactions and no further oversight is needed. It is weak as a product for larger and medium-sized companies, where processes are in place that are not aligned with its workflow, as it is a very rigid tool.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Merging of the tickets with similar issues, it is easy to avoid confusion
    • Al global team somehow gets connected with different ways like Slack, with the Zendesk Suite which is so easier to highlight & the issue quickly
    • The best thing is that this tool gives you to send the message via chat-, email, call through the one single platform
    • Now AI has been added so it works good
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    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?
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    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.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    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
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    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.
    Incentivized
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    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
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    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
    Incentivized
    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
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    At the time of evaluation, Dynamics had extremely limited knowledge and support capabilities. The UI is clunky, and reporting requires a deep understanding of the underlying data structure. Ongoing maintenance was costly and didn't provide a positive ROI in any sense of the term.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    No answers on this topic
    Zendesk
    WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Spiceworks Ziff Davis
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • More than anything, provided a boost to our perceived professionalism. The portal is a massive improvement on email only support.
    • Workflow optimization via macros and automations has enhanced response times and raise our 'first call resolution' metric.
    • Speaking of metrics; having them at all! Before Zendesk Suite we were email only so had no insight into agent and vendor performance.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    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