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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Higher Logic Vanilla

    Score5.5 out of 10
    N/AHigher Logic Vanilla is a customizable and themable forum software. It can be used for support communities, Q&A Communities and more. There are numerous integrations, including SSO, and connectors to popular software such as Mailchimp, WordPress, Zendesk and Salesforce.N/A

    Zoho Desk

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AZoho Support is a Saas help desk / ticketing system aimed at SMBs. I competes most often with Zendesk, and Desk.com.

    $9

    per month per user

    Pricing
    Higher Logic VanillaZoho Desk
    Editions & Modules
    Essential
    Contact sales team
    Corporate
    Contact sales team
    Enterprise
    Contact sales team
    Enterprise Plus
    Contact sales team
    Free
    $0
    Express
    $9
    per month per user
    Standard
    $20
    per month per user
    Professional
    $35
    per month per user
    Enterprise
    $50
    per month per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Higher Logic VanillaZoho Desk
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
    Additional Details—A discount is offered for yearly billing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Higher Logic VanillaZoho Desk
    Considered Both Products
    Higher Logic
    No answer on this topic
    Zoho
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    93%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    87%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    85%
    Implementation went as expected
    11 Answers
    Features
    Higher Logic VanillaZoho Desk
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Higher Logic Vanilla and Zoho Desk
    Feature
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho Desk
    8.5
    5 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets00 Ratings9.05 Ratings
    Expert directory00 Ratings7.14 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications00 Ratings7.14 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings8.95 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings8.95 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of Higher Logic Vanilla and Zoho Desk
    Feature
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho Desk
    9.8
    5 Ratings
    20% above category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings9.85 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings9.85 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Higher Logic Vanilla and Zoho Desk
    Feature
    Higher Logic Vanilla
    -
    Ratings
    Zoho Desk
    6.6
    5 Ratings
    19% below category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings8.04 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings6.83 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings6.15 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings5.44 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Higher Logic VanillaZoho Desk
    Small Businesses
    Higher Logic Thrive
    Score8.9 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score9.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Khoros Communities
    Score8.2 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score8.8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Verint Community
    Score10 out of 10
    Front
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Higher Logic VanillaZoho Desk
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (10 ratings)
    8.8
    (23 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (12 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.8
    (11 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Higher Logic VanillaZoho Desk
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Higher Logic
    For companies that want to customize almost anything and make the forum look like your site, Vanilla Forums is the one for you. Customization and automation of the data via the API with other systems is more than possible and they serve to be great as a hosting provider, dealing with all the upgrades, deployments and maintenance and threat management well. I would say they might be less turn key for a small application but the fact they have an open source community, the ability to find help and information can lower the barrier of entry for most.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zoho
    Zoho Desk is a great customer service tool. It is very easy to track the ability to receive tickets and send responses in Zoho Desk. There are lots of options for customization. The knowledge base feature is very extensive and powerful. It makes creating internal and external FAQs easy.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Higher Logic
    • Gamification: The ability to incentivise community members to get involved with ranks and badges is one of the main reasons that we purchased the tool.
    • Support: The Vanilla support team are incredible, often responding to issues very late at night and proactively fixing issues as soon as they occur.
    • Customisation: Vanilla can be completely styled with css allowing us to match it to the branding of the rest of our website.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zoho
    • It provides a simple widget code with a few clicks once you decide to integrate it with your website or application.
    • There is a very user friendly dedicated mobile application for Zoho Desk for Android and IOS devices.
    • You can easily track all of your tickets and agents from the dashboard interface.
    • You can insert tags with each ticket to group them into specific categories for analysis and troubleshooting.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Higher Logic
    • There are some features I wish Vanilla would implement that could improve ease of use in our specific community, but some of the ideas we have are not necessarily something that would benefit all of the forums that Vanilla works with.
    • In the past, we've had issues with releases breaking some of our specific site features they built for us, but this has improved drastically recently.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zoho
    • The biggest drawback that I am facing while using the platform is that their ticketing system is not that great [in my opinion]. It does not give us the option to add sales tax and other charges in the invoices which leads to a big problem for us.
    • [I feel] its customer support needs improvement.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Higher Logic
    It is very intuitive and simple to operate. Our customers immediately came up with the curve and began contributing content.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zoho
    I give [Zoho Desk] [an] overall usability score of 9. This is partly due to the search functionality needs improvement. There are several times where I am left unable to find a ticket and have to generate a new one. I am hoping in the future that they will make some changes!
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Higher Logic
    They did an amazing job transferring our content from GetSatisfaction. We had almost 100% success in the transfer of 8 years worth of content.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zoho
    As Zoho Support is based in a different timezone to ours it can be an issue that we cannot get an immediate response to an issue. But I will say that once their Support is in the office they are fairly good to respond. they have resolved almost all issues I have told them about, but Zoho have also made system changes and not communicated these beforehand which means we are faced with something new and cannot get support on this until their support team is in the office
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Higher Logic
    From a footprint standpoint, Vanilla has less technical bloat than vbulletin or InVision, and it outdoes Lithium as far as features and service go. The bloat of other services and ability to use new ways of engaging communities such as through Reactions are part of the reason Vanilla was selected. However, the features are better on a couple more seasoned platforms and more equipped to deal with issues and technical problems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zoho
    We selected Zoho Desk as we needed a platform that was going to allow the business to grow through both usage and staffing numbers. We wanted something cost-effective but still offered standard features in an effective cloud-delivered solution but would still allow customization by our internal dev team, to derive better value from the service where it natively didn't do what we needed it to. FreeAgent was okay for a while, but Zoho Desk has allowed a vast improvement in our service offering to end customers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Higher Logic
    • Increased uptime and overall speed in the forum (compared to our previous phpbb solution)
    • Increased usage by users which resulted in a higher pages/session in a short amount of time
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zoho
    • Zoho Desk has created an organised sytem of support which alows me to help my customers more efficiently.
    • By saving resolutions as articles, Zoho Desk has provided a training resource for current customers and support staff as part of solving problems.
    • All new customers become part of a database of customers who continue to receive support and education from forums created by the articles and customer questions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Higher Logic Vanilla Screenshots

    Screenshot of Looks great on any device, including desktop, tablet or mobile device.Screenshot of We offer over 60 plugins that can add functionality to your community.Screenshot of Many different themes to choose from, which you can further customize as you like.Screenshot of You have full access to edit HTML and CSS of your theme, to make any changes you need.

    Zoho Desk Screenshots

    Screenshot of Log and monitor phone conversations, convert them into new tickets, or attach them to existing ones. Convert social media interactions and live chat into tickets at the click of a button.Screenshot of Bring a Help Center directly into a website to strengthen self-service. Chat with Zia, an AI-powered conversation assistant. Customers can chat with Zia right from a mobile app or website. Zia processes their questions and suggests appropriate solutions from the Knowledge Base.Screenshot of With advanced process automation, internal processes can be setup within the help desk, implement them automatically, and make sure that all processes are followed precisely.Screenshot of Instant responses for instant happiness. Respond to customers the minute they reach out with Zoho Desk's embeddable chat widget. Customers can get in touch with agents instantly, right from the Help Center, so agents can respond and help them find answers faster.Screenshot of Monitor a team's performance, customize and schedule reports. Custom dashboards can be created.Screenshot of Zia brings together predictions across anomalies, sentiment, trending ticket tags, and more into a common dashboard for decision-makers to consume. They can drill down further into the details from the same dashboard to investigate further.