Top 13 Freshdesk alternatives and competitors for 2023

You're probably here because:

A. You're researching customer service software and weighing all of your options.

B. You're currently using Freshdesk and looking for a better option.

Freshworks offers a suite of cloud-based tools that includes Freshdesk, its customer support software. Freshdesk allows businesses to manage customer requests and handle issues with its ticketing system. It supports multiple channels, like email, phone, and chat. Teams can automate ticket assignments and set automatic email notifications to notify customers of changes to their requests. Freshdesk also provides self-service software.

However, Freshdesk has certain limitations, even for the most basic support use cases.

Its reporting is limited due to a lack of custom attribution and correlation as well as omnichannel reporting, which ultimately impacts your visibility into customer issues and support performance. Several users also report challenges with its disconnected agent interface, unreliable integrations, and—most disheartening—poor customer support. As a result of these product and support limitations, businesses often outgrow Freshdesk, which increases your total cost of ownership.

Additionally, Freshworks isn't exclusively focused on CX. The tradeoff of having products across sales, marketing, IT, and customer service can result in not getting the same level of CX expertise as you would with a more specialized solution.

Our guide provides key details about the features, functionality, and pricing of the best Freshdesk alternatives, all in one place. See how competitors stack up against each other so you can find a solution that specializes in the customer experience (CX)—and take your customer service to the next level.

• Best 13 Freshdesk alternatives and competitors at a glance

• A deep dive into the top 13 alternatives and competitors to Freshdesk

• Frequently asked questions

• How to choose the best alternative to Freshdesk

Our comparison chart helps provide important information that businesses look for when researching Freshdesk competitors. Check it out and potentially find your next platform.

Choosing your new customer service solution doesn’t have to be challenging. Our list takes a deep dive into the top alternatives to Freshdesk so you can make the right choice for your business.

1. Zendesk

Zendesk is a trusted leader in customer service and offers a platform exclusively focused on the customer experience. With Zendesk, your support teams have all the right tools to provide personalized customer service at scale.

Where Zendesk excels:

• Unified Agent Workspace: an intuitive interface that gives agents everything they need to provide seamless, omnichannel customer service. It consolidates all communication channels, customer conversations, customer data, history, and context to enable a 360-degree view of the customer journey. It’s also customizable.
  

• Advanced reporting and analytics: Tools for deep omnichannel analytics, allowing you to gather and explore data on customer interactions across channels.
  

• 1,300+ apps in the Zendesk Marketplace complete with reviews: Integrations that extend the functionality and capabilities of your systems and toolsets.
  

• Pre-trained AI-powered bots: Zendesk AI comes pre-trained based on billions of real customer service interactions, saving your team time and money from manual training.
  

• Intelligent routing: With skills-based routing and intelligent triage, you can automatically route tickets to the best-suited agent to handle the request based on predetermined rules you configure, like expertise, availability, and workload while taking language, sentiment, and intent into account.

Zendesk consistently offers a low total cost of ownership, a fast time to value, and a quick return on investment. Its easy setup and intuitive interface helps teams start providing exceptional customer service on day one, eliminating costly training programs.

For a more detailed comparison with Freshdesk, check out our Zendesk vs. Freshdesk page.

Features

• Unified omnichannel support

• Customizable and deep reporting and analytics

• Reliable integrations

• AI-powered self-service

• Industry-leading ticketing system

• Live chat and messaging

• Routing and intelligence

Pricing

• Support Team: $19 per agent/month

• Support Professional: $55 per agent/month

• Support Enterprise: $115 per agent/month

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

14 days

2. Zoho Desk

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Zoho Desk is a cloud-based help desk solution. Zoho offers a wide range of products, including customer service, marketing, finance, IT, project management, and developer platforms. Because Zoho is a full-suite CRM and supports products for many use cases, you may not get the level of depth and expertise as you would with a best-in-breed CX solution.

Despite having a marketplace for third-party integrations, Zoho Desk lacks important integrations with major platforms. Other users discuss having to buy the Zoho CRM to be able to integrate the other platforms in the suite.

Features

• Reporting and analytics

• Chatbots

• Self-service

• Ticketing system

• Mobile app chat

Pricing:

• Standard: $14 per user/month

• Professional: $23 per user/month

• Enterprise: $40 per user/month

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

15 days

3. Intercom

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Intercom offers customer service software while also extending its platform to marketing and sales. Intercom is a newer platform to the CX market and has adopted AI and automation capabilities to keep up with business trends. Intercom features Intercom Messenger, a communication tool that provides customers with self-service or live support options.

Users have reported issues with Intercom’s customer support, ranging from having difficulty connecting with anyone from the support team to overall negative experiences. Additionally, Intercom has a history of its platform crashing and with consistent system failures and downtime.

Features

• Reporting and analytics

• Integrations

• Self-service

• Ticketing system

• Mobile app chat

Pricing:

• Starter: $74 per month (includes 2 seats)

• Pro: Contact Intercom

• Premium: Contact Intercom

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

14 days

4. Help Scout

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Help Scout focuses on customer support (CS), but on a slightly smaller scale. The software’s CS footprint is limited to 12,000 businesses with a small sample of customer-backed proof points. The software features multi-channel support through a shared inbox, for those who prefer an interface similar to Gmail.

Help Scout doesn’t have a native voice or text solution, offers limited social channels, and has limited integrations (less than 100). Despite similarities to Gmail, the interface can be confusing and reports can have incorrect data.

Features

• Shared inbox

• Reporting and analytics

• Integrations

• Live chat and in-app messaging

• Knowledge base

Pricing:

• Standard: $20 per user/month

• Plus: $40 per user/month

• Pro: $65 per user/month

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

15 days

5. HubSpot Service Hub

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HubSpot started as a marketing and sales customer relationship management (CRM) platform, and continues to push resources into those areas while also trying its hand at CS. Because HubSpot is newer to customer service, the Service Hub may not be as polished as their other products.

HubSpot Service Hub has been described as “not very user-friendly.” It also has disjointed workflows with support tickets and inbox threads needing to be closed independently of each other. HubSpot Service Desk has a free option so you can try out its help desk and ticketing software yourself.

Features

• Shared inbox

• Help desk automation

• Knowledge base functionality

• Customer feedback and surveys

• Customer portal

Pricing:

• Free: $0 per month (limited features)

• Starter: $45 per month

• Professional: $450 per month

• Enterprise: $1,200 per month

  *Plans are billed annually

Free trial:

Unavailable

6. Front

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Front offers a multi-channel shared inbox for customer service. It allows service teams to organize requests in a single interface and collaborate with other support agents through tagging options instead of having to forward the entire request.

Front’s integration options are only around 70 and its app marketplace doesn’t include ratings. That can make it difficult to know how an integration might work for your business needs.

Front relies on third-party integrations to equip its platform with multiple channels. The platform doesn’t have a native voice or text app, help center, or knowledge base. Fewer communication channels can create roadblocks for customers who want to connect on their preferred channels.

Features

• Shared inbox

• Reporting and analytics

• Integrations

• Live chat

• Automations

Pricing:

• Starter: $19 per seat/month

• Growth: $59 per seat/month

• Scale: $99 per seat/month

• Premier: $229 per seat/month

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

Unavailable

7. LiveAgent

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LiveAgent is a help desk solution with customer communication and organizational tools, like live chat and a ticket management system. LiveAgent includes a multichannel interface with access to voice, chat, social media, SMS, and email support. Its ticketing system can automatically distribute tickets to agents based on predefined rules.

Despite these features, LiveAgent’s user experience has been described as “clunky.” It is missing reporting and analytics features needed to gather key insights. LiveAgent’s customer support experience can also be difficult and negative.

Features:

• Ticketing system

• Live chat

• Help center and knowledge base

• Reporting and analytics

• Prewritten messages

Pricing:

• Small business: $9 per agent/month

• Medium business: $29 per agent/month

• Large business: $49 per agent/month

• Enterprise: $69 per agent/month

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

7 or 30 days

8. HappyFox

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HappyFox’s customer support software helps teams streamline workflows and stay organized with an omnichannel workspace and ticketing system. It includes live chat and messaging for real-time and asynchronous communication options. HappyFox is customizable and includes automation that helps with repetitive tasks.

HappyFox service desk has self-service options, like help center articles, FAQ, and community forums, that provide 24/7 customer support. The platform’s real-time reporting and analytics dashboards are also customizable to meet your preferences.

Features:

• Ticketing system

• Reporting and analytics

• Automatic ticket scheduling

• Customizable end-user interface

• Omnichannel support

Pricing:

• Mighty: $29 per agent/month

• Fantastic: $49 per agent/month

• Enterprise: $69 per agent/month

• Enterprise Plus: $89 per agent/month

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

14 days

9. ProProfs Help Desk

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ProProfs Help Desk provides multichannel support through a shared inbox. The interface looks a lot like Gmail, offering a familiar user experience for many. The platform features automation that allows you to configure ticket assignments or round-robin distribution. Automated alerts and notifications keep agents aware of priority tickets and prewritten responses for faster replies.

ProProfs has reporting and analytics that provide metrics that help management teams assess individual and team performance. You can also share customer satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter ScoreⓇ, and custom surveys to collect customer feedback to gauge customer satisfaction.

Features:

• Customer portal

• Reporting and analytics

• Ticketing system

• Shared inbox

• Multichannel support

Pricing:

• Monthly plan: $20 per user/month

  *Plan is billed annually.

Free trial:

15 days

10. Kustomer

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Kustomer is a tricky one. Customer reviews compare similarly to Freshdesk, but because Meta has divested in the software, the future of Kustomer is uncertain.

Its agent interface features basic real-time chat, no native voice, and limited channels. The social messaging integrations are limited to less than five, so customers have fewer options to connect with agents. Kustomer reviews list issues with customer support and a dislike for the user interface.

Features

• Service level agreements (SLAs)

• Reporting and analytics

• Reliable integrations

• Self-service

• Ticketing system

Pricing

• Enterprise: $89 per user/month

• Ultimate: $139 per user/month

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

Unavailable

11. Zammad

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Zammad is a help desk, issue tracking, and ticketing system for customer support. It's an open-source, web-based solution, meaning if you have extra money and resources to employ a team of developers, you can adjust the code however you want.

Many review sites have only a small amount of user reviews, so it’s hard to tell if businesses are using Zammad. The platform offers many standard features, like reporting, integrations, chat, and text templates. Zammad also has a knowledge base that allows businesses to publish FAQs, help center articles, and internal SOPs, in addition to category permissions and ticket reminders to help teams stay organized.

Features

• Text modules

• Reporting and analytics

• Integrations

• Self-service

• Ticketing system

Pricing

• Starter: €5 per agent/month

• Professional: €15 per agent/month

• Plus: €24 per agent/month

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

30 days

12. Groove

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Groove is a cloud-based help desk software that aims to help remote teams. Though the platform lacks an omnichannel agent workspace, it offers a shared inbox that helps agents collaborate on requests in an “email-style” interface. It also offers live customizable chat tools, to better match your brand, and a knowledge base for 24/7 self-service support.

Groove lacks many standard features that help boost the customer and agent experience. These features include interactive voice response (IVR), call monitoring, recording, and routing. Additionally, it does not offer an activity dashboard and tracking or customizable forms.

Features

• Shared inbox

• Reporting and analytics

• Integrations

• Self-service

• Ticketing system

• Live chat

Pricing

• Standard: $12 per seat/month

• Premium: $20 per seat/month

• Advanced: $40 per seat/month

• Enterprise: Custom pricing

  *Plans are billed annually.

Free trial:

7 days

13. Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

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Spiceworks is known as much for its online community and networking resources for IT professionals as for its customer service SaaS. Its cloud help desk is listed as “free forever” on the website, but there's a caveat. To keep the software free, Spiceworks relies on advertisements, like banners and video ads, which slow down the system.

Spiceworks leans toward IT support but offers customer service features that include a community forum, ticket management system, customizable web portal, limited automation, ticket routing, and a basic reporting system.

Features

• Community forum

• Knowledge base

• Ticketing system

• Ticket routing

• Web portal

Pricing

• Cloud Help Desk: $0 per month

Free trial:

Unavailable

Here are a few key considerations for choosing the best Freshdesk alternative for your team:

• Its reporting gaps: Freshdesk lacks custom metric formulas, real-time dashboarding (reports take 30 minutes to update), and options for visualizing metrics against targets.
  

• Its disconnected agent workspace: Freshdesk offers different interfaces for each channel, which means less efficient agents.
  

• Its lack of robust knowledge management tools: Freshdesk doesn’t have workflows to manage the quality of help center content and requires teams to identify knowledge gaps manually.

Zendesk, on the other hand, has all these capabilities and more, which enable us to scale alongside your business. Unlike Freshdesk, Zendesk offers a unified omnichannel agent workspace, advanced reporting, and intelligent knowledge management. We are also exclusively focused on CX, empowering you with our thought leadership, best practices, and community of CX experts. The best practices built into our product, our CX expertise, and scalability ultimately enable us to deliver a high return on investment and low total cost of ownership.

Choosing the best alternative to Freshdesk is simple. Go with Zendesk, a trusted leader in customer service. Let’s get started together today.