KronoDesk vs. Parature (Discontinued)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
KronoDesk
Score 6.9 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
KronoDesk is an integrated customer support system that includes help desk ticketing, support forums and a self-service knowledge base.
$63.66
per month per concurrent user
Parature (Discontinued)
Score 5.0 out of 10
N/A
Parature was a self-service customer support platform providing a self-service knowledge base to connect with customers across multiple channels. The company was acquired by Microsoft in January 2014 and reached EOL in 2017.N/A
Pricing
KronoDeskParature (Discontinued)
Editions & Modules
Cloud
$63.66 per
per month per concurrent user
Download
$633.66
per year per concurrent user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
KronoDeskParature (Discontinued)
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual billing on cloud plans. Discount available for volume of concurrent users. 3 concurrent user minimum.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
KronoDeskParature (Discontinued)
Considered Both Products
KronoDesk
Chose KronoDesk
Several freeware/shareware tools like Bugzilla are missing integration with other systems.
HP, IBM and CA like systems are too cumbersome and complicated for "normal" users, for me too much "hassle" to monitor issues and related information and links to other issues.
Parature (Discontinued)
Chose Parature (Discontinued)
I have not used any other products, but my colleagues have and Parature is a blessing in comparison.
Chose Parature (Discontinued)
I haven't used many similar products.
Chose Parature (Discontinued)
There are services that do bits and pieces of what Parature does. We liked the idea of having one service that meets our needs.
Chose Parature (Discontinued)
Before choosing Parature we reviewed many of the currently available solutions before building our short list of Parature, SugarCRM, Zendesk, Salesforce, and NetSuite. In the end, the licensing models for Salesforce and Netsuite eliminated them from consideration. The SugarCRM …
Chose Parature (Discontinued)
Parature comes in at just the right blend between ticketing solutions like Ceridian and Remedy. Ceridian is a little too cut-down/simple while Remedy can be mired by its complexity. Parature shares the same features as quite a few other ticketing solutions, but hits strongly in …
Chose Parature (Discontinued)
I'm currently using Solarwinds Web Help Desk and I think the 2 are very comparable. I didn't select either product but I'd rate Parature at the same level as WHD or better.
Chose Parature (Discontinued)
Salesforce is so much more intuitive and the layout is so much better. I never had any training nor did I need it with SF and with Parature it was a constant battle to understand its issues. I don't like to feel I have to resort to a manual every time I use the product.
Chose Parature (Discontinued)
Between SolarWinds and Altiris, I like the advantage that Parature gives. The auto reply is a huge assistance when dealing with people outside of my organization.
Chose Parature (Discontinued)
At the time, I believe we chose Parature because of pricing. That decision was made before my tenure with the company.
Features
KronoDeskParature (Discontinued)
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
KronoDesk
8.2
Ratings
2% above category average
Parature (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Organize and prioritize service tickets8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Expert directory8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket creation and submission8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Ticket response8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Self Help Community
Comparison of Self Help Community features of Product A and Product B
KronoDesk
8.2
Ratings
5% above category average
Parature (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
External knowledge base8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Internal knowledge base8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-Channel Help
Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of Product A and Product B
KronoDesk
8.4
Ratings
8% above category average
Parature (Discontinued)
-
Ratings
Customer portal8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
IVR8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Social integration8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Email support9.10 Ratings00 Ratings
Help Desk CRM integration8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
KronoDeskParature (Discontinued)
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 9.1 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
KronoDeskParature (Discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(0 ratings)
6.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
6.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
2.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
7.5
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
KronoDeskParature (Discontinued)
Likelihood to Recommend
I advise my customers to use it for all issue tracking, in business development as well as in business operations. An interface to operational systems is therefor very helpful and enlarges the value of the KronoDesk knowledge base, provided that this information is "open" to all users of all departments.
Read full review
Parature earns a "7" on my rating scale because it fits the bill for a ticketing solution. While it is not the most powerful utility I have come across, it is fairly user friendly and gets the job done. There is quite a bit of room for customizing the interface, but it comes with a learning curve. A score of "7" reflects what I would tell anyone who is looking for feedback on this application; it's better than a majority of the market share, but still has room to grow!
Read full review
Pros
  • As a system architect I have a clear overview of open issues through clear issue description and assignment to developers.
  • The overview and tracking are most important to me.
Read full review
  • Syncs all support emails into cases that can the be prioritized, monitored, and tracked.
  • Provides easy canned responses to common support questions helping save time.
  • Provides live chat.
Read full review
Cons
  • The possibility to create a system/subsystem/component/interface tree of the system landscape, to be used to more detailed issue associations and subsequent detailed planning and monitoring of issues.
  • A quick issue entry with the most important information would be helpful.
  • A "live" report that can contains my current "hot" issues would be helpful.
Read full review
  • Implementation- I think they have worked on improving this since we launched
  • Custom requests
  • Perhaps an interface with other business systems
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
We left Parature for Salesforce Service Cloud. While Parature was functional, as our business matured we needed better support, more stability, and a lot more features. In addition, it integrated with our sales, marketing, and finance department, allowing us to all use a single solution and be able to share information across departments.
Read full review
Usability
No answers on this topic
It was bulky, cumbersome, and didn't allow us to handle the volume of cases we received on a daily basis. Many of our issues were highly technical in nature and we would often need to work on 2 or 3 at once. The poor design choices prevented this, which was unfortunate.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
They recently had one very extended outage. It was a data center issue - but they were not diversified enough so in the end the system was down for almost 8 hours. There are also periods of time where for no reason the system simply doesn't respond. This small outages are usually short (just a few minutes), and have in fact been occurring less often, so it appears some corrective actions have been taken.
Read full review
Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Nothing ever seemed to get resolved
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Several freeware/shareware tools like Bugzilla are missing integration with other systems. HP, IBM and CA like systems are too cumbersome and complicated for "normal" users, for me too much "hassle" to monitor issues and related information and links to other issues.
Read full review
Before choosing Parature we reviewed many of the currently available solutions before building our short list of Parature, SugarCRM, Zendesk, Salesforce, and NetSuite. In the end, the licensing models for Salesforce and Netsuite eliminated them from consideration. The SugarCRM solution was our current solution, and didn't appear to be a key area of focus for Sugar (though we continue to use SugarCRM for everything except the Ticketing feature). Zendesk lacked the Download Module feature which is a critical element of our deployment. In the end, it was Parature that addressed all of the needs we identified and did so in a single, hosted solution. It was also one of the least expensive to deploy and maintain.
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • The ROI is reached faster and exponentially higher, depending on the number of users and cooperating business units.
Read full review
  • Positive: everything is housed in one place, we are paperless and we are efficient.
  • Negative: the bugs of this product make the above equally as frustrating. Also, some people don't use it correctly and going back and fixing their mistake is time-consuming. The reporting feature are also pretty flawed.
Read full review
ScreenShots

KronoDesk Screenshots

Screenshot of an example dashboard.Screenshot of the knowledge base.Screenshot of the reporting interface.Screenshot of the support forums.