Freshservice vs. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Freshservice
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Freshservice is a cloud-based service desk and IT service management (ITSM) solution that currently serves more than 10,000 SMB, mid-market, and enterprise customers worldwide.
$29
per month per agent
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
ServiceDesk Plus is free help desk software from ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corporation.
$10
Starting Price Per Month
Pricing
FreshserviceManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Editions & Modules
Starter
$29.00
per month per agent
Growth
$59.00
per month per agent
Pro
$119.00
per month per agent
Enterprise
Custom
Standard
$10.00
Starting Price Per Month
Professional
$21.00
Starting Price Per Month
Enterprise
$50.00
Starting Price Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
FreshserviceManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsDiscount available for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
FreshserviceManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Considered Both Products
Freshservice
Chose Freshservice
Freshservice's UI and UX scheme is much easier to navigate than other products. Most modules or configurations are easily accessible via the admin section and workspace management is segmented off from global administration, allowing for business units to designate their own …
Chose Freshservice
Fresh service stacks up against DeskPro and heftily outweighs it. Freshservice is able to handle more workflow. It is able to house more information. It is more of a solution than just assistance with help desk ticketing. They are two different platforms. Freshservice has more …
Chose Freshservice
FreshDesk is great, if you have a smaller team with a shared inbox, unfortunately, FreshService helped segregate data from our department and others departments, in a way that FreshDesk didnt provide.
Chose Freshservice
Easy setup and a lot of customization which can be made.
They offer the full ITSM tool for 75$ per agent and all the PRO are included in the package, which makes it easy to calculate and use.
There are only a few add-ins that you need to pay for, based on the number of agents …
Chose Freshservice
Freshservice is far superior in every aspect
Chose Freshservice
Pricing and ease of implementation.
Chose Freshservice
Freshservice is far easier to configure than Service-now. While service-now is perhaps better suited for large enterprise organizations, it requires a dedicated to administer. Freshservice on the other hand, is relatively easy to configure, but certainly targeted to smaller and …
Chose Freshservice
It was not great, so we ended up not using after 1 year, and bought Freshservice
Chose Freshservice
Freshservice did a great introduction, took their time to setup sessions describing how they could help our business. They were easy to reach during POC and didn't try to give us more than we needed.
Chose Freshservice
I prefer Freshservice significantly because messages don't go away until you mark them as "resolved." With Slack, it is very easy to totally lose a message. With Workvivo, it is difficult to message at all—it connects with Slack for personal messages, but the functionality for …
Chose Freshservice
Freshservice has a much more complete package compared to Mojo Helpdesk, as it includes advanced automation, many integrations with 3rd party tools and asset management.
Chose Freshservice
I have used or evaluated ServiceNow, Zendesk, and Jira Service Management. ServiceNow is powerful but complex, Zendesk is great for customer support, and Jira excels in ITSM for agile teams.Freshservice stands out for its balance between usability and functionality, making ITSM …
Chose Freshservice
Customization of FreshService was so much easier than ChangeGear. Creating forms for end-users was difficult and didn't always work the way we wanted. The nail in the coffin was when we had a support call set up, and the IT Director was on the phone waiting, but no one joined …
Chose Freshservice
The user-interface, Marketplace, out-of-box Orchestrations and ability for Admins to perform product specific configurations at much easier and faster pace is a much loved feature of Freshservice, when comparing it with other ITSM solutions.
Chose Freshservice
Main reasons for choosing Freshservice where:
- It has a user-friendly interface from agent use to configuration and administration.
-High grade of customization options without a large use of external consultants.
Chose Freshservice
This is the first time I've been hired to do software management so unfortunately I have no prior experience with similar systems aside from a ticket system frontend. This speaks to how easy it was to setup and roll out Freshservice since I learned most of the inner workings by …
Chose Freshservice
Freshservice offers way more tools, much better support and has a very clean and more modern interface compared to sysaid
Chose Freshservice
Freshservice has a so many options which we have been extremely impressive with as it have some many options to ultize.

KACE overall the application has limited functionality and works as a basic IT ticketing with.
Chose Freshservice
As we are a smaller IT team, and a medium sized organization, we found most options for an ITSM to be more robust and overkill for our needs. Freshservice hit the mark in terms of features and pricing.
Chose Freshservice
The search list is WAY too hard to use - I have used
Jira service management - Freshservice is WAY better
ServiceNow ITSM, ITAM (SAM, HAM), ITOM, Project, Change - SNow is WAY better but also WAY WAY more expensive
Chose Freshservice
We use Freshservice for our wider business but use freshdesk, chat & caller for our customer service team. We believe Freshservice is a tool designed for IT & other departments and believe freshdesk provides better tools for our customer service team.
Chose Freshservice
We went with Freshservice because it was the tool that offered us the most complete solution for what we needed vs the competition. And its interface was one of our favorites.
Chose Freshservice
JumpCloud, ServiceNow Enterprise Asset Management, Okta and Admin Tools for Jira
Chose Freshservice
We used OTRS before Freshservice, and Freshservice is much easier to use and manage. We were checking on Service Cloud, as another branch of the company has implemented this, but there were a lot of features Service Cloud had problems with implementing that we take for granted …
Chose Freshservice
I wasn't able to fully leverage ServiceNow in the past. I only used ServiceNow's ticketing portal. But by just basing the self-service portal and SNow's ticketing module, I'd say that Freshservices' interface is way more customer-centric and user-friendly. I may be wrong or …
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
I use Jira Service Management in my personal lab environment to explore its features and DevOps integrations. While it's powerful and flexible, I find ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus more user-friendly and practical for enterprise IT environments.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Spiceworks was free, which obviously had both benefits and limitations - I will say that the community around Spiceworks has always been great. If we could replicate that experience with the ME user base, it would be terrific.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Jira Service Management is one of the strongest rival of Manage Engine Service Desk Plus. If we compare, both of them are really good for incident management and workflows. But when time to decide, Manage Engine Service Desk Plus is front of Jira Service Management with a few …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk just had the right combination of features available that our business required, and a more reasonable price than some of the other products that were looked at.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Compared to Cherwell, SDP is much much faster, and easier to deploy, set up, and use. But it does not have automation, and has limited customization. Since it is smaller and easier, it does not require any development effort. On the other hand, it is far more expensive, …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
We decided to make the change to move from ManageEngine Service Desk Plus to Spoke for our ticketing system solution. We have never looked back. Everything from the UI to the AI-driven auto responses is "night and day" better. It isn't even a question and we wouldn't be …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Spiceworks was free and was not a good looking interface. With ServiceDesk Plus we are able to brand it specifically for our company.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Zendesk is more intuitive and has a better interface. We have other areas on campus like our front facing students center that use Zendesk. Zendesk provides better in-depth reporting and is easier to roll-out to other areas on campus.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
We are actually moving away from ServiceDesk Plus to JIRA Service Desk. This is because of the flexibility that JIRA offers versus the more "locked in" fields in ServiceDesk. It also is going to allow us to better customize our requests and track our SLAs on different types of …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
We use Jira and Spiceworks in different departments in our company, but neither had the features we were looking for when it comes to end user facing help desk solutions. Jira is great for our coding/development teams but it doesn't have the ease of use that service desk plus …
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Just ended up being the winner of the tortoise race. Showed the most promise but costs to fulfill those promises made it fall short of expectations.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Spent a lot of time reviewing these type of software packages, this one does more right in a webified package. GotoAssist has the remote capability but lacks the resolution tracking of ServiceDesk Plus.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
We are able to do more things on SDP other than what TrackITcould do. And we went paperless, something TrackIT couldnt do.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Great overall ticketing system. Everything is very organized. Easy for someone to learn quickly without even seeing the product before.
Chose ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
No contest. Remedyforce required a full time investment to understand the use of cryptically named variables, so all changes needed to be made by a specially trained administrator. Remedy had terrible problem handing capability. ServiceDesk Plus is a polar opposite - most …
Features
FreshserviceManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Incident and problem management
Comparison of Incident and problem management features of Product A and Product B
Freshservice
8.2
Ratings
1% above category average
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
7.1
Ratings
13% below category average
Organize and prioritize service tickets9.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Expert directory8.30 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Service restoration8.40 Ratings5.00 Ratings
Self-service tools8.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Subscription-based notifications7.90 Ratings6.00 Ratings
ITSM collaboration and documentation7.60 Ratings10.00 Ratings
ITSM reports and dashboards8.10 Ratings8.00 Ratings
ITSM asset management
Comparison of ITSM asset management features of Product A and Product B
Freshservice
7.7
Ratings
6% below category average
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
7.7
Ratings
6% below category average
Configuration mangement7.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Asset management dashboard7.50 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Policy and contract enforcement8.20 Ratings6.00 Ratings
Change management
Comparison of Change management features of Product A and Product B
Freshservice
8.0
Ratings
5% below category average
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
8.0
Ratings
5% below category average
Change requests repository7.70 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Change calendar7.80 Ratings8.00 Ratings
Service-level management8.40 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
FreshserviceManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
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
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Score 9.2 out of 10
SysAid
SysAid
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
FreshserviceManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.7
(0 ratings)
6.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(0 ratings)
7.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
7.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.2
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
7.9
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
6.4
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.1
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.3
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
FreshserviceManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Likelihood to Recommend
Freshservice is a great all round product with many features. Asset management, Reporting, ticketing, automatization. It was much easier for us using the Freshservice app to scan barcodes for our new devices to get them in the asset management tool, automating certain tasks such as service requests for new devices automatically making a ticket and assigning assets to certain people and getting reports from this afterwards. For a medium to large size company this is great value. For a smaller business there are smaller bundles they provide which are much more affordable in case you do not need all of the features they provide. In summary, lots of features for a snappy, responsive piece of software.
Read full review
The cost for what you get is very good.
The amount of additional functionality is great too - we originally went in expecting to use it for just a helpdesk but eventually it evolved into change management and asset tracking.
We also started using the invoicing addon which helped massively and allowed us to track items from point of purchase to decommission.
Read full review
Pros
  • Asset Management Module: The features I like most in this module are the discovery agent software, which allows us to collect device information without manual intervention, and the simplicity and robustness of the module itself.
  • Service Catalog: This feature allows us to create forms tailored to specific service requests based on group requirements. The ability to customize forms greatly helps both us and our end-users provide the necessary information to fulfill their requests.
  • Workflow Automator and Business Rules: These two allow us to have some automation in place, eliminating some of the manual steps and decreasing the number of human errors that may happen due to manual changes.
Read full review
  • It's very simple to submit and handle ticket for both user and Engineer.
  • Set some customize template for intent replay or job done reply.
  • SLA management is the good option to maintain workflow.
  • There is solution option where user can resolve their common issues.
Read full review
Cons
  • Workflow management is hard to troubleshoot
  • Some default fields can't be changed
  • FAQ has no history
  • Work flow management can't be managed via API or a command line
  • Service Requests and contracts have no possibilities to choose how pricing will be calculated, like per month, per user, per year, per lifetime...
  • Automatic backup of assets and FAQ is not possible
Read full review
  • When trying to select the top row ticket, you have to be careful not to select all tickets. Happened to us twice and we assigned all open tickets to one technician. Took a few minutes to correct.
  • Site is sometimes a bit sluggish to respond. Don't know if that is an issue with our network infrastructure or the program itself, though.
  • When users send emails to the help desk, we sometimes experience delays until the tickets appear on the site for the technicians.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
We are pretty invested in Freshservice right now and have integrated it pretty heavily into our environment, so it would be hard to move away from it. For the most part, we are happy with Freshservice and the ease of use it gives us in managing tickets through the system. The only complaint we've had is customer service.
Read full review
we are looking at other tools like Zendesk which may replace ServiceDesk. We are currently evaluating both tools to see which one would serve our needs better
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Usability
Easy to navigate and use GUI. We have many infrastructure team members from various departments using Freshservice and their on-boarding and training was very straightforward and we have not received much, if any negative feedback from non-technology users in regards to overall usability, interface or functionality.
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It is still very cumbersome, lots of data entry on the back end to build how we want it but it is still not completely user friendly. Many functions still dont work and contacting someone for help isnt always easy or we get told solutions for issues we have just arent built yet.
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Reliability and Availability
Downtime is minimal (it does happen but not often)
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Performance
Most reports are quick, however, it can take some time for emailed exports to come via email. It would be helpful to have the exports live in the system rather than having to wait on emails.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Support from OEM is decent but needs improvement. Sometimes OEM also needs to understand the criticality of the customer and help as an Ad-hoc, which is somewhat lacking at Feshservice. Although the normal support team is well-equipped and helps according to the matrix, if something critical for the partner or customer requires immediate attention, it still goes through the L1-L2-L3 levels, which wastes a lot of time.
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Our network administrator usually gets a good response when contacting ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus customer service. They are quick to respond and so far have been able to eliminate most of our issues. We have been through several upgrades of the software over the years and have no issues to report in regards to customer service.
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In-Person Training
Training was enough to use the base website
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No answers on this topic
Online Training
Their documentation is pretty good, but only available in English. This makes it difficult for some of our users to understand. There are also some basic video courses available.
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No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Creating the correct groups for the stakeholders and enabling the right notifications are one of the most important aspect of the implementation. Creating Change templates will also help in the long run and it's a good practice to create one, if applicable.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Freshservice is ahead in some areas, behind in others. For example, workspaces have been part of other products for many years. Freshworks just introduced it in 2023. Integration with productivity tools is better than past products we have used. Apps continue to be added as well. We selected Freshservice as it was the best mix of functionality and cost. We don't need solutions as robust as ServiceNow, for example, but found that Freshservice had some comparable advanced features.
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No contest. Remedyforce required a full time investment to understand the use of cryptically named variables, so all changes needed to be made by a specially trained administrator. Remedy had terrible problem handing capability. ServiceDesk Plus is a polar opposite - most customization is done using plain English and simple screens.
Read full review
Scalability
The software is very scalable from a small to mid sized team. The features have seemed to scale exceptionally well.
Read full review
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • Alleviate our support team by providing knowledge directly to the end users.
  • Better response times from our IT support team, thanks to automation and dashboard use.
  • Better tracking of our assets by assigning them to users so we know which device was handed out to who. During off-boarding, we know which devices to ask back.
Read full review
  • It has provided better visibility to upper management in terms of the scale of the workload of the IT department
  • It has allowed licensed software to be tracked more efficiently, allowing redundant license to be reclaimed, rather than additional ones being purchased
  • It has fulfilled the requirements for multiple audits, including Microsoft audits, as it allows the assets and their software to be tracked
Read full review
ScreenShots

Freshservice Screenshots

Screenshot of Android App SupportScreenshot of Asset ManagementScreenshot of Project ManagementScreenshot of Asset ManagementScreenshot of Change ManagementScreenshot of Project Management