No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

3CX Live Chat vs Zendesk Messaging comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

3CX Live Chat
Ranking in Live Chat
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Virtual Meetings (7th), IP PBX (1st), Unified Communications (2nd), Hosted and Cloud Based VoIP (4th)
Zendesk Messaging
Ranking in Live Chat
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Text Messaging (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Live Chat category, the mindshare of 3CX Live Chat is 6.8%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk Messaging is 6.4%, up from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Live Chat Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
3CX Live Chat6.8%
Zendesk Messaging6.4%
Other86.8%
Live Chat
 

Featured Reviews

Ram Maruboina - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Engineer – Rust Systems & AI Evaluation at Turing
Real-time chat has boosted customer satisfaction and improves team efficiency and lead conversion
We could improve with better advanced chatbot customization, stronger AI-powered conversations, automatic deep CRM and third-party integration, more detailed analytics and reporting, additional customization options for chats, and improvements to mobile app performance and workflow automation. Regarding security, it is essential for customer-facing interactions. I would point out the real-time data lag, which is a significant gap, and enhancements in system reporting and live data update metrics are necessary. We also miss deep customer journey insights, along with user interface improvements, mobile widgets, and agent experience enhancements, especially with security and privacy configurations. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate 3CX Live Chat as an 8 because it has excellent control over the PBX license while enabling instant transitions from chat to voice and video calls. The reasons for losing those two points include basic analytics, widget customization options, and limited standalone chat tools compared to its competitors, which have higher market shares. With the right developers, they could excel in this area. The reason I chose the number eight is not only about analytics or customization but due to reliability bugs and agent workflow frictions, which affect the overall reporting coherence. Reliability and security glitches are significant drawbacks.
Jairo Vega - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Unified chat and ticket history has improved 24/7 global support efficiency and reduced contacts
I believe the best feature in Zendesk was in the chat; it allows you to seamlessly change between having, for example, a ticket and a client opening a chat, and all this information is saved in the same ticket. You don't have to create different tickets for different features. Everything was on the same ticket, making it easy to follow the history of the client, regardless of whether they first sent an email, then a chat, then something else. That was our main feature, and it was a really good feature that I liked the most. On the chat, we automated it, and we actually get really great results with Zendesk. We ended up lowering the customer contact rate thanks to the automations that we generated, connecting them to our help articles. The bot was connected to our help articles and it reflected around 12% of the incoming tickets, so that was super good because we wanted to make the creation rate of tickets as low as possible per customer.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"We have multiple branches countrywide and we all connect to one seamless system for all our communication needs."
"It has made my life as the VoIP Division Manager easier."
"3CX has strong reporting and management features; you can manage the capabilities of a call center with queues and timers, and it is a complete solution."
"Over the past several years we have deployed and worked on over 100+ 3CX platforms in all shapes, sizes and flavors, from on premise to cloud based it is our go to solution for clients needing a robust UC/PBX platform."
"The collaboration features allowed us to consistently provide cohesive communication with our customers as all team members could participate regardless of their geographic location."
"3CX Phone System has made the way we handle our calls much more efficient."
"Integrated Web Meeting and Video Conferencing with mobile app is a big sales feature."
"I can safely say that there is nothing that beats the ease of deployment, functionality and stability of 3CX."
"Zendesk Messaging would be recommended to other companies."
"We like the mobile application, which allows us to provide a faster response to the customer."
"Stability-wise, this product is outstanding."
"On the chat, we automated it, and we actually get really great results with Zendesk."
 

Cons

"The support team can appear to be condescending."
"It is not supported by Linux versions. This product is also not open source, which is not much appreciated by the guys like me, who love experimenting with the codes of any product they receive."
"Some customers want to integrate a CRM solution with 3CX, but it's not compatible."
"Bluetooth audio support for 3CX IOS app is needed."
"For firewall: Its advice is to disable the firewall to allow voice to pass through the network, but there are instants when you don't disable the firewall for security reasons that NAC port comes in."
"Its features for scheduling and generating reports need improvement."
"There should be an option to save some extensions."
"Support for more desktop phones as a standard would be helpful. They are heavy on Yealink phones and when moving from legacy systems we find it a bit cumbersome to add those phones on to 3CX and then auto-provisioning becomes quite a task."
"AI capabilities could be improved, as that is something everyone is trying to integrate now to automate more effectively."
"We would like to have auto-templates for TT closure and TT updates."
"I believe they could implement AI in a better way for Zendesk Messaging."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Switching from POTS or PRI to SIP Trunk save the customer real costs. ROI is seen in less than a year."
"The price of the solution is reasonable. There are a few license options and we are using an enterprise license."
"We used a yearly license depending on the customer's requirements, and the customers did not complain about the pricing."
"We have purchased an annual license to use 3CX Live Chat. There are different options available, you can pay monthly or yearly. I am completely satisfied with the pricing of 3CX Live Chat, it is cheaper than competitors and it is a better solution."
"The price of the solution has been reasonable. We have not had any problems or complaints with the licensing model. We have not reached a point where we need to upgrade. We have all the correct channels."
"3CX sells an annual subscription, but we usually split it out monthly for clients, so they don't see an annual bill for the 3CX licensing, it's just part of their monthly phone bill. As they're paying us for carrier service anyway, we just roll it all together. Your standard phone service would be an additional cost, you either need to maintain a local carrier with POTS lines or PRI or a SIP, or you have to go with a cloud-based SIP."
"The price of the solution is in the middle range compared to other solutions. There are different license options available. For example, there is a professional version and an enterprise version, and with the enterprise version, you have the ability to modify the dashboards. You can purchase a license at many different time frame increments, such as monthly, yearly, or two years."
"There aren't any additional costs. With the license I purchased, I have all features that I need. I don't have to buy an add-on or another license."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Live Chat solutions are best for your needs.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business41
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise3
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for 3CX Live Chat?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for 3CX Live Chat is generally positive. The pricing structure is straightforward, and the licensing models are user-friendly, leading to a smo...
What needs improvement with 3CX Live Chat?
We could improve with better advanced chatbot customization, stronger AI-powered conversations, automatic deep CRM and third-party integration, more detailed analytics and reporting, additional cus...
What is your primary use case for 3CX Live Chat?
My main use case for 3CX Live Chat is customer support, website live chat, and lead generation. For my customer support and lead generation use, I worked with 3CX Live Chat for customer inquiries i...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Chat?
I believe they could implement AI in a better way for Zendesk Messaging. Right now, there is an AI, but it's not to the level of being an actual agent that can help a customer before getting to a h...
What is your primary use case for Zendesk Chat?
We tried to implement a 24/7 kind of global support with Zendesk, so we enabled Talk and enabled chat and ticketing, so everything was enabled in the workspace. We tried to handle every single requ...
What advice do you have for others considering Zendesk Messaging?
We're mostly based on data, and we do not engage in workload automation or testing. Right now, we use Linear in addition to JIRA for our operations. I gave this review a rating of 9.
 

Also Known As

3CX PBX
Zendesk Talk
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about 3CX Live Chat vs. Zendesk Messaging and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.