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Affinity vs Zendesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

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

Affinity
Ranking in CRM
21st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zendesk
Ranking in CRM
18th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (6th), Help Desk Software (8th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (7th), Sales Force Automation (8th), Reporting (14th), Knowledge Management Software (4th), Community Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the CRM category, the mindshare of Affinity is 1.0%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 1.2%, down from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zendesk1.2%
Affinity1.0%
Other97.8%
CRM
 

Featured Reviews

Marcus Quinn - PeerSpot reviewer
Open source, stable and capable of working with existing Adobe files
Affinity Photo needs to work more. They need to align as much as possible with the shortcuts and keystrokes of Adobe. It's just because when you learn a tool as a professional, you tend to learn all the shortcuts and keystrokes. And if they're not the same as the same type of products that you migrated from, you lose productivity because you forget how to do things. You don't know where things are on the menu. You don't know the icon for it because you just know it as, "Oh, if I press this key, I get that." You forget the user interface. You just remember the keystrokes and the shortcuts. So, if that could align as much as possible with what I'm used to from Adobe, that would be good. And there's another product I use called Pixelmator Pro. And as much as I wish Affinity Photos did everything that Photoshop did, I actually ended up using this other product, Pixelmator, more for image editing because I just find it faster and more in line with what I remember from Photoshop. So, they are good. They've designed a good product. It's just the shortcuts and keystrokes need to match what people are used to, especially coming from Adobe because, let's say, it didn't exist. Affinity is a newer product.
JohanSkibdahl - PeerSpot reviewer
Automating customer support with advanced AI capabilities and seamless communication
Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls. It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. This intelligent tool can manage complex queries before users even realize they are interacting with a non-human. Additionally, we have integrated Zendesk with Datto and Klaviyo, enhancing our workflows.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Affinity are the connection features it provides because you have a large database of startups. The people who worked in the companies and founded them are displayed in Affinity. It can show if they are using some special intelligence feature and that you may know this person, of your connections. For example, if they know the person. It works similar to the way LinkedIn does when you seek a connection. Additionally, Affinity shows how close this person is and how often they contact each other."
"I like that it's completely automated. It's a very robust system. You are not going to have faults in it."
"For me, the most valuable feature is the fact that they work with existing Adobe files. And open and edit PDFs and web-optimized exports. It's been very good."
"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."
"What is cool about Zendesk Guide is how it works together with others Zendesk products. Especially with support and with the analytics. Put those together for a small or medium-sized company and it's a really powerful tool."
"I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to use, and I haven't encountered any issues with delays or communication gaps in ticket resolutions."
"It is very easy to connect back and forth between the requester and the person fulfilling the ticket."
"Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly."
"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use. If you take the standalone product, it is so easy to use, but if you want a tailor-made Zendesk Guide, you can't do it yourself. However, you can use a template that already exists—they have a lot, and they're very cheap, around 300-400 euros—and use it on all your brands. It's a very easy product to use."
"It has good management, the ability to sign tickets based on content, the multi-channel support, the self service portal, the integration with Salesforce, the setup process, and the product features as we are currently using them."
"We rarely had issues with Zendesk."
 

Cons

"Affinity could improve by adding more features. It has been a while since I have used it, but when I did, the features could improve."
"It would be better if it were "pay-per-user" instead of "pay-per-account." For example, I'm Siddharth Mallya, and I have two email accounts. Each of those accounts is a separate payable account for me. For instance, I have created a network using my personal email ID, and now I have moved to my company email ID. It'll choose any one of those accounts, and that will become my paid account. For example, if I put in my personal email ID, then that's the account that I pay for. But I'm no longer using it, and it's not going to get updated. If I put in my work email ID, then that's an entirely separate account that I have to pay for."
"To get people to migrate, Affinity needs to somehow give them an incentive to change. The key is to make it as similar as possible. Shortcuts and keystrokes would be my biggest learning curve. So, to scale, you're going to have to convince people to relearn their workflow, and everybody's too busy to do that. Scalability is kind of mid because you face adoption resistance if you're pushing out to a studio or staff that are used to Adobe. Many products don't think beyond Microsoft and Adobe. If it's not Microsoft, then they don't understand. So, scalability is a challenge."
"The solution itself wasn't easy to set up."
"The dashboard could be better."
"It wasn't easy to set up so we're only using a third of all of the features,"
"The data you get when logged in to Zendesk Support differs from the data you get when you programmatically query Zendesk Support through its API because of a sync time delay."
"If I write an article, and I have a team of 30 people, and they all have a Zendesk account, when I write an article, I send them an email. "Hey guys, I just wrote this article. It's one of the most popular topics this month on which we are not covered. Please check it and make sure that you include it in your resolutions". The issue is, once I send it to those 30 people, and they open it, the next morning, that article is the most popular article."
"Zendesk Guide could be improved by allowing us to put our assets in one location. What happens now for each article, for example, is we have to upload the images for that article to that location, so the image reuse is still not something that they have perfected. If they could allow us to update all the images in one location, and then pull the image from there, it would be easier when working on Multibrand projects. There are no Multibrand updates available—we have to update each brand manually. For my company, I have come up with an API tool which allows me to push the content to multiple brands together, but if you don't have something like that, you have to manually do it."
"They have something called Zendesk Explore, which isn't as good as what they had in place previously."
"The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Affinity is an expensive solution. However, they over a free version trial. The solution is expensive but the people that have used it say it is worth the money."
"Affinity follows a pay-per-account model, and I think there will be a monthly or a yearly paid subscription. I have heard that it was expensive."
"The price is very competitive."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."
"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."
"There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."
"Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
University
11%
Retailer
7%
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Performing Arts
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Affinity?
For me, the most valuable feature is the fact that they work with existing Adobe files. And open and edit PDFs and web-optimized exports. It's been very good.
What needs improvement with Affinity?
Affinity Photo needs to work more. They need to align as much as possible with the shortcuts and keystrokes of Adobe. It's just because when you learn a tool as a professional, you tend to learn al...
What do you like most about Zendesk Support?
I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
Zendesk's pricing is reasonable. It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
I'm going to piggyback on what I said regarding Freshdesk concerning what could be better in Zendesk: incorporate more AI. I know many CRM tools are already on the way to do that.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

T3 Advisors, Cushman & Wakefield,
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Affinity vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,566 professionals have used our research since 2012.