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Cherwell Service Management vs Freshdesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 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

Cherwell Service Management
Ranking in Help Desk Software
29th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (25th)
Freshdesk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (3rd), Field Service Management (3rd), Knowledge Management Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Freshdesk is 3.2%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Freshdesk3.2%
Cherwell Service Management1.7%
Other95.1%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Thobile Moeketsi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Sasria SOC Ltd.
Having everything in one location has significantly improved our efficiency and reporting
We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges. Even though it uses our Windows login, we still have to be on VPN. The product should be able to log tickets directly from system to system. We haven't got there yet and I'm not sure it's possible but it would determine the product's capability to integrate with other systems.
Gauri Thakur - PeerSpot reviewer
Director, Portfolio Projects at Microland Limited
Integrated support workflows have provided a unified view but need broader enterprise flexibility
Freshdesk's scalability could be improved for larger businesses across departments. Its intuitive interface is appealing for small to medium-sized businesses. However, when you look at larger enterprise levels, ServiceNow operates more efficiently. This scalability is an area where Freshdesk could expand its offerings. Additionally, I don't have too much hands-on experience with Freshdesk ticket routing. I need to check with the service desk team if they've used it. Similarly, for analytics capability, I haven't explored much on Freshdesk, but I have done it for ServiceNow. I have seen a lot on ServiceNow and the BMC Remedy, so I can speak better for them. I haven't had the chance to look at it so much that I can do a comparison. I haven't had much experience with Freshdesk's reporting. Within its paradigm of customer service management, Freshdesk is quite scalable. But I've said that inter-department and the interoperability is better off in ServiceNow than in Freshdesk.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable. It is also pretty stable, and it can be as scalable as you want."
"The best feature is the ability to create functional dashboards, where the IT manager can interact with its data through the dashboard using the drill down feature."
"We use the solution every day and quite extensively."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"Implementing CSM has made us very efficient and we're now able to plan changes and the steps required for implementation."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"We're able to respond to customer inquiries much faster and with better information."
"The UI is easy to use."
"Freshdesk provides a plain vanilla solution, making it user-friendly and less complex."
"I used Freshdesk for communication with the clients, such as real-time chats."
"It generated reports for us, which helped us identify the status of requests and the aging of requests."
"Freshdesk has positively impacted my organization to an extraordinary extent; I cannot find the words to express how much it helps our workforce."
"Their knowledge base is phenomenal. The way that it learns from our users is awesome, and responses are really awesome as well. It does a pretty good job of picking up what's needed. The knowledge bases are great."
"Freshdesk has allowed us to measure and track the response and resolution time of tickets which has been reduced from seven to eight hours down to 30 minutes to one hour."
 

Cons

"We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges."
"Agile delivery should be supported."
"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly. The shopping cart experience is also terrible - you submit and go straight to the cart, you can't continue shopping or see your overall cost."
"They need to improve their mobile interface, as well as features regarding the extension of the mobile access to the end user."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"The solution could be more user-friendly."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"I would like to see improvements in the account management aspect, having a customer portal for better visibility into my subscription, invoices, and trouble tickets."
"Sometimes our requirements are not matched with Freshdesk's free version as most of the advanced features are not available to us."
"The dashboards are useful but could be so much better. As a product manager, and data scientist, we couldn't use the dashboard for analytics and had to move the data in Power BI."
"It would be helpful to pull reports or schedule them based on agents, users, ticket numbers, or responses."
"An area for improvement in Freshdesk would be enabling all features regardless of company or user size."
"It should enhance its service and its reporting capabilities."
"There aren't any features that we want to enhance, but we need to mature in our usage of some of them. I can't say any feature is missing or needs improvement, but a tool's built-in features need to evolve customer feedback. We have a dialogue set up for that kind of feedback."
"Asset management and branding are two areas in the solution that have scope for improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"It is costly."
"We use a combination of Freshdesk, Freshservice, and Freshchat. We use the whole suite. Weirdly enough, we pay more for Freshdesk than we do for Freshservice. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing. You can get different bundles, and you can always move to different plans that are standard. Freshservice can go anywhere from $19 up to $120 per agent, per month. There is such a wide range, and it is very customizable to your needs."
"Freshdesk was the best solution with the best price. It was cost efficient and included all the features that we needed."
"The price could be better, but it's okay. Compared to ServiceNow and JIRA, Freshworks offers a competitive price. There are also additional licensing costs because you need Microsoft Outlook. Each new email account costs around $15 to $19."
"The best system plan is enterprise. It costs basically 79 Euros per agent per month when it's billed annually and 95 Euros per agent per month when it's billed monthly."
"The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."
"We pay approximately $70 per agent to use Freshdesk. We have 10 agents, which is approximately $700 or $800 per month. It is a fixed license, there are not any additional fees."
"We use a licensing model only so we pay for the number of agents we have configured in the system only."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with Freshdesk?
Freshdesk can be improved by addressing the lack of a custom dashboard, which would help design it to the client's requirement, and the API rate limit, which would be best if they provided an optio...
What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?
Our main use case of Freshdesk includes using it as a ticketing platform with live chat and support email for customers to send us tickets. We have agents on Freshdesk monitoring traffic and respon...
What advice do you have for others considering Freshdesk?
My advice to others looking into using Freshdesk is that when customers themselves want to contact a company for an issue, Freshdesk is best at helping them create tickets and reach out to the comp...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
Find out what your peers are saying about Cherwell Service Management vs. Freshdesk and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,487 professionals have used our research since 2012.