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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
27th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (27th)
Freshdesk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
6th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (5th), Field Service Management (3rd), Knowledge Management Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.7%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Freshdesk is 3.0%, down from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Freshdesk3.0%
Cherwell Service Management1.7%
Other95.3%
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

"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"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."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"These features are easy to use, and the filtering is really good, providing a good overview of active tickets and who's working on them."
"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."
"While using Freshdesk for their ticket management solution for reaching out to the end users, we are transferring a large part of that to the central team which is operating through ServiceNow, so everything which is flowing there ultimately flows into ServiceNow to give a 360-degree view of how well the support is running."
"The feature that I have found most valuable is the way that it connects to various folders especially because we use it as a CRM tool. We can connect it with our phones and our chat, and also with the API and have it as an email service. Freshdesk just makes our life easier."
"It's free of charge for us. For our scale of business, it's very important. We don't have a lot of tickets."
"Freshdesk is very easy to use and understand; it has one of the best ticket systems that is easy to understand and provides the best visibility to customers."
"The organization that is possible with other departments is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"Technical support is outstanding."
 

Cons

"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"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."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"We have many cases where a ticket comes in, and it ends up having multiple team members working on it. It would be really nice to be able to assign a single ticket to multiple people, rather than having to create the parent-child hierarchy that they have set up. It generates a proliferation of tickets that I really don't want to have. Having to jump from a parent to one child and then to another child makes it harder for me to be able to see the entire case from end to end. A simple example is our new hire process or our termination process. We have people who leave. We also have people who come on board. We have got multiple people participating and doing things related to the leaving or onboarding process. Currently, I have to go to different tickets to be able to see whether all tasks are really done or not. If I could assign lots of people to one ticket, it would be really nice."
"Having so many tags makes everyday work a lot more complicated, and a lot more time-consuming."
"An area for improvement in Freshdesk would be enabling all features regardless of company or user size."
"The reporting, analysis modules and insights capabilities for this solution could be improved."
"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."
"Technical support is not the best. It could be much, much better and offer better support to users."
"I would like on-the-go translation,"
"Freshdesk could improve its capabilities. It's missing the article formatting, and the overall look and feel make it not easy to use. The administration instructions on how to manage the automation, capability, and integration with third parties, such as chat or bots, are very important in these types of solutions."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"Freshdesk was the best solution with the best price. It was cost efficient and included all the features that we needed."
"It was definitely not expensive. It was two grand or maybe three grand total for a year. It has just straight and simple standard licensing fees. There is no additional fee."
"The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."
"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."
"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 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."
"It is costly."
"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
Computer Software Company
16%
Energy/Utilities Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Freshdesk?
Freshdesk significantly improved our customer issue resolution process. We can now easily record and track all customer requests, ensuring that no tickets are lost.
What needs improvement with Freshdesk?
Freshdesk works great, and I do not have any suggestions for improvement; however, I do expect more features to come in the near future. I wish for improvements related to the pricing point to enha...
What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?
My main use case for Freshdesk is for integration with the service desk, where I integrate it with Site24x7 to receive tickets based on notifications triggered by Site24x7. A specific example of ho...
 

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: February 2026.
882,160 professionals have used our research since 2012.