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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
28th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (26th)
Freshdesk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (5th), Field Service Management (3rd), Knowledge Management Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 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 3.1%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Freshdesk3.1%
Cherwell Service Management1.7%
Other95.2%
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

"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"We use the solution every day and quite extensively."
"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable."
"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."
"It's free of charge for us. For our scale of business, it's very important. We don't have a lot of tickets."
"Ticket system - provides us with support tickets submitted by customers from various sources Sharing - team members can share progress of tickets"
"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."
"Through chats we now connect with a bigger audience and satisfaction surveys have allowed us to know clients' points of view in a better way."
"Our customer service is built around it, and has been for years."
"Freshdesk is very easy to use, it is user-friendly, and users can access knowledge base articles."
"There is the option to create different roles for specific users. We make use of groups for each customer service team which has been very effective. We are able to apply different sets of rules for each group which determines how they interact with customers and escalate issues."
"Freshdesk provides a plain vanilla solution, making it user-friendly and less complex."
 

Cons

"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly."
"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."
"Agile delivery should be supported."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"They need to improve their mobile interface, as well as features regarding the extension of the mobile access to the end user."
"We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"With the advancements in AI now, I will say Freshdesk should consider integrating more AI, but so far, I am satisfied with every single feature."
"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."
"While it's good for a small number of tickets, definitely in the future, we will require something more powerful."
"The billing issues I have with Freshdesk are in terms of additional users getting subscribed without my intervention."
"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."
"The most frustrating thing is definitely the solutions center customization."
"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."
"The solution's inbound calls could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"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."
"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."
"We use a licensing model only so we pay for the number of agents we have configured in the system only."
"The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."
"It is costly."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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.
886,077 professionals have used our research since 2012.