Cherwell Service Management vs ServiceNow vs Zendesk comparison

Read 225 ServiceNow reviews

24,579 Views
8,848 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Cherwell Service Management

Read 68 Zendesk reviews

6,933 Views
2,496 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cherwell Service Management, ServiceNow, and Zendesk based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in IT Service Management (ITSM).

To learn more, read our detailed IT Service Management (ITSM) Report (Updated: March 2026).

IT Service Management (ITSM)

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Helped 885,444 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 15.8%, down from 24.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 4.8%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ServiceNow	15.8%
Zendesk	4.8%
Cherwell Service Management	1.7%
Other	77.7%

IT Service Management (ITSM)

Featured Reviews

Thobile Moeketsi

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.

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MichaelTang1

Manager of Security Engineering & Architecture at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Seamless data integration and advanced automation improve service delivery efficiency

I think that nothing needs to be improved with the product; you just need the user to commit and spend appropriate time to overcome that learning curve. Once that is done, the product itself is pretty wonderful. I've seen a very nicely built interface with ServiceNow, and I've also seen the ugliest version that feels outdated. ServiceNow does allow that team to exist. They should modernize their fonts and their layout, the UI friendliness. They did introduce AI, chatbots, and AI on the back end, so that's wonderful and extremely useful if you train it. If you don't train it, it's pretty useless. Assessing the impact of ServiceNow's automation on service delivery times is complicated. The engineers who operate on ServiceNow find it isn't straightforward because the data set is accessible by everybody. The problem is that understanding how to manage that data set requires an enormous amount of engineering skill set to run the product. I would not hand the key to the customer; I would highly recommend that ServiceNow take control of that. Instead of offering support for the software, they should offer administrative support for the software. They should provide professional service or some kind of support system that allows us to use their product at a faster pace. I'm sure they offer something, but it's often outrageously expensive, or they rely on another company to resell their product and offer professional service. It makes no sense in my opinion, and they should offer the team at the front to help customize the product to fit each company's needs, as every company has different demands and forms of submitting a request that need adjustment over time.

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AmandaSanchez

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams

The ability to communicate on the Zendesk ticket through the actual user software, so TOPs, would have been helpful. Somehow seeing a user's ticket history within our app would have been beneficial. That is the only thing that I do not think existed at the time that might have been helpful. Some people struggled with Zendesk, but it was always easy enough to show them how to use it and what they were missing. The only times we really had people report concerns about it was when they did not understand that it could do that or how to use it in that way.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the solution every day and quite extensively."

"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."

"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."

"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."

"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."

"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 dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."

"Implementing CSM has made us very efficient and we're now able to plan changes and the steps required for implementation."

More Cherwell Service Management pros

"The solution helps us to collaborate and it's great that it is knowledge-based."

"ServiceNow is one of the few easiest platforms you can integrate with products like Ansible to automate your workflows."

"Its integrated process data-model is a feature that's valuable for us."

"It's more about the ease of use of ServiceNow. Plus, everything is there in a single platform. If you need any additional functionality, you just need to enable the plugins without even installing anything on the servers"

"Simplicity of Change Manager."

"Straightforward tool."

"It's a great platform but it's so open that you can get bogged down pretty quickly in trying to make all of your customers happy."

"You can have it installed and up and running within hours if you know what you're doing."

More ServiceNow pros

"Zendesk is a great product but find a software package that will work best for your team and company."

"This feature allowed our team organize and assign certain members to a particular group."

"My advice to others looking into using Zendesk is that if you are looking for a tool that is cheaper than others but provides a good solution, I would let them know that Zendesk is the best option."

"My advice to others looking into using Zendesk is that if you need an alternative to GitHub Actions or GitHub issues, this is worth looking at."

"It helps us save costs, time, and energy, and it improves the relationship with my customers."

"If you are looking for a simple ticketing system that anyone can understand and implement (support personnel who is not tech-savvy) then this is the one."

"Zendesk Support has a lot of good APIs."

"Our company is based on this model and wouldn't be as successful as we are today without this support structure in place."

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"The support from the actual manufacturer is poor."

"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."

"The solution could be more user-friendly."

"Agile delivery should be supported."

"We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges."

"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly."

"They need to improve their mobile interface, as well as features regarding the extension of the mobile access to the end user."

"Access is only available if we're on VPN."

More Cherwell Service Management cons

"Change Management is the area I have found that this tool can be improved because there are so many fields which are missing, such as urgency of the customer request and how the priority is defined. These are some of the areas in which I found that BMC Remedy is much better than ServiceNow."

"It's too complicated and there are too many options."

"Just ease of use for people who aren't very technically savvy."

"They're inconsistent. Depending on who you get, they may or may not be able to immediately provide the kind of response you need and sometimes they take a while to do it."

"The pricing could be lowered. It's pretty high."

"It's a great platform, but there's still room for improvement. As the solution stands now, you do need a lot of previous experience to use it."

"There were performance issues, minor ones, with one customer."

"The customization that we are doing for the needs of our organization are difficult to do and could be improved."

More ServiceNow cons

"There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier."

"One of the drawbacks of Zendesk is that it doesn't provide a secure way for us to send data. So, we usually use a secure SharePoint folder link. We put that in the Zendesk ticket so that the requester has a secure way of getting to their data."

"The more customization you do, the slower it will be. Maybe this could be improved."

"As Zendesk is an international business and has customers world-wide, it would be nice if it would provide 24/7 support."

"I would like easy access for the mobile app as it can take quite a while to load the data."

"It is easy to use, however, it is not quite as powerful as many other ticketing systems out there."

"I would like to see improvement in the "trigger" sections and "macros" as well."

"Support is not great. Their support is that specific support you get from a big American tech company."

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."

"ServiceNow tends to be a little bit more expensive as compared to BMC Helix ITSM."

"ServiceNow pricing is an art, not a science. The deal depends on how commercially savvy you are, which does make it something that is quite difficult to get right. It is most definitely an opportunity area for ServiceNow to improve and have more visibility around pricing of the different products within the platform."

"We are happy with the pricing."

"There are licensing fees."

"The price of this solution is expensive."

"ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's."

"The platform offers a free trial, by providing a free developer instance once you sign up."

"There is an annual subscription to use this solution."

More ServiceNow pricing and cost advice

"The price is very competitive."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Healthcare Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	55
Midsize Enterprise	35
Large Enterprise	168

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	21
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

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Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?

The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into t...

Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?

Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ...

What do you like most about ServiceNow?

The solution has a user-friendly interface.

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 ...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?

From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that i...

What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?

I wish there was a more easily dynamic tool. Currently, it is quite difficult because not all the tools are labeled. ...

BMC Helix ITSM vs Cherwell Service Management

Comparisons

Compared 15% of the time

Ivanti Neurons for ITSM vs Cherwell Service Management

Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 7% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs Cherwell Service Management

Compared 5% of the time

Hornbill Systems Supportworks vs Cherwell Service Management

Compared 5% of the time

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BMC Helix ITSM vs ServiceNow

Compared 5% of the time

IBM Maximo vs ServiceNow

Compared 5% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs ServiceNow

Compared 4% of the time

Freshservice vs ServiceNow

Compared 3% of the time

TeamDynamix vs ServiceNow

Compared 3% of the time

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JIRA Service Management vs Zendesk

Compared 6% of the time

Freshservice vs Zendesk

Compared 6% of the time

Freshdesk vs Zendesk

Compared 3% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs Zendesk

Compared 2% of the time

NICE CXone vs Zendesk

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

IT Service Management (ITSM)

Download Cherwell Service Management product report

Download ServiceNow product report

Download Zendesk product report

Also Known As

No data available

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Overview

Cherwell Service Management is a powerful IT service management (ITSM) solution that provides IT organizations the flexibility needed for rapid configuration and customization, minimal overhead, and frictionless upgrades at a fraction of the cost and complexity associated with legacy ITSM solutions. Cherwell's codeless design architecture means you can add new functionality without modifying a single line of code, integrate easily with third party applications, and upgrade without fear of breaking what you've built.

Ivanti

ServiceNow is a cloud-based task-management platform that specializes in IT operations management (ITOM), IT services management (ITSM), and IT business management (ITBM). ServiceNow allows users to manage their teams, projects, and customer interactions using a variety of different plugins and apps with which it easily integrates.

ServiceNow offers prebuilt applications to support any process, as well as a framework and tools that allow you to build your own.

ServiceNow’s service management solutions include change, request, incident, problem, and cost management, as well as HR, IT, field service, and facilities management solutions. They also cover business management solutions such as vendor performance management, financial management, performance analytics and project portfolio suite, as well as governance, risk, and compliance.

“The Smarter Way to Workflow”

ServiceNow’s activities, processes, and tasks are overseen as part of a comprehensive managed workflow that supports such features as real-time collaboration, communication, and resource sharing. ServiceNow’s suite of products allow for operation using serverless computing, and include the categories of Business Apps, Customer Service, HR, IT, and Security.

ServiceNow can be used to support most workflows because of the wide range of tools it offers. These include on-suite ticketing tools, predictive modeling to manage workflows, and benchmarking for the tracking of progress. ServiceNow can assist with artificial intelligence and machine learning processes and can be used to organize the cases of a help/service desk as well as for instance management and problem management. It also smoothly integrates with many legacy systems.

ServiceNow offers service management software for industries including:

Cloud services
Education
Financial services
Government
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Telecommunications

Reviews from Real Users

PeerSpot users prefer ServiceNow to its competitors because of its scalability, stability, and ease of use. It helps everyone in the company to be on the same page by creating a single source of record across all departments. One user stated that “I’ve definitely used over 20 project management solutions, but they can't be compared with ServiceNow.” Another said that “ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI.”

Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace

AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow

Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber

IT Service Management (ITSM)