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ConnectWise PSA 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

ConnectWise PSA
Ranking in Help Desk Software
24th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
Business Management Software (1st), Professional Services Automation (PSA) (4th)
Freshdesk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (5th), Field Service Management (3rd), Knowledge Management Software (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of ConnectWise PSA is 2.1%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Freshdesk is 2.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Freshdesk2.9%
ConnectWise PSA2.1%
Other95.0%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

JonMcWilliams - PeerSpot reviewer
Very useful for ticketing and billing purposes
In this case, we have the ability to fire on tasks. An email can be sent, and it is being received into the Kaseya tool or Autotask. Autotask then can parse the email appropriately and route it based on the rules that we set up. In that sense, it's very dynamic, and I can immediately identify which client is making a support request. It can route it to the appropriate queue and then send out the appropriate notifications. As work is done on the ticket, you can also notify the person requesting support or other pre-designated contacts so that they're kept in the loop. ConnectWise PSA is making its updates, and its integration with Office 365 has been really good. I like the fact that the solution integrates with IT Glue. ConnectWise PSA is making improvements, and it's a little bit more dynamic. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Bharanidharan K - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly interface but needs enhancement in ticket tracking and response times
There is no room for improvement in Freshdesk. We can set a time period for particular employees as something that could be better. For example, if some new employees are unfamiliar with Freshdesk, it should be more user-friendly. They need to give shortcut keys to use the ticketing portal. If some users don't know how to generate a ticket, providing them with a help desk or tutorial portal would be useful for the end-user.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a nice ticketing system."
"The most valuable feature is the management of projects from start to finish."
"It's a pretty simple web interface. The rules engine was really easy to set up, and it ingests emails very well."
"The product has been pretty stable so far."
"The ease of reporting is valuable. We have a weekly management meeting, and we gather numbers from ConnectWise in preparation for that. It is helpful for measuring how we're doing in our performance."
"All the features of ConnectWise Manage are valuable. However, ticketing, customer management, customer communication, technician efficiency, calendars, coding, billing, invoicing, and contract management are available. It's a complete solution. Additionally, the company is responsive with the ability to progress or make necessary changes happen."
"I like the search function up top where if you know what you're searching for, you can find it pretty quickly. Because you've got the option to change what the search parameters are, whether you're searching for a project, quote, ticket, or an invoice, you can kind of pick and choose what you're looking for."
"The search function is really good. To have a single place where we have the account information stored is probably most valuable."
"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."
"I like that it's very user-friendly. The way they designed this application, any layperson can just do some drag and drop actions and use it. It's not that difficult. It's also easy to implement. The most important thing is, you don't need to go to this application to create a ticket. You just send out an email, and the ticket is created automatically. I have never seen a feature like this before."
"The UI is easy to use."
"I used Freshdesk for communication with the clients, such as real-time chats."
"Freshdesk provides a plain vanilla solution, making it user-friendly and less complex."
"It generated reports for us, which helped us identify the status of requests and the aging of requests."
"Technical support is outstanding."
"The ticketing system is smooth, but since we use a free version, we do not have many facilities available."
 

Cons

"The speed could be better, and the reporting could be a lot better."
"It needs to be easier to share tickets between users who need to work together."
"If you've got 40 tickets that come in, that get generated, that don't get properly tagged with the company, you can't just check them all and reassign them to another company. You have to individually reassign each one of those tickets to a new company."
"It would be nice if ConnectWise gave us more flexibility when using customized fields in the interface. You can set up a user-defined field, but those don't port over to tables. It's really inconvenient."
"There should be some improvements to the interface. It is not completely intuitive. When you click in a blank area of a screen, you'll find some options."
"Their reporting options aren't great. BrightGauge was something that we added on, and that enhanced the experience."
"ConnectWise Manage can improve third-party integrations and the UI. The UI is good but it could improve in the graphics."
"The custom reporting needs to be improved."
"Freshdesk's major drawback is its limitation in integrating tools for App Store and Play Store reviews, and social channels like Twitter, which come with additional costs."
"I would like on-the-go translation,"
"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 should enhance its service and its reporting capabilities."
"I would like a better integration towards Azure DevOps. The current integration is more complicated and doesn’t work as well."
"For integrations, we need to write code that communicates with their system in order to enable certain functionality in the system. This is a lot of work for their customers."
"It would be helpful to pull reports or schedule them based on agents, users, ticket numbers, or responses."
"There are a few things we have asked for, like a forward button. When a ticket comes in, we forward it, but it doesn't sync up with the forward. That is the one they have to rework. The other is when we forward the ticket, it doesn't go all, or certain things don't go with it. We have told them about it, and they are working on it. It would be better if they gave us a more standard reporting template. Although they already have some, many aren't usable. It would be easier if we had more templates to work with."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I have one monthly license for all of the ConnectWise products I use, and it's $85 per user."
"There are some different add-ons and benefits that are optional and come at an additional cost."
"The cost can be the main barrier. It's not a solution for a three person company. It just isn't going to be cost effective. Because ConnectWise Manage does have everything there, the licensing is a little bit restrictive as far as how they want to granularly assign licenses rather than having more of an all-inclusive package."
"We're paying $940 a month for 14 users."
"The pricing is not based on my clients so much as it is on how many people I have accessing the system, and I think it's pretty good."
"The pricing of ConnectWise Manage is reasonable."
"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 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 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 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."
"It is costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
37%
Performing Arts
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business17
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ConnectWise Manage?
In our case, the solution is priced out by the user we have in the system. The pricing is not based on my clients so much as it is on how many people I have accessing the system, and I think it's p...
What needs improvement with ConnectWise Manage?
The technical support of ConnectWise PSA is not very good.
What advice do you have for others considering ConnectWise Manage?
In this case, we have the ability to fire on tasks. An email can be sent, and it is being received into the Kaseya tool or Autotask. Autotask then can parse the email appropriately and route it bas...
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?
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.
What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?
As a customer success manager for over six years, I can sum up the benefits I've seen from using Freshdesk: it has played a huge role in ensuring that my customers stay happy, and happiness means d...
 

Also Known As

ConnectWise Manage
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

IT Connexx, High Standards Technology Inc, Solvere One, MyIT, ConnectWise, Simpatico Systems, Fred IT Group, ECS, OneStop, K2 Technologies, Clark Integrated Technologies, Jmark, Geek on Wheels
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 ConnectWise PSA vs. Freshdesk and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.