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Espressive Barista vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 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

Espressive Barista
Ranking in Help Desk Software
15th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
AI-Powered Chatbots (3rd)
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Ranking in Help Desk Software
3rd
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Espressive Barista is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is 7.3%, down from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jim Lobao - PeerSpot reviewer
Has helped enhance our support ability, reduced our resolution time, and reduced our service desk costs
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human intervention. However, Barista does help us identify and address some of these areas, allowing my team to step in and create intents and responses to questions. When a user asks a question that Barista doesn't immediately understand, we can recognize the pattern, capture it, and link it to a common intent. This is highly beneficial for acquiring such data, but it's a reactive approach and still requires curation. Natural language processing still has some way to go. One of our challenges is that our internal employees haven't yet adopted a natural way of interacting with Barista. Getting people to be concise and to the point, rather than being verbose as if they were interacting with a human, has been an ongoing challenge. While they may feel comfortable being conversational in Slack, expecting a human-like response, Barista is a different entity. Barista isn't interested in their recent vacation; it just wants to know they're locked out of their account. So, some users may assume Barista understands their intent when they say, "I'm back from vacation and locked out of my account." Barista, however, may interpret this as a request for the holiday schedule. Therefore, we're gradually educating our users to adapt their communication style for better success with Barista. Conversely, we desire Barista to adapt its behavior based on the interaction, the language used, and the way people communicate. I wholeheartedly desire an AI that can continuously learn and adapt to our organization's evolving needs. This is the most challenging aspect, as it involves understanding our organization's terminology, procedures, and toolsets. We've made significant progress in this area. However, from an NLP standpoint, we still face challenges with our nearly 3,000 Slack channel users, each with their unique communication styles. People ask questions in various ways, and sometimes there are misunderstandings. They want to interact with us naturally. However, we still struggle with natural language processing. People don't always realize that the bot is a virtual agent designed to be concise and efficient. Sometimes, less is more. It's been a difficult transition for people to grasp that they're conversing with a virtual agent, not a human. They still expect human-like interactions, such as discussing their weekend or holidays or simply pasting screenshots of errors. However, the bot can't interpret screenshots. If they provide the error code and some context about the application, the bot can better understand the issue. So, the key challenge is bridging the gap between human expectations and the bot's capabilities in terms of natural interaction.
Anil  Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved problem-solving and has a user-friendly knowledge base
The primary benefit of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is its ease of use. It provides a simpler and more intuitive interface for creating semi-automated use cases and managing problem solutions. This simplicity makes it particularly suitable for less technical staff to use effectively. Additionally, its ability to interpret issues and offer solutions based on its knowledge base makes problem-solving faster. The deployment and use of all policies and user cases are seamless.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"With respect to its natural language processing capabilities, it recognizes things that you wouldn't think it would recognize. Even in cases where it doesn't, it's pretty easy to go in and make the adjustments that are needed."
"The bot is pretty easy to update and keep up to date. Espressive itself is pretty easy to work with."
"We have the ability to alter phrases, create new phrases, or enhance phrases, or change paths. From the dashboard, we are able to get a lot of information we need about what people are asking, where they are dropping off from conversations, and where they do not get the information they need."
"The solution is available to support us instantly as required."
"I like Expressive Barista's integration with Microsoft Teams."
"Our developers have used the Barista Control Center to extend the platform by adding content, and they've found it fairly easy to do and manage"
"The most valuable feature is its scalability."
"When it comes to neutral language processing and conversational AI, it's very good, very solid... We all have different ways of speaking or writing in English and the application does a very solid job of recognizing what's being asked regardless of how it's being asked."
"This solution has provided a way to manage request tracking and resolution."
"The auto-routing feature saves a lot of effort, where we used to spend a lot of time manually assigning things."
"The solution has enhanced our ability to manage issues efficiently due to its user-friendly knowledge base."
"The most valuable features are project management, change management, and the flow according to the mail chain."
"The ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus SaaS model helped us because it was easy on our pockets but also easy to use, configure, and manage."
"The most valuable feature is its ease of use."
"The self-service portal enhances our company's user experience."
"The most valuable feature of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is ticket management."
 

Cons

"The knowledge management could definitely be improved."
"I would like to see the continued expansion of all of the automation capabilities."
"I would like to see improvement to the out-of-the-box verbiage, with the questions going to the right place."
"The reports provided by the solution are not customizable."
"Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement."
"Expressive Barista could improve by adding native integration with WhatsApp, one of the top communication channels in South Africa. When we're trying to sell Barista to customers, we have to tell them that the solution doesn't have out-of-the-box support for WhatsApp. We can develop it, but then we need to have a conversation about how much that will cost."
"What would make things easier is more detail, out of the box, about what is helping out of the box. We're struggling a little bit to get that data. We want more information about what Barista has brought in that the employees are using, out of the box. We want more visibility into the things that we ourselves haven't done the interaction for."
"My only comment would be if they wanted to use this as an IT service management tool, maybe they could think about Barista making tickets and having change management and problem management capabilities."
"The product needs to allow for implementation for other departments besides the IT help desk."
"The GUI can be improved. In terms of functionality, the change management part could be improved significantly due to limitations in that area."
"The timing reporting module, and how it's used is a bit difficult to understand."
"It is sometimes a bit slow. If it can have a quicker response time, it would be good for users, service desk engineers, and technicians. For service requests, they don't have an SLA for each priority. For a service request, the SLA of response or resolution is only one irrespective of the priority. SLA should be different for each priority. For a ticket, there is no response SLA for the service request. For resolution SLA, that is, P1, P2, P3, or whatever you define, you still have the same SLA. It should be different."
"There is a limitation when assigning an approval; it has to be a single user."
"ManageEngine needs to improve its handling of large volumes, as it cannot manage transaction volumes as effectively as ServiceNow."
"The licensing model should be more flexible. The current approach requires individual licenses, which become costly."
"The interface is not the best. The user interface could be more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive. It's not a cheap thing."
"The pricing isn't overly burdensome. It's going to be interesting to see how new models come in with new capabilities but, as it is, as a base system, it's pretty good."
"The solution is affordable."
"The price for the licensing is fair."
"User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant value from it."
"Cost-wise, we're quite happy."
"The platform has good pricing."
"Pricing can always be improved and made more affordable."
"The tool's price is okay and in line with other products, maybe even cheaper than some products."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"The price of the solution is low. However, it still could be less expensive."
"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is much cheaper than many of its competitors. We pay about nine dollars per agent and one dollar per device. There are no hidden costs."
"It is cheaper than the competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
52%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
5%
Retailer
5%
Educational Organization
55%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Government
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Espressive?
The most valuable feature is its scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Espressive?
Espressive has been very accommodating in trying to meet our needs and adapt to our current situation. User-based licensing has been working well for us, and we believe we are deriving significant ...
What needs improvement with Espressive?
Espressive Barista's natural language processing and conventional AI still have room for improvement. We haven't yet found anything that resembles true AI that can learn autonomously without human ...
What do you like most about ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
The platform's most beneficial features are incident management, change management, request management, and asset management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
The costing for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus ( /products/manageengine-servicedesk-plus-reviews ) is very flexible and is considered low-priced. Automox ( /products/automox-reviews ), a competitor,...
What needs improvement with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?
The GUI can be improved. In terms of functionality, the change management part could be improved significantly due to limitations in that area. For instance, when assigning a ticket to a person or ...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Tranter IT Infrastructure Services Limited, Sterlite Technologies, averda, Radiology Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Espressive Barista vs. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.