Freshdesk vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk comparison

Freshworks and IBM are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. Freshworks is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #26. Freshworks holds a 2.9% mindshare in HDS, compared to IBM’s 1.1% mindshare. Additionally, 92% of Freshworks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Freshdesk

Read 36 Freshdesk reviews

2,111 Views
1,330 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

499 Views
484 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Freshdesk

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Freshdesk and IBM SmartCloud Control Desk compete in the IT service management category. Freshdesk has the upper hand in customization and user accessibility, while IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is stronger in integration and asset management.

Features: Freshdesk supports customization, robust automation, email and social media ticketing, and API integration. It caters to diverse business settings with its flexible platform. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk focuses on service request handling, IT asset management, and workflow integration. Its strength lies in handling complex service management needs across technical environments.

Room for Improvement: Freshdesk needs enhancement in solutions center customization, multi-language support, and reducing integration complexities. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk would benefit from updating its graphical interface and improving technical support response times. Users report needing a more intuitive interface and efficient support processes.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Freshdesk is cloud-based, offering easy access from anywhere and facilitating integration with third-party services. Its customer service is generally favorable, though delays can occur due to reliance on product teams. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk, primarily on-premises, is stable with structured support processes. However, there's room for improving support scalability and resolution speed.

Pricing and ROI: Freshdesk offers competitive pricing with various plans, making it suitable for different business sizes. Its cost is justified by evident ROI through time savings and efficiency. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk's pricing targets larger enterprises with a yearly license model. Though expensive, the ROI is justified for medium to large businesses due to its comprehensive features.

To learn more, read our detailed Freshdesk vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Freshdesk vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

September 2025

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Helped 869,760 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:

Categories and Ranking

Freshdesk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Customer Experience Management (5th), Field Service Management (3rd), Knowledge Management Software (5th)

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

26th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Freshdesk is 2.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Freshdesk	2.9%
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk	1.1%
Other	96.0%

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Bharanidharan K

NOC SOC ANALYST at SAVIC Inc.

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.

Read full review

Jose Pedro Muñoz

Director of operations at Vetasi

Helps standardize our workflow, track client tickets, and it's very flexible

Initially we used HPE Service Desk. Then, Remedy (IBM SmartCloud Control Desk) version 5. When selecting a vendor, the most important thing for us is the flexibility of the tool. It must be very flexible to change the workflow or to add new workflows for the clients. It must have stability and scalability as well.

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

"Some of the best features of Freshdesk include automation, user-friendly interface, and comprehensive support options that enhance our workflow."

"The user experience on the platform itself is fantastic. The UI is clean and uncluttered, so it's easy to find any information about your customer or the issue at hand. You can find out the person responsible for that particular issue, what the problem is, who the stakeholders are, and how to resolve it. There are lots of tools that will help you do that as well."

"The most valuable features of Freshdesk that I have found useful are the quick and automated customer handling that uses AI and self-service options along with collaboration tools, which I plug into Slack, allowing my developer team to know directly what errors come from the main core of our website."

"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."

"We have made use of the training academy and the technical support team from Freshdesk. Both have been very good resources."

"It is very easy to make reports."

"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."

"Its simplicity is most valuable. It is easy and simple, and it requires negligible training effort. I don't spend all my time goofing around trying to find stuff in the ticketing system."

More Freshdesk pros

"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized. You have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them."

"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."

"The solution is very easy to work with."

"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."

"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."

"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."

"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."

"The solution has been stable."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

Cons

"Asset management and branding are two areas in the solution that have scope for 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."

"The reporting, analysis modules and insights capabilities for this solution could be improved."

"The solution's inbound calls could be improved."

"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."

"There are some restrictions where you need automation and sometimes there is just no way to achieve what you need."

"There aren't any features that we want to enhance, but we need to mature in our usage of some of them. I can't say any feature is missing or needs improvement, but a tool's built-in features need to evolve customer feedback. We have a dialogue set up for that kind of feedback."

"Technical support is not the best. It could be much, much better and offer better support to users."

More Freshdesk cons

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."

"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."

"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."

"The reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."

"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."

"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We use a licensing model only so we pay for the number of agents we have configured in the system only."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."

"Freshdesk was the best solution with the best price. It was cost efficient and included all the features that we needed."

More Freshdesk pricing and cost advice

"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."

"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

23%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	21
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	8

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Large Enterprise	3

Questions from the Community

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.

See all answers

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.

See all answers

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...

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Compared 17% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Freshdesk

October 2025

Download Freshdesk product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

September 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Also Known As

No data available

SmartCloud Control Desk

Overview

Freshdesk is a cloud-based customer support solution that provides organizations with the features necessary to effectively streamline their support processes. This includes powerful multichannel capability, integrated game mechanics, smart automations, and more.

The solution is designed to automate agent workflows and resolve routine questions using AI and bots. Freshdesk allows managers to prioritize, categorize, and assign tickets to their agents, making it easy for them to collaborate and quickly respond to customers.

Freshdesk Features and Benefits

Some of the solution's top features and benefits include:

Simplified ticketing: With Freshdesk, you can easily prioritize, manage, and assign trackable tickets. The management system ensures that multiple agents don’t work on the same ticket by accident. You can easily set deadlines for ticket resolution based on specific categories and create custom statuses that suit your workflow to identify what stage a ticket is in.

Automation: Automatically assign tickets to agents and groups based on keywords and requests and set up automated repeated actions and provide quick, consistent responses to common questions using pre-formatted replies. In addition, you can choose to prevent the reopening of tickets when customers reply with a thank you.

Improved collaboration: Share tickets with other teams while retaining full visibility into the progress being made on the issue. Related tickets can be linked together to better keep track of the big picture. Tickets can also be split into smaller child tickets and assigned to multiple agents to help resolve complex, multi-stage issues.

Build up your knowledge base: Create effective support documentation by enabling agents to convert their ticket replies into knowledge base articles, while they reply.

Metrics and reporting: See how different agents and groups are performing by viewing various help desk metrics and improve performance by identifying problems based on insights.

With Freshdesk’s reporting tools, you can schedule the periodic delivery of out-of-the-box and custom reports to your inbox. The solution’s customer satisfaction reports provide you with feedback on how your customers rate your support.

Forum moderation: Set up moderation workflows to ensure that forum posts that violate your guidelines are not immediately published. Critical issues raised in the community are automatically converted into tickets to ensure they get the required response.
Integration: Freshdesk’s open API can be used to integrate the solution with multiple third-party systems.

Comprehensive security: Freshdesk’s security features allow you to:
- Set custom access permissions for agents.
- Perform comprehensive audits of networks and systems.
- Secure your own support domain or vanity URL with custom SSL certificates.
- Whitelist IP ranges and restrict login access outside of work, or link IP whitelisting to a VPN.
- Set up SSO scripts for credential authentication.

Reviews from Real Users

Freshdesk stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its effective ticketing system and its intuitive interface.

Deepak B., an application manager, writes, “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. This information is valuable for board meetings.”

Freshworks

IBM Control Desk on Cloud offer an access to a user friendly self-service, automated service management, and seamlessly-integrated, best-practice based service desk capabilities. IBM Control Desk provides the IT service management (ITSM) needed to simplify support of users and infrastructure. It also offers a unified IT asset and service management software provides a common control center for managing business processes for both digital and physical assets and enables control, governance and compliance to applications, endpoints and assets to protect critical data and prevent outages. Control Desk is IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)-compliant, accessible through mobile devices and integrates with social media and development tools.

IBM

Sample Customers

Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology

Buyer's Guide

Freshdesk vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

September 2025

Free Report: Freshdesk vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

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