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Freshdesk vs Kayako comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.5
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Customer Experience Management (4th), Field Service Management (3rd), Knowledge Management Software (5th)
Kayako
Ranking in Help Desk Software
46th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Shared Inbox (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Freshdesk is 3.4%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kayako is 0.3%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

SujayRao - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers insights into team performance, with ready-made reports and GenAI features that assist in creating reports
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. Despite having third-party integration options, these features should be inherently available in the tool without additional expenses. Integration with social media and review platforms should be built-in.
reviewer1712472 - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, straightforward implementation, and helpful support
We are in the process of switching from Kayako to ManageEngine Desktop Central. We went through a full review of our service desk processing and one of the solutions we purchased was a ManageEngine Desktop Central. When we were looking at the integrations into the Kayako system and how it works, we found that ManageEngine Desktop Central did very similar things. It had better layers of classification, other templating, and additional features that we did not have with Kayako. Our service manager made the decision to switch at that time. My advice to others wanting to implement Kayako would be for them to plan out their service processes first, prior to trying to implement them in the tool. We made the mistake of jumping in too soon back 10 years ago. I started using it in a way that we could have tooled it in a different way to make it better. We could have had more implementation process information to make sure we received what we wanted to out of the solution. I rate Kayako an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We have made use of the training academy and the technical support team from Freshdesk. Both have been very good resources."
"The most valuable features of Freshdesk are the automation of tickets to assign them to different agents, and the managing of documents is easy."
"The ticketing system is smooth, but since we use a free version, we do not have many facilities available."
"The UI is easy to use."
"It's easy to use and integrates with other tools. We can embed Jira into it, link Jira tickets with Freshdesk tickets, and use it for our knowledge base."
"Technical support is outstanding."
"Freshdesk significantly improved our customer issue resolution process. We can now easily record and track all customer requests, ensuring that no tickets are lost."
"Omnichannel is one of the most valuable features of the solution."
"The most valuable feature of Kayako is its flexibility. We can do anything we want with it, which is nice."
 

Cons

"Asset management and branding are two areas in the solution that have scope for improvement."
"I would like on-the-go translation,"
"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."
"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."
"There are some restrictions where you need automation and sometimes there is just no way to achieve what you need."
"It would be helpful to pull reports or schedule them based on agents, users, ticket numbers, or responses."
"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 to be able to change the subject in emails for ourselves. If we could have the option to do that, it would improve our speed and the overall cleanliness of the CRM."
"Some of the reporting in Kayako could be improved. It only has two levels of classification and if there were additional levels added for reporting purposes it would be awesome for our environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Freshdesk was the best solution with the best price. It was cost efficient and included all the features that we needed."
"It is costly."
"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."
"The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."
"We use a licensing model only so we pay for the number of agents we have configured in the system only."
"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 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."
"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Real Estate/Law Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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.
What needs improvement with Freshdesk?
More automation would be beneficial, as it could greatly improve our efficiency and reduce manual tasks.
What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?
My primary use cases with Freshdesk involve help desk software as well as additional functionalities tailored to our operations. For the industry that I'm working in, Freshdesk is used primarily fo...
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Sample Customers

Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
Toshiba Canada, Disney, Avast, Namecheap, Texas Tech University
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: June 2025.
860,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.