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Freshdesk vs ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus vs ServiceNow 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:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Freshdesk is 3.2%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus is 0.9%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 21.2%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer2650164 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manual ticketing features hinder workflow, but cost-effective ticket management is ensured
We just use it because it's more trouble to rip it out than to replace it with a more expensive tool. I would not recommend this product to others. If budget is a concern, it might be suitable but it doesn’t excite. Hence, I would rate it a four out of ten.
Nikhil Gohil - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables effective incident management and seamless workflow automation with valuable mobile accessibility
I haven't thought deeply about improvements for ServiceNow or what might be missing right now. There are so many modules and features in ServiceNow that I haven't explored them all, so it's hard to say what might be missing or should be improved. I suggest making the cost more affordable for smaller companies.

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."
"It is very easy to make reports."
"The ticketing system is smooth, but since we use a free version, we do not have many facilities available."
"Their knowledge base is phenomenal. The way that it learns from our users is awesome, and responses are really awesome as well. It does a pretty good job of picking up what's needed. The knowledge bases are great."
"It generated reports for us, which helped us identify the status of requests and the aging of requests."
"The most valuable features of Freshdesk are the automation of tickets to assign them to different agents, and the managing of documents is easy."
"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."
"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 found the reporting in this product to be very useful."
"The product is very scalable and stable when used as a help desk once it is built out."
"Their tech support has been talking to us about expanding features like integrations with Microsoft Teams."
"The product teams are continuously on the products trying to improve them. If, for example, I ask for a change to be done in the software, the chances are in the next release it's going to be done and incorporated. It's this personal touch that I like."
"ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus works fine as a help desk software and is relatively inexpensive."
"The most valuable features are the ITIL compliance and billing."
"ServiceNow is easy to use and has a user-friendly interface."
"The thing that I like most about it is the easy integration with the CMDB. I'm able to look at the CMDB for applications and develop my assessments and attestations based on the application and point them at that application owner. So, I can really automate the whole thing."
"I recommend ServiceNow due to its stability and good security."
"It enables us to meet SLAs, track issues across the environment, and report those issues."
"I don't have to look through a whole bunch of other incidents that aren't relevant to me. It's very useful in that sense."
"There are many expansions available."
"The biggest feature is that it is cloud-based, so it's always updated, it's always current. We don't have to worry about patches, revisions. We're always working with the latest version."
"Overall, I rate ServiceNow 10 out of 10."
 

Cons

"If Freshdesk had forms in it so that I could go to the portal and fill out a service request, that would improve it immensely and make it more valuable for enterprise customers, but that's not a current functionality. You can't have a certain catalog of any type. You can't be like, "Hey, I want to just go submit a ticket," and then type in. You can't prompt them to ask anything. It is just a blank form."
"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."
"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."
"While it's good for a small number of tickets, definitely in the future, we will require something more powerful."
"There are some restrictions where you need automation and sometimes there is just no way to achieve what you need."
"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."
"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."
"The reporting, analysis modules and insights capabilities for this solution could be improved."
"The business model for the company is to sell low and charge for customization, education or expertise."
"The tech support is terrible and that seems to be a part of their business plan."
"There is no cloud-based version and it would be helpful if it were available."
"ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus could improve on workflow automation features."
"The product is very difficult to use and configure and requires specialists."
"I would like to see some kind of project management or portfolio management in a future version."
"They're pretty good but there's always room for improvement. There should be more templates that users can utilize immediately."
"I have enjoyed all the features. There is not any feature that I have missed or didn't have."
"The technical support SLA can be improved because sometimes they take a long time to answer our queries."
"I have a problem with the way the solution's price is calculated."
"Time to respond from support could definitely be better, as the global support timing sometimes causes delays in interactions."
"The setup was time-consuming and required a lot of internal resources."
"Once a change request has been created once it's been approved and been submitted, there is no way to go in on that particular change request and submit an additional task."
"The scalability needs improvement."
"It's moving at a very fast pace. It is difficult for developers or engineers to keep up with it. That's the only issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"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 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 $19."
"We use a licensing model only so we pay for the number of agents we have configured in the system only."
"It was definitely not expensive. It was two grand or maybe three grand total for a year. It has just straight and simple standard licensing fees. There is no additional fee."
"The licensing fees depend on different criteria, including options and sizing."
"ManageEngine products will always be the lowest cost in category as that is part of their business model."
"It's sold as a less expensive solution, but it has to be highly modified. That's where you get into the cost."
"I am from Brazil. For Latin American markets, ServiceNow is very expensive as compared to other vendors, such as VMware."
"The mandatory minimum is US$ 20,000 for licensing."
"The price is okay for us. It's reasonable."
"There are licensing fees."
"The licenses are expensive."
"I have found the solution very expensive."
"I would say it is moderately expensive, ranging from six to seven on a scale of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

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 custom...
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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus?
ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus is cheap, around two or three on a scale where ten is the most expensive.
What needs improvement with ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus?
ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus could improve on workflow automation features. Currently, everything is very manual, ...
What is your primary use case for ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus?
We use ManageEngine SupportCenter Plus primarily as a ticketing tool within our company.
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.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
Brickman Group, SVP Worldwide, Chicago Tribune, Sodexo, Constellation, Lowcost Holidays, Telesur, PayEx, Quintiq, Moblize, Oman Air, Intelligent Hospital Systems
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    
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: August 2025.
865,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.