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Freshdesk vs ServiceNow vs Serviceaide ChangeGear 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 September 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Freshdesk is 3.0%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Serviceaide ChangeGear is 0.8%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 17.6%, down from 26.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow17.6%
Freshdesk3.0%
Serviceaide ChangeGear0.8%
Other78.6%
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.
UA
A fairly stable solution that’s highly mature, but has a poor user interface
The solution does not align as modern service solutions do. Seamless integration is no available among the processes. Their service management application needs a lot of work. It’s in a really bad state right now. They brought on a new interface that clumped all the processes and features of the solution into one. Still, it’s not really compatible with other solutions. Because of this, its rating has dropped in Gardner. The solution needs to improve its reporting features. The user interface needs a lot of improvements. The product needs to implement a cloud platform solution, which is lacking so far. Their workflow engine is still segregated. It’s not embedded. If you need to do some workflow approvals, you cannot do them directly on the service desk. You have to go into Outlook and do an approval or you have to go in through another screen to handle the approval because the workflow engine they have is a separate product.
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

"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's free of charge for us. For our scale of business, it's very important. We don't have a lot of tickets."
"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."
"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."
"The UI is easy to use."
"It is quite easy to program custom apps and integrate them."
"Freshdesk is very easy to use, it is user-friendly, and users can access knowledge base articles."
"It is very easy to make reports."
"The solution is a highly mature product. Because of this, it can stand up to any other product on the market."
"ServiceNow has also enabled our Management Consulting business to provide Digital Transformation services for our clients the world over, as we use the platform as an accelerator for doing IT Target Operating Model transformations."
"I recommend ServiceNow due to its stability and good security."
"The flow designer feature of ServiceNow has had the biggest impact on our productivity because it has helped me reduce manual efforts by creating automation and robotics."
"I like the incident module, which is useful for tracking your incidents and other things. It is a reliable solution."
"The solution has very good automation tools."
"Overall, I rate ServiceNow 10 out of 10."
"Makes ticket information easy to access."
"ServiceNow is very easy to set up."
 

Cons

"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."
"An area for improvement in Freshdesk would be enabling all features regardless of company or user size."
"The reporting, analysis modules and insights capabilities for this solution could be improved."
"Having so many tags makes everyday work a lot more complicated, and a lot more time-consuming."
"There are some restrictions where you need automation and sometimes there is just no way to achieve what you need."
"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."
"Asset management and branding are two areas in the solution that have scope for improvement."
"I would like a better integration towards Azure DevOps. The current integration is more complicated and doesn’t work as well."
"The solution needs to improve its reporting features. The user interface needs a lot of improvements."
"Direct support from ServiceNow is not very good. Most of the support comes from partners, and customers heavily rely on them."
"I would like to see a mobile version of ServiceNow."
"ServiceNow claims to help a lot, but once you sell the product, it's as if you're on your own."
"It's too complicated and there are too many options."
"Needs additional software titles and easier normalization."
"System deployment and automation capabilities could be within the platform, similar to competitors."
"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."
"In an upcoming release, there should be more administration tools."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is costly."
"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 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."
"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."
"Freshdesk was the best solution with the best price. It was cost efficient and included all the features that we needed."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
"For large-scale companies, the cost of ServiceNow is not expensive, but for small and mid-scale companies, it is higher."
"The licenses are expensive."
"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
"The price could be a little lower for the solution. Many of my customers have issues with the licensing process, they have to make it easier and straightforward."
"I would say it is moderately expensive, ranging from six to seven on a scale of ten."
"ServiceNow's pricing is comparatively higher than Helix's."
"The CapEx version is great."
"ServiceNow tends to be a little bit more expensive as compared to BMC Helix ITSM."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise36
Large Enterprise163
 

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?
With the advancements in AI now, I will say Freshdesk should consider integrating more AI, but so far, I am satisfied...
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 pl...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Serviceaide ISM (Intelligent Service Management), Nimsoft Service Desk, CA Cloud Service Management , ChangeGear
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember
Oakwood Systems Group
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.
866,685 professionals have used our research since 2012.