Freshdesk vs ServiceNow vs TOPdesk comparison

Read 217 ServiceNow reviews

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7,664 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

TOPdesk

Read 10 TOPdesk reviews

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515 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Freshdesk

TOPdesk

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Freshdesk, ServiceNow, and TOPdesk based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Help Desk Software Report (Updated: April 2025).

Help Desk Software

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Helped 850,028 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:

Mindshare comparison

As of May 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 ServiceNow is 23.4%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TOPdesk is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Alexey Timchenko

Senior Vice President Information Technology at TASC Towers

Incredibly user-friendly, flexible, and affordable

Automation and ticket routing rules in Freshdesk save us daily by streamlining routine tasks. We use reports to identify issues, allocate resources, and continuously improve our processes. It is a vital part of our daily operations, helping us stay proactive and efficient in handling various types of tickets. The reporting and analytics tools in Freshdesk are effective for measuring customer service performance. While our current subscription level has some limitations in terms of reporting, the next level provides more options. Budget constraints currently prevent us from upgrading, but the available reporting features still meet our basic needs. I highly recommend Freshdesk, especially for companies in their early stages. It is user-friendly, easy to configure, and great for those with a moderate volume of customer requests. The cost is reasonable, making it a quick and efficient solution to implement. Overall, I would rate Freshdesk as an eight out of ten.

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Somnath Kand

Team Lead at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech

Custom integration and reporting lead to efficient ticket management

There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow. Although there are child incidents or tickets, tracking primary issues or bugs within enhancements is not present. The reporting features in the new portal could be more user-friendly. While it provides options to minimize chart and image sizes, actual implementation doesn't always reflect these changes.

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Martina Peneva

People Technology Lead at Scandinavian Tobacco Group

Implement service management changes while addressing UI improvements

Topdesk's user interface makes it easy to handle requests and escalate them to other groups or reassign them when working on a single ticket. Additionally, the service management tool in HR allows for a change in delivering services, replacing email communication with ticket raising. The knowledge library enables the local HR to store and share relevant information and frequently asked cases, enhancing collaboration. The ticket system also facilitates escalating cases to other involved departments. IT, HR, and some other teams primarily use this system.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It generated reports for us, which helped us identify the status of requests and the aging of requests."

"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."

"It's free of charge for us. For our scale of business, it's very important. We don't have a lot of tickets."

"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."

"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."

"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 provides a plain vanilla solution, making it user-friendly and less complex."

More Freshdesk pros

"In financial management, this platform has the infrastructure allowing us to expand the way we want to. For example, it gives you many business rules and budget models that you can use to optimize your workflow. It does not put you in a box. Additionally, integrating this solution with other platforms is extremely easy to do."

"I like the incident module, which is useful for tracking your incidents and other things. It is a reliable solution."

"It uses a common base of data and allows different types of records to pull from that same base of data."

"Within our organization, we're not finding really any major issues with scalability and things of that nature."

"What I like the most is the functionality, it's features are rich, and there is a high degree of compliance with IT standards."

"I have found the workflows and integration the most valuable in this solution."

"Remote access is most valuable."

"I find the incident management part to be the most valuable. That's how the service desk tracks tickets."

More ServiceNow pros

"TOPdesk is overall very stable."

"When it comes to implementing new features, they listen to what their customers want via a suggestion forum that they have."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the incident management module."

"Change management is the most critical feature."

"It is an easy-to-use solution."

"The most valuable feature of TOPdesk is the reports."

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ticketing feature."

"This solution has provided me with a well-defined process and interaction, compared to my previous tool, GLPI."

More TOPdesk pros

Cons

"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."

"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."

"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."

"It would be helpful to pull reports or schedule them based on agents, users, ticket numbers, or responses."

"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."

"I would like to see improvements in the account management aspect, having a customer portal for better visibility into my subscription, invoices, and trouble tickets."

"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."

More Freshdesk cons

"Service mapping could be less complicated."

"if I consider from the IT operations management side, ServiceNow is pretty premature on some things, especially the discovery, while the other tools like Micro Focus and BMC Remedy, those that have been in the market for quite some time. ServiceNow is evolving itself in the discovery piece of the future."

"We are struggling with the scheduling part, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a ServiceNow issue. It could be the way we have configured it. We don't have it configured in a way where you can schedule a support call with our end users. We are looking for more automation in the box and the chat feature."

"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."

"The licensing needs to be divided into tiers in order to attract lower-level users."

"I would like to see Advanced Intelligent Automation."

"A new user does need training or time to learn the solution before jumping in. It was very hard in the beginning to understand everything. I couldn't find the models I needed at the time."

"The challenge with ServiceNow lies in its expansive portfolio of services. It can be complex, and users may find it expensive and challenging to understand. There is a need for a configurator within ServiceNow that guides users on how to utilize the tool effectively. This configurator should provide insights into licensing, team requirements, and the best licensing model based on whether companies prefer ownership or consumption-based models."

More ServiceNow cons

"The solution's change management could be better."

"Change management implementation, facility management, and making reservations on assets can be improved."

"An operator is also a user but requires creating two different records."

"One of the disadvantages of TOPdesk is the reporting tool. It is very poor and not in real-time. You do not always receive the correct information."

"All companies have processes that need to be adjusted. When you have a change, you need to name it, and many companies have a set of changes you can use. It would be helpful if there were more space in TOPdesk to name the change or use metadata to record the kinds of changes."

"This solution is modular so you only buy what you need, but I prefer what some companies are doing where they include everything in the package."

"If I open a ticket on the infrastructure team, I can't move it to the financial team for them to manage the ticket."

"The solution should be made more user-friendly."

More TOPdesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."

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

"It is costly."

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

"The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."

More Freshdesk pricing and cost advice

"The solution is priced for medium to enterprises sized businesses. However, it is expensive compared to competitors."

"ServiceNow tends to be a little bit more expensive as compared to BMC Helix ITSM."

"We are happy with the pricing."

"Certainly, from a product-platform perspective, the price is not too bad."

"Some time ago it was expensive, but large companies have special contracts. It's enterprise prices, and we're talking about millions per year."

"ServiceNow is a leader and its pricing is quite good, quite competitive... Sometimes some plugins are not priced reasonably but, generally, the platform itself, its modules, are priced reasonably."

"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 have found the solution very expensive."

More ServiceNow pricing and cost advice

"Compared to other products in this segment, I think that they are priced well and not too expensive."

"TOPdesk's pricing is cheaper than Jira's."

"The cost of the solution on a yearly basis is $20,000. Technical support is not extra. It's included in the yearly cost. Updates are also included. The solution is good at keeping its product up to date."

"The solution is inexpensive compared to competitors."

"The solution's pricing is reasonable and not expensive."

"There are three fee options to choose from for a company and these options compared to market prices are very high. For example, if I use one of the first options for 10 assets, then it costs 20,000 Euros. If you went to competitors, then you pay less."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

25%

Financial Services Firm

Real Estate/Law Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

27%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

48%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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?

I would like a better integration towards Azure DevOps. The current integration is more complicated and doesn’t work ...

What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?

I mainly use Freshdesk as a support system for our customers.

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.

What do you like most about TOPdesk?

The most valuable feature of TOPdesk is the reports.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TOPdesk?

The solution's pricing is reasonable and not expensive.

What needs improvement with TOPdesk?

From a UI perspective, there is room for improvement, as some tasks like creating or moving a knowledge item within t...

JIRA Service Management vs Freshdesk

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Compared 6% of the time

IBM Maximo vs ServiceNow

Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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JIRA Service Management vs TOPdesk

Compared 24% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs TOPdesk

Compared 11% of the time

GLPI by Teclib vs TOPdesk

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Freshdesk

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Help Desk Software

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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

ServiceNow is a cloud-based task-management platform that specializes in IT operations management (ITOM), IT services management (ITSM), and IT business management (ITBM). ServiceNow allows users to manage their teams, projects, and customer interactions using a variety of different plugins and apps with which it easily integrates.

ServiceNow offers prebuilt applications to support any process, as well as a framework and tools that allow you to build your own.

ServiceNow’s service management solutions include change, request, incident, problem, and cost management, as well as HR, IT, field service, and facilities management solutions. They also cover business management solutions such as vendor performance management, financial management, performance analytics and project portfolio suite, as well as governance, risk, and compliance.

“The Smarter Way to Workflow”

ServiceNow’s activities, processes, and tasks are overseen as part of a comprehensive managed workflow that supports such features as real-time collaboration, communication, and resource sharing. ServiceNow’s suite of products allow for operation using serverless computing, and include the categories of Business Apps, Customer Service, HR, IT, and Security.

ServiceNow can be used to support most workflows because of the wide range of tools it offers. These include on-suite ticketing tools, predictive modeling to manage workflows, and benchmarking for the tracking of progress. ServiceNow can assist with artificial intelligence and machine learning processes and can be used to organize the cases of a help/service desk as well as for instance management and problem management. It also smoothly integrates with many legacy systems.

ServiceNow offers service management software for industries including:

Cloud services
Education
Financial services
Government
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Telecommunications

Reviews from Real Users

PeerSpot users prefer ServiceNow to its competitors because of its scalability, stability, and ease of use. It helps everyone in the company to be on the same page by creating a single source of record across all departments. One user stated that “I’ve definitely used over 20 project management solutions, but they can't be compared with ServiceNow.” Another said that “ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI.”