Freshdesk vs ServiceNow vs TOPdesk comparison

Read 231 ServiceNow reviews

30,705 Views
11,361 Comparison Views

92% willing to recommend

TOPdesk

Read 10 TOPdesk reviews

2,766 Views
2,240 Comparison Views

84% willing to recommend

Freshdesk

TOPdesk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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, Zendesk and others in Help Desk Software.

To learn more, read our detailed Help Desk Software Report (Updated: April 2026).

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Help Desk Software

April 2026

Helped 894,807 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 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Freshdesk is 3.2%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 11.2%, down from 22.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of TOPdesk is 2.1%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
ServiceNow	11.2%
Freshdesk	3.2%
TOPdesk	2.1%
Other	83.5%

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Gauri Thakur

Director, Portfolio Projects at Microland Limited

Integrated support workflows have provided a unified view but need broader enterprise flexibility

Freshdesk's scalability could be improved for larger businesses across departments. Its intuitive interface is appealing for small to medium-sized businesses. However, when you look at larger enterprise levels, ServiceNow operates more efficiently. This scalability is an area where Freshdesk could expand its offerings. Additionally, I don't have too much hands-on experience with Freshdesk ticket routing. I need to check with the service desk team if they've used it. Similarly, for analytics capability, I haven't explored much on Freshdesk, but I have done it for ServiceNow. I have seen a lot on ServiceNow and the BMC Remedy, so I can speak better for them. I haven't had the chance to look at it so much that I can do a comparison. I haven't had much experience with Freshdesk's reporting. Within its paradigm of customer service management, Freshdesk is quite scalable. But I've said that inter-department and the interoperability is better off in ServiceNow than in Freshdesk.

Read full review

Hemanthreddy Vakiti

Data engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Structured workflows have improved SLA compliance and now support prioritized incident handling

I think the licensing and pricing of ServiceNow is quite expensive compared to other tools. For large organizations, it is acceptable, but specifically for small and medium organizations to track incidents or change requests, ServiceNow is quite expensive. Sometimes performance can be slow when workflows and integrations are configured for complex tasks. For advanced customizations or advanced features which we rarely use, the documentation is not up to standard. The documentation needs to be improved for advanced customization features. However, the platform is stable overall and the features are quite good. The user experience and performance concerns I mentioned are areas I want to be improved. When many workflows and interactions are configured, performance is slow. For the features it is providing, it is quite expensive. If these performance features are improved, we can easily pay that price and get the return on investment.

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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.

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."

"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."

"The UI is easy to use."

"Ticket system - provides us with support tickets submitted by customers from various sources Sharing - team members can share progress of tickets"

"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."

"Freshdesk saves us a lot of time, and allows us to provide an excellent and efficient customer service."

"Technical support is outstanding."

"Freshdesk is very easy to use, it is user-friendly, and users can access knowledge base articles."

More Freshdesk pros

"In terms of the most valuable features, it's nice to have everything in one place, things are easy to follow up on, ServiceNow provides that workflow, I know at some level it is in the pipeline and then if I need to follow up, everything's there."

"The most valuable features are its ease of use and capabilities."

"ServiceNow is the best ticketing tool I have used so far."

"The most valuable features of the solution are the ease of use and the sensor for ticketing systems."

"Simplicity of Change Manager."

"It provides internal clients with greater transparency about their projects and deliverables."

"Discovery has reduced, on average, the time to build/deploy devices within our environment by one hour. This may not seem like much but it adds up over time. It also reaps additional time savings with its ability to capture changes through subsequent discoveries over the life of the device."

"The new developer tools with Geneva have been the most valuable so far."

More ServiceNow pros

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

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

"As we have moved to an off-premises deployment, we get regular updates."

"Its ITSM approach is quite useful."

"TOPdesk is overall very stable."

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

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

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

More TOPdesk pros

Cons

"Their support wasn't the best, it took a little bit for the person to understand what I was trying to say."

"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."

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

"Freshdesk I do not like as much. It's much more time-consuming; it's much more complicated."

"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."

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

"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."

"More automation would be beneficial, as it could greatly improve our efficiency and reduce manual tasks."

More Freshdesk cons

"I'm not sure if they have the software-as-a-catalogue yet, as far as bringing in the software titles with all of the rules of engagement for the software licensing."

"From my standpoint, because we don't have people who are experienced in doing the performance analytics module and stuff like that, we can't get the right reporting and it's just a beast trying to get that configured the right way."

"Upgrades can be kind of painful."

"HR Service Management is one module that needs a lot of improvement because it's a pretty new module. It was introduced in the last two years. It's becoming more mature day by day, but there is a lot of scope for improvement in that module."

"One thing I don't care for is the reporting and the way it functions."

"They're inconsistent. Depending on who you get, they may or may not be able to immediately provide the kind of response you need and sometimes they take a while to do it."

"Our current challenge, because it's a little bit of a rub right now is we're going through re-negotiations on contract because absolutely you're going through the big sales pitch, it can do everything at a cost."

"Transparency in the pricing model needs to be improved."

More ServiceNow cons

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

"From a UI perspective, there is room for improvement. It sometimes takes many steps to do something simple, like creating or moving a knowledge item."

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

More TOPdesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is costly."

"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."

"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."

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

"The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."

"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."

More Freshdesk pricing and cost advice

"The price of this solution is expensive."

"$230 per user."

"There is an annual subscription to use this solution."

"It has a higher cost compared to local/regional solutions."

"The licensing expenses are excessively high."

"This is a pretty expensive product, so the licensing could be better."

"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."

"I would say it is moderately expensive, ranging from six to seven on a scale of ten."

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."

"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."

"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's pricing is reasonable and not expensive."

"The solution is inexpensive compared to competitors."

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894,807 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

University

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

10%

Educational Organization

10%

Computer Software Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	27
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	14

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	56
Midsize Enterprise	35
Large Enterprise	179

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	2
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Freshdesk?

I think the main problem with Freshdesk is the deep settings, interface, and analytics. When you need complex cross-f...

What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?

My main use case for Freshdesk is customer support tickets. A specific example of how my team uses Freshdesk for cust...

What advice do you have for others considering Freshdesk?

My advice for others looking into using Freshdesk is to consider that compared to Zendesk or Salesforce, where the se...

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ServiceNow?

ServiceNow's pricing is fine. We have accounting for each headcount for ServiceNow, and the pricing is actually good.

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...

What is your primary use case for TOPdesk?

I use Topdesk to change the way we deliver our services in HR to the business. Instead of writing an email to a parti...

JIRA Service Management vs Freshdesk

Comparisons

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Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs Freshdesk

Compared 4% of the time

Zoho Desk vs Freshdesk

Compared 3% of the time

LinkLive vs Freshdesk

Compared 2% of the time

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IBM Maximo vs ServiceNow

Compared 5% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs ServiceNow

Compared 5% of the time

Zendesk vs ServiceNow

Compared 4% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs ServiceNow

Compared 4% of the time

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JIRA Service Management vs TOPdesk

Compared 10% of the time

LiveChat vs TOPdesk

Compared 6% of the time

Zendesk vs TOPdesk

Compared 5% of the time

GLPI by Teclib vs TOPdesk

Compared 4% of the time

ProProfs Help Desk vs TOPdesk

Compared 4% of the time

More TOPdesk Competitors

Product Reports

Download Freshdesk product report

Freshdesk

May 2026

Download ServiceNow product report

April 2026

Download TOPdesk product report

Help Desk Software

April 2026

Overview

Freshdesk enhances support operations with features like a centralized ticketing system, omnichannel communication, and seamless tool integration. It addresses customer queries and automates processes, driving efficiency and satisfaction.

Freshdesk offers robust capabilities for managing customer support, enhancing efficiency through automation and integration. Its streamlined ticketing system centralizes queries from multiple platforms, including email, chat, and social media. Features like a knowledge base help reduce repetitive inquiries, while its easy integration with tools such as Slack and Jira supports effective team collaboration. However, users seek improvements in customization flexibility, scalability, and pricing for advanced features. Performance issues may arise with high volumes, and there's room for improved API limits and cloud availability. Freshdesk's automation and communication abilities make it crucial for both internal IT and external customer service, ensuring seamless resolutions and SLA compliance.

What Features Stand Out in Freshdesk?

Ticketing System: Centralizes customer interactions for streamlined management.
Omnichannel Support: Integrates communication platforms for consistent service.
Automation: Reduces manual tasks, boosting efficiency.
Knowledge Base: Decreases repetitive inquiries with self-service resources.
Tool Integration: Connects seamlessly with platforms like Slack and Jira.
Analytics & Reporting: Tracks performance for informed decision-making.

What Benefits Should Users Look For?

Improved Efficiency: Automation and centralized systems enhance support speed.
Customer Satisfaction: Consistent and responsive service elevates user experience.
Scalability: Adapts to growing support needs with integrations and customization.
Reduced Manual Effort: Automates repetitive tasks, allowing focus on complex issues.

Freshdesk is widely adopted in industries like IT and customer service, where efficient issue resolution and communication are critical. By converting emails to tickets and automating assignments, companies enhance their response times and maintain SLA compliance. Its integration capabilities support diverse tools, facilitating a multi-channel approach for superior customer experiences.

Freshworks

ServiceNow offers customizability and cloud-based integration that sustains operational efficiency. Enabling change and incident management, it accelerates workflow automation and project management without downtime issues, serving deployment needs for IT service and productivity enhancements.

ServiceNow stands out with its adaptable workflows and cloud-native infrastructure, boosting IT service, project, and asset management. Known for its robust incident and change management, the platform addresses business needs through its user-centric design and extensive integration options. By facilitating seamless IT operations and automation, ServiceNow empowers businesses to enhance productivity and efficiency. Regular updates ensure users benefit from the latest features without service interruptions, although pricing and licensing complexities demand attention. Users seek improved reporting tools and a more intuitive design while expressing interest in refined mobile functionality and better documentation.

What are the key features of ServiceNow?

Customizability: Enables tailored workflows to align with business processes.
Cloud-Based Integration: Allows seamless updates and operational sustainability.
Incident and Change Management: Supports efficient handling of IT-related issues.
Automation Capabilities: Automates repetitive tasks, enhancing productivity.
User-Friendly Design: Simplifies navigation and improves user interaction.
Comprehensive Reporting: Provides detailed insights for better decision-making.

What benefits and ROI should users anticipate from ServiceNow?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlines processes and reduces manual efforts.
Enhanced Productivity: Automates tasks, enabling focus on strategic initiatives.
Seamless Operations: Integrates across departments for unified management.
Effective IT Management: Smooth incident, change, and problem resolution.
Cost and Time Savings: Reduces operational costs through efficient workflow management.

ServiceNow finds implementation across industries like IT, HR, asset management, and help desks, addressing ticketing and configuration needs. Businesses use its dashboard for tracking performance metrics, enhancing decision-making in departments like HR service delivery. Its adaptability also makes it suitable for industries requiring robust operational management and process automation, driving efficiency and growth.