Freshservice vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk comparison

Freshworks and IBM are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. Freshworks is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.3, while IBM is ranked #27. Freshworks holds a 4.3% mindshare in HDS, compared to IBM’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 97% of Freshworks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 88% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Freshservice

Read 35 Freshservice reviews

1,342 Views
251 Comparison Views

97% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

404 Views
49 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Freshservice

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and Freshservice compete in the IT service management domain. Freshservice has the advantage with its modern features and simplified integration capabilities, whereas IBM provides extensive customization for complex environments.

Features: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers robust ITIL-based capabilities, comprehensive asset management, and complex workflow customizations suitable for larger enterprises. Freshservice provides an intuitive experience with AI-powered automation, multi-channel support, and efficient incident management, ideal for small to medium-sized businesses.

Room for Improvement: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk could enhance its ease of use and reduce complexity in deployment. It may also focus on improving its user interface and streamlining integration processes. Freshservice could expand its customization options, provide more advanced analytics, and enhance certain automation features to better suit larger organizations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk's deployment is intricate, requiring dedicated IT support, but it offers deeper customization. Freshservice is noted for its cloud-based deployment and ease of setup, allowing quick operation and generally more responsive customer service during both setup and operation.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk typically incurs higher setup costs due to required infrastructure and customization but can deliver high ROI when fully utilized. Freshservice offers a competitive pricing model with lower initial costs, providing a cost-effective solution for rapid ROI and scalability.

To learn more, read our detailed Freshservice vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Freshservice vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

June 2025

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Helped 860,592 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:

Categories and Ranking

Freshservice

Ranking in Help Desk Software

7th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Project Management Software (11th), Cloud Management (15th), IT Asset Management (7th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (5th)

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

27th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Freshservice is 4.3%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Trilochana Gouda

IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Smooth incident management and easy to use while needing better escalation management

We are using Freshservice for the IT ticketing system for business users We use the ticketing system primarily, which is very easy to use for all users. Freshservice is helpful, especially in incident management. Incident management is very helpful, and the system is straightforward, making it…

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Jose Pedro Muñoz

Director of operations at Vetasi

Helps standardize our workflow, track client tickets, and it's very flexible

Initially we used HPE Service Desk. Then, Remedy (IBM SmartCloud Control Desk) version 5. When selecting a vendor, the most important thing for us is the flexibility of the tool. It must be very flexible to change the workflow or to add new workflows for the clients. It must have stability and scalability as well.

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

"The most valuable feature is the sandbox, which allows me to test new configurations, automations, and workflows before taking them live on the production system."

"The solution has been very helpful engineering insights into the client's environment. We have been able to manage calls and incidence very efficiently which provides us with a clear understanding of the system warranty and the actions that we might need to take in terms of insights. The system is very dynamic and prevents any kind of over sides which is yours that there is smooth contract management. Also we can easily uphold SLAs and deliver enhanced services without breaching any agreements."

"We really like the Freshchat widget that allows people to engage with our FAQs on any kind of webpage or web property."

"We find its ability to track what's going on with each request very valuable. We are also able to merge ticket requests and assign them to different groups in the company. We have another department that uses the same system."

"We found the initial setup to be very simple."

"You can just register and within five to minute minutes, you are ready to go."

"The solution facilitates a transition from an organizational structure that is function-based to a process-oriented approach."

"The workflow and the change management process are valuable."

More Freshservice pros

"The solution has been stable."

"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."

"A feature I found most valuable in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is the service request. Another feature I like most about the solution is IT asset management, which tells you who owns a specific asset in the company and from which date."

"In the early stages of our company, all requests were done in notebooks, and none of it was centrally managed. But now we have a central tool which is an entry point for all requests that come in."

"The most valuable are its flexibility and agility. It's quick to change it, to adapt it to your needs. That's the most important for us."

"The brand name is the most valuable aspect of this solution for me. It's IBM. It's a global company that supports this product, it's not something open source or something like that."

"What I like about the Control Desk is that everything is centralized. You have all the requests in one place, you know which ones are for whom and who is working on them."

"The workflow capability is useful. It's not a manual helpdesk operation. It's fully automated, even when an alarm has occurred. It covers the complete cycle of initiation to resolving the events. This is its most strong feature that is easily integrable with a monitoring solution. It creates tickets, and the workflow feature is the most important one."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

Cons

"Freshservice automation capabilities are improving the way we respond to a few customers. There is a bit of delay when we must respond to the customer."

"Not integrated with Google."

"The most significant area for improvement is consistency across the different modules, as they are inconsistent. It makes me think the modules have different development teams with no consistent approach. From an end-user perspective, I can do certain operations in one module, such as instant management, but not in problem management, for example, and I don't see why that should be the case. It would be good to see more consistency in the development process."

"Freshservice's technical support has issues with delays and translations."

"The product should look at BCM or ServiceNow and see if there are features that would make nice additions. It would help them stay competitive."

"We haven't had any issues with the stability of Freshservice. However, we have had some issues with data imports, we have noticed that large amounts of data can get stuck. This is something that we haven't seen in other solutions."

"The round robin ticketing feature that they have is not ideal."

"The ability to customize the user interface is a bit lacking, and the reporting is a bit lacking because they're very stringent upon what you can pull reporting-wise within Freshservice. They have a lot of built-in reports that are very nice, but when it comes to customizing these, they just provide you with certain data. When you try to build your own report wizard, you aren't able to go and select some of the data that is shown in some of the reports that come with Freshservice. This is something that we have brought up with our account representative, and we have suggested these as feature updates in the future. We're still waiting on them to go and implement something like that."

More Freshservice cons

"Support has been the biggest problem for us. I understand that because we use the product of a global company, some changes are not quick to deploy."

"The time calculations can be improved. While working on reports, it was taking the time only in seconds, which was hard for me to work out. While creating some dialogs in the service portal, you have to use certain data types in some fields. It was very tricky to make them work. I was testing a certain type of input, and it didn't work. It didn't show me the domain that the fields have to show. I had to make the change to the database, and only then it worked. It was a tricky thing to make them work with the dialogs. Their technical support can also be improved in terms of response time."

"What needs improvement in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is its graphical interface because it needs to be more user-friendly. IBM is a big company, but this solution is a little bit outdated. The most common comment I get from customers is that IBM SmartCloud Control Desk looks old and needs a refresh. Its frontend needs a little bit of work. The solution needs to be more modern. In the programming world, you see a lot of new technologies, but this particular solution is still on Java. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk isn't like web-based service request tools, and that's an area for improvement. What I'd like to see in the next version of the solution is a more upscale technology. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk has small issues with document links and attachments, and those could bother you when you're using it for a long time. A more user-friendly GUI is also another improvement I'd like to see in the next version of the solution, plus a better user experience, and it would be great if IBM could resolve the current issues I've noticed in IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."

"The main issue that we hear from our customers is that the self-service user interface is a little bit old, possibly due to the fact that IBM is such a large enterprise company. People say that they think they're in the year 2004, because you can very clearly see that the technology is lagging behind modern trends."

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."

"The user interface is not very interesting. If you look at other products like JIRA and ServiceNow, they have made it much easier for the end-users. Maybe not ServiceNow, but JIRA is quite flexible. From a presentation point of view, IBM should make more user-friendly interfaces."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to other tools, Freshservice is affordable."

"Our licensing fee for Freshservice is $2,500 a year."

"The cost at the current timing is very reasonable but as the product gains popularity, I anticipate it might become expensive. Fortunately my customers have been offered a generous discount making it more affordable for me and satisfying both my needs and customers requirement."

"The solution may be around 20,000 euros a year."

"Freshservice price is competitive, it is not more than other solutions on the market."

"The price of Freshservice could improve, it is expensive."

"It is $34 per license, per agent. Currently, we don't see any add-ons at extra fees."

"The pricing information is on their website. It's my understanding that their Pro Plan, for example, is around $89/month."

More Freshservice pricing and cost advice

"The licensing we have for IBM Control Desk is on a yearly basis. They have a concurrent license and an administrative license. And with these, you get all the products. There aren't any additional fees for extra add-ons or anything like that."

"The license for IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is paid yearly and is on a per-user basis. You buy the product and pay for its license yearly. IBM is changing the licensing structure, but for now, it's a yearly license. There's no additional cost. It's just the license that you need to pay for to use IBM SmartCloud Control Desk."

"It's basically for a big company because of the costs. A small company can't afford the licensing cost. For medium and large companies, it's the best product. The price of the license is on the higher side compared to others."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

22%

Educational Organization

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Freshservice?

The solution has been very helpful engineering insights into the client's environment. We have been able to manage calls and incidence very efficiently which provides us with a clear understanding...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Freshservice?

The solution offers flat licensing and appears to be cost-effective.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Freshservice?

There is a need for improvement in terms of automatic escalation to the next level if an issue is not resolved. It should optimize and allow customization. Additionally, asset management needs impr...

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Comparisons

ServiceNow vs Freshservice

Compared 21% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs Freshservice

Compared 10% of the time

Zendesk vs Freshservice

Compared 7% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs Freshservice

Compared 7% of the time

HaloITSM vs Freshservice

Compared 7% of the time

More Freshservice Competitors

ServiceNow vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 35% of the time

SCSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 35% of the time

Zendesk vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 30% of the time

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Freshservice

June 2025

Download Freshservice product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

June 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Also Known As

Flint

SmartCloud Control Desk

Overview

Freshservice is an intelligent, cloud-native service management solution. It provides efficiency and agility through AI to create a contextual and intelligent experience. The solution also empowers employees to work whenever and wherever they need to work. Freshservice powers integrations and workflows at the enterprise scale, building upon an open platform and marketplace with connectors and APIs that you can extend and customize.

Freshservice Features

Freshservice has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

ITIL-aligned processes
Intelligent AI/ML capabilities
Advanced CSAT
Extensible platform
Self-service portal
Smart automations
Service catalog
Effective monitoring and alerting
Out-of-box analytics
Mobile app
Marketplace apps

Freshservice Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Freshservice. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Intelligent service management and customized workflows: Freshservice offers powered bots, automation, and orchestration to help you make management more efficient and gives you the ability to customize all workflows.

Fast time-to-value: Freshservice’s out-of-the-box features help you quickly deploy it and enable easier adoption, at scale.

Minimizes downtime: Freshservice prevents critical issues by identifying the right alerts, collaborating with context, and delivering an enhanced end-user experience.

Extensible: The solution is extensible and allows organizations to access enterprise-scale tools to customize, integrate, and automate business workflows.

Support: Freshservice has 24/7 support so your issues can be addressed around-the-clock.

Boosts productivity: The Freshservice solution helps improve employee productivity. It helps you prioritize work better with real-time custom dashboards.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by PeerSpot users currently using the Freshservice solution.

A Senior Helpdesk at a non-profit says, “I like the workflow automation capabilities, where based upon certain actions, it will automatically go and route tickets to a particular person. It is fairly user-friendly.”

PeerSpot user Cesar Q., CIO at Grupo Kasto, mentions, “The analytics are very good. The solution offers very nice incident management. The overall functionality of the product is excellent. The change management is helpful. They have an agent that we installed in every single asset. We have the inventory for all assets automatically. Contract management is very valuable for us as an IT department, as we have the information for every single computer across the company. We are starting to use the project management aspects right now. We have different projects and we have all the information in the same solution, in the same place. It makes everything more centralized and easier to access. The user interface is very nice and the solution is easy to use. You don't need to be an expert in order to navigate around and use the product. You don't need to read a lot of manuals in order to figure everything out. It's pretty intuitive.”

A Network Analyst at a real estate/law firm shares, "We find its ability to track what's going on with each request very valuable. We are also able to merge ticket requests and assign them to different groups in the company. We have another department that uses the same system."

Freshworks

IBM Control Desk on Cloud offer an access to a user friendly self-service, automated service management, and seamlessly-integrated, best-practice based service desk capabilities. IBM Control Desk provides the IT service management (ITSM) needed to simplify support of users and infrastructure. It also offers a unified IT asset and service management software provides a common control center for managing business processes for both digital and physical assets and enables control, governance and compliance to applications, endpoints and assets to protect critical data and prevent outages. Control Desk is IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL)-compliant, accessible through mobile devices and integrates with social media and development tools.

IBM

Sample Customers

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology

Buyer's Guide

Freshservice vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

June 2025

Free Report: Freshservice vs. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

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