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Freshservice vs ServiceNow comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.5
Freshservice increased efficiency and reduced workload while improving SLA compliance and resource use, despite licensing cost challenges in HR.
Sentiment score
6.5
ServiceNow enhances efficiency and ROI through automation, with payback periods ranging from three months to five years.
Faster resolution means the average ticket resolution time decreased by roughly twenty-five to thirty percent since alerts are automatically converted into tickets and routed to the right team.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Automation has contributed significantly, resulting in reduced resource counts, which equates to savings in money and time.
Technical support manager at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
With using Freshservice, only two technicians are needed per one shift, but without Freshservice, for the same company size, we need about four technicians per shift, so it saved money and time.
Systems Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
They have removed the costs associated with on-prem infrastructure, including data center costs, power costs, and physical server costs.
General Manager at sPerception IT
The return on investment is good when implementing for ourselves and for other clients.
ServiceNow Developer at Bangmetric services pvt ltd
Manually, there are huge numbers that come up because these integrated tools help organizations make the right decisions with all the information in one place, while manual methods lack visibility.
Associate Vice President at Wissen infotech
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Freshservice support is generally efficient and professional, though complex issues and communication can sometimes pose challenges.
Sentiment score
7.0
ServiceNow's customer service is responsive but can lack in-depth support, with experience varying by issue complexity and account size.
Ultimately, we saw a 77% reduction in average resolution times with a return on investment realized within 6 months.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
However, they have improved over the period of two years.
IT & Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Their documentation is also good, making setup easy without needing frequent support requests.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
The support is exemplary and deserves a perfect rating.
Team Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Obtaining support for maintenance is the current challenge because they don't have a presence in the local market.
General Manager at sPerception IT
Whenever we have had issues, they have provided good support, and those issues have never recurred.
Vice President Delivery & Operations at Rezilyens
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Freshservice scales efficiently with added licenses, supporting growth with cloud benefits, though customization and costs may limit larger enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.4
ServiceNow offers excellent scalability, though custom setups may pose challenges; effective support ensures smooth integration and expansion.
As our organization has grown and ticket volume related to AWS resources increased, Freshservice handled the extra load without any performance issues.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It offers global performance with multi-region data centers to ensure faster responses while adhering to strong security and compliance standards such as GDPR and SOC 2.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
Freshservice is easy to use for scalability.
IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
There are no limitations or performance issues with ServiceNow; it is cloud-based, so it is highly scalable and performs well.
General Manager at sPerception IT
It is capable of vertical scaling with no issues.
Team Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I rate the scalability of ServiceNow as an eight on a scale of one to ten.
IT infra Admin at synu
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Freshservice offers stable performance with minimal downtime, few issues, and reliable cloud hosting on AWS, ensuring consistent uptime.
Sentiment score
7.7
ServiceNow users enjoy excellent stability and high performance, with minimal downtime and minor issues tied to customizations.
The service runs smoothly most of the time, and performance has been consistent even when ticket volumes and AWS alerts are high.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Freshservice is quite stable as they host it on AWS.
IT & Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Freshservice provides a stable environment for our needs.
IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
It is cloud-based, so it is highly scalable and performs well.
General Manager at sPerception IT
I haven't faced any issues with stability; I've rarely seen any downtime.
Solution Engineer - Digital Platform | Mobile at British American Tobacco
ServiceNow is stable enough.
ServiceNow Developer at Bangmetric services pvt ltd
 

Room For Improvement

Freshservice users seek improvements in reporting, automation, integrations, and customizations to enhance usability and effectiveness for larger enterprises.
ServiceNow's customization flexibility leads to challenges with usability, cost, integration, and a need for improved interfaces and support.
There's limited experience with the CMDB or asset management features.
IT Technician at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Asset management can definitely be improved because it doesn't pick up every single device on the network or every single piece of information.
IT & Operations Manager at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Reporting is useful, but the customization is still restricted, and it would be great to build more detailed reports that combine multiple data sources, especially for cloud-related operations.
Security Engineer (SOC) at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It makes no sense in my opinion, and they should offer the team at the front to help customize the product to fit each company's needs, as every company has different demands and forms of submitting a request that need adjustment over time.
Manager of Security Engineering & Architecture at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees
My priority points for improvement are the UI glitches and modern AI technology integrations for faster incident management.
Senior Consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow.
Team Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Freshservice offers flexible, competitive pricing with tiered plans, varying costs, and value without hidden fees.
ServiceNow's premium pricing offers broad functionality for enterprises, with negotiable fees and high costs for setup and customization.
Switching from previous ITSM tools has led to a 50% reduction in licensing costs.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
The solution offers flat licensing and appears to be cost-effective.
IT Technician at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
The price was very comfortable for our organization to proceed with the migration from Freshdesk to Freshservice.
Technical support manager at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
ServiceNow's pricing can be justified if more functionality is required.
ServiceNow Developer at Bangmetric services pvt ltd
ServiceNow does come with a price.
Associate Vice President at Wissen infotech
ServiceNow is expensive for all regions.
Security Architect at وزارة الثقافة Ministry of Culture
 

Valuable Features

Freshservice enhances IT operations with user-friendly features, seamless integrations, automation, and efficient asset management, boosting productivity and SLA compliance.
ServiceNow provides customizable, scalable IT management with automation and analytics, enhancing decision-making and adaptability across diverse business needs.
The most valuable features include ticket routing, automation in triage, data control, and flat licensing.
IT Technician at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Incident management is very helpful, and the system is straightforward, making it easy to use for our enterprise-level company.
IT manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Overall, Freshservice provides cutting-edge AI automation for agents and end-users, effortless no-code workflows and ITIL-aligned operations, robust asset, incident, change, problem, and major incident management backed by the live CMDB, unified service desk with self-service and multi-channel support, and strong analytics reporting features, making it a powerful tool for any IT function.
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
ServiceNow provides a wide range of functionality, covering all the necessary modules, unlike Jira which is primarily for IT.
ServiceNow Developer at Bangmetric services pvt ltd
Automation capabilities are impressive, bolstered by a vast repository of out-of-the-box connectors and plugins that facilitate integration with various applications worldwide.
Security Architect at وزارة الثقافة Ministry of Culture
The features of ServiceNow that I find most valuable include its ability to easily access ticket details if you know the ticket number, monitor the timeline of when the ticket was created, and see the current status.
IT infra Admin at synu
 

Categories and Ranking

Freshservice
Ranking in Help Desk Software
4th
Ranking in IT Asset Management
4th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Project Management Software (10th), Cloud Management (10th), AI IT Support (4th)
ServiceNow
Ranking in Help Desk Software
1st
Ranking in IT Asset Management
1st
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
224
Ranking in other categories
Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Freshservice is 4.2%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 15.9%, down from 24.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
ServiceNow15.9%
Freshservice4.2%
Other79.9%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

RF
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
Automation and AI have transformed our service delivery and have made IT support faster and more efficient
I always keep up with Freshservice's roadmaps and new features. Freshservice has been very good at listening to feedback and adding those feature requests into their next iterations. I wish they would offer more granular data export options for utilizing in Power BI, along with predictive analytics for capacity planning and SLA breaches to enable more proactive support management and reduce firefighting. While the dashboards are effective, some users find custom reporting limited compared to ServiceNow or Jira. I would also appreciate deeper integrations, especially for niche apps requiring development coding work to enable advanced orchestration. Native integrations for DevOps pipelines such as GitHub Actions and Jenkins, along with stronger API flexibility for complex workflows, would enhance functionality. Although the CMDB and asset management are solid, they do lack advanced dependency mapping compared to other enterprise tools. My wishlist includes automated impact analysis for changes and improved visualization of asset relationships, enabling quicker resolutions from an agent's perspective when alerts come in. I acknowledge that Device42 may enhance this, but it is an extra cost beyond what we already pay. While Freddy AI is excellent for triage and suggestions, some users desire more proactive automation, such as predictive ticket routing based on historical patterns and AI-driven capacity forecasting. Lastly, the pricing tiers might seem rigid for mid-sized teams, so a more granular add-on option for features such as Device42 or pay-per-use for orchestration workflows could be beneficial.
SP
General Manager at sPerception IT
Adopting flexible workflows with customized automation delivers measurable benefits
There are things that I would like to see improved in ServiceNow, such as the pricing, as it is a very costly solution compared to other tools. Additionally, its presence in the local market is very limited; in Pakistan, for example, I don't see any vendor or distributor of ServiceNow available. They need to increase their sales spectrum globally so people can easily access them and engage them for client meetings and more. From a functionality perspective, the features in ServiceNow are acceptable as, at the moment, the ITSM modules rank highly, being 13 plus Pink Elephant certified, which is a good aspect to have. When providing advice to users, I would suggest they consider making strategic decisions about their per user pricing since it is very high. In our region, people normally start with 5 to 10 users, but the per user price is quite steep. Moreover, ServiceNow does not charge based on data uploaded or downloaded, so they should reconsider their pricing and data policies to align better with the financial capabilities of the region.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business55
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise166
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Freshservice?
I do not have any experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing, as it was assigned to the infrastructure team.
What needs improvement with Freshservice?
Freshservice is a strong IT service management platform, but there are several areas where it could be further improved to deliver even more value. One key area is advanced reporting and analytics....
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 that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...
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 ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Flint
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport
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 Freshservice vs. ServiceNow and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.