NICE CXone vs Zendesk Messaging comparison

NICE and Zendesk are both solutions in the Live Chat category. NICE is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4, while Zendesk is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.5. NICE holds a 9.7% mindshare in LC, compared to Zendesk’s 8.2% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of NICE users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Zendesk users who would recommend it.

NICE CXone

Read 16 NICE CXone reviews

3,085 Views
154 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

Zendesk Messaging

Read 3 Zendesk Messaging reviews

336 Views
131 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

NICE CXone

Zendesk Messaging

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 30, 2025

NICE CXone and Zendesk Messaging are competing in the customer service software market. Zendesk Messaging has an edge due to its advanced features and perceived value.

Features: NICE CXone offers robust omnichannel support, extensive analytics capabilities, and enterprise-level operations designed for comprehensive contact center solutions. Zendesk Messaging provides seamless integrations, automation features, and modern communication channels that enhance customer engagement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: NICE CXone has a complex deployment process for large scale customizations, requiring more initial time and resources. Zendesk Messaging supports quicker, flexible implementation with minimal disruption. NICE CXone has detailed customer service to match customization needs, while Zendesk Messaging offers streamlined support for its straightforward deployment.

Pricing and ROI: NICE CXone offers an attractive pricing model for enterprise adaptability, providing scalable ROI over time. Zendesk Messaging has a premium pricing but promises high returns through improved operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.

To learn more, read our detailed NICE CXone vs. Zendesk Messaging Report (Updated: February 2026).

Buyer's Guide

NICE CXone vs. Zendesk Messaging

February 2026

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Helped 882,594 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

NICE CXone

Ranking in Live Chat

1st

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Workforce Engagement Management (2nd), IVR Systems (1st), Knowledge Management Software (6th), Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) (4th), AI Customer Experience Personalization (5th)

Zendesk Messaging

Ranking in Live Chat

3rd

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Text Messaging (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Live Chat category, the mindshare of NICE CXone is 9.7%, down from 13.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk Messaging is 8.2%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Live Chat Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
NICE CXone	9.7%
Zendesk Messaging	8.2%
Other	82.1%

Live Chat

Featured Reviews

Morvin Arun Pinto

Cx Product Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

Omnichannel features have unified journeys and AI now speeds up responses for our agents

NICE CXone is a good feature, but it is expensive and costlier than other products such as Genesis or other alternatives. When it comes to solutioning, there are too many SKUs, which are line items or components that could have been bundled together. For example, CXone agent licenses do not include QM in the basic packages, whereas in the Genesis world it is bundled. The price comparison is higher compared to Genesis or other platforms. I have been using Genesis for three to four years across multiple customers, and now that NICE CXone has become available, I have started comparing all the features and benefits. I find there are some gaps, with more features available but at a higher cost for NICE. Regarding cost-effectiveness and return on investment of NICE CXone, the main challenge is working with the NICE team. The speed of onboarding is lengthy and people-dependent initially. When comparing with other OEMs and CCaaS products, the UI interface and partner portal have multiple access points. I need to log into different portals for NICE CXone, whereas my other competitor platforms offer single sign-on where I can log in once and access all partner-led programs and learning materials in one location. There is room for improvement in this area, though gradually NICE can change this approach.

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Jairo Vega

Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Unified chat and ticket history has improved 24/7 global support efficiency and reduced contacts

I believe the best feature in Zendesk was in the chat; it allows you to seamlessly change between having, for example, a ticket and a client opening a chat, and all this information is saved in the same ticket. You don't have to create different tickets for different features. Everything was on the same ticket, making it easy to follow the history of the client, regardless of whether they first sent an email, then a chat, then something else. That was our main feature, and it was a really good feature that I liked the most. On the chat, we automated it, and we actually get really great results with Zendesk. We ended up lowering the customer contact rate thanks to the automations that we generated, connecting them to our help articles. The bot was connected to our help articles and it reflected around 12% of the incoming tickets, so that was super good because we wanted to make the creation rate of tickets as low as possible per customer.

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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

"Some of the best features with NICE CXone are the real-time visibility that you have, which empowers you to make adjustments on the fly, such as turning on and off your queues and adjusting how we route calls to our agents."

"The technical support for NICE CXone is outstanding."

"It is easy to look up and playback calls with this system as it categorizes the different types of calls that come through my call center. I like that inContact is always updating and continues to improve. The quality of its recorded calls is among the best that I have had experience with."

"It has the ability to edit the HTML, as well as the WYSIWYG."

"Being able to listen in on a call, which is exceptionally good with training."

"inContact has helped our organization greatly by allowing us to see at a glance which agents are available to receive calls and those who are not, we are able to see why not."

"The system is very flexible and powerful, especially for organizations wanting to control their environment."

"I have found the ease of use of the ACD to be most valuable along with the inView dashboard."

More NICE CXone pros

"We like the mobile application, which allows us to provide a faster response to the customer."

Cons

"It is a hassle, if you are busy and caught up with something, that it will log you out."

"Your docs go on their servers and getting them out is difficult, especially if you want to switch to another authoring format, e.g., Markdown. There are no converters and an automated extraction of the docs from the CMS is not available."

"I would like to see inView be a built-in feature of CXone rather than a separate platform, but everything else is terrific."

"There are times when the data does not load and you have to keep hitting refresh. More colors and different layouts should be included in the next release."

"Compared to challengers such as Zoom, which seem more cost-effective, NICE CXone's suite of products is very modular, so as they provide new services, you have to add to your existing package and this balloons your costs since there's an additional license needed to use the new tools."

"NICE CXone is a good feature, but it is expensive and costlier than other products such as Genesis or other alternatives."

"It could improve the quality of calls."

"I have noticed that occasionally the dashboard will freeze and some things may get stuck for a while. For example, if I have a dashboard open that shows how many calls are in queue and how many are currently being handled by agents, sometimes a call that an agent is handling will get stuck on the dashboard after the agent ends the call and the dashboard will show that the call is still a live call. Our tech team has explained this to us as a ghost call. After some time (or maybe many screen refreshes) the call will go away like it has just ended."

More NICE CXone cons

"We would like to have auto-templates for TT closure and TT updates."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We had a custom setup that cost us some money."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	4

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with NICE CXone?

See all answers

What is your primary use case for NICE CXone?

We use NICE CXone for inbound and outbound calling and other digital channels for contact center purposes across all verticals. We are a system integrator and telecom provider that bundles this pla...

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What advice do you have for others considering NICE CXone?

My recommendation for other organizations considering NICE CXone is that it is a good solution. Currently, I am based in India, and NICE CXone does not have a node in India to meet India's regulato...

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What needs improvement with Zendesk Chat?

I believe they could implement AI in a better way for Zendesk Messaging. Right now, there is an AI, but it's not to the level of being an actual agent that can help a customer before getting to a h...

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What is your primary use case for Zendesk Chat?

We tried to implement a 24/7 kind of global support with Zendesk, so we enabled Talk and enabled chat and ticketing, so everything was enabled in the workspace. We tried to handle every single requ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Zendesk Messaging?

We're mostly based on data, and we do not engage in workload automation or testing. Right now, we use Linear in addition to JIRA for our operations. I gave this review a rating of 9.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Webex Contact Center vs NICE CXone

Compared 7% of the time

Salesforce Service Cloud vs NICE CXone

Compared 6% of the time

Zendesk vs NICE CXone

Compared 6% of the time

More NICE CXone Competitors

Amazon Connect vs Zendesk Messaging

Compared 100% of the time

More Zendesk Messaging Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

NICE CXone

February 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Live Chat

February 2026

Download Zendesk Messaging product report

Also Known As

NICE inContact, NICE CXone Workforce Optimization Pro, NICE CXOne WFO Pro, CXone Workforce Optimization, inContact Workforce Optimization, CallCopy, Discover, VPI Empower, Brand Embassy, goMoxie

Zendesk Talk

Overview

NICE CXone offers comprehensive solutions for managing customer support across channels, ensuring consistent reporting with integrated dashboards and efficient call management. The platform supports scalability and integration, catering to organizations of all sizes with diverse communication needs.

NICE CXone enhances customer support by providing dynamic content structuring and robust HTML editing. With omnichannel integration, users experience consistent reporting across platforms. The intuitive dashboards allow customizable views, improving supervision and training efficiency. Call management benefits from efficient tagging and audio playback, while tools like inView aid real-time data monitoring and flexible system customization. Challenges include occasional system slowness, dashboard freezes, and the need for a more user-friendly interface. Reporting features could be simplified for easier custom report creation, and users suggest enhancing call quality. The implementation process might pose difficulties, with a demand for additional layout options and interface enhancements. Despite these issues, NICE CXone remains a favored choice for comprehensive customer support solutions.

What are the key features of NICE CXone?

Dynamic Content Structuring: Improves organization of customer data.
Omnichannel Integration: Provides consistent cross-platform reporting.
Customizable Dashboards: Allows personalized supervision views.
Efficient Call Management: Includes tagging and audio playback.
Real-Time Monitoring: Supported by tools like inView.

What benefits should users seek in reviews?

Scalability: Effective for organizations of all sizes.
Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly integrates with platforms like Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Supervision Efficiency: Enhances monitoring and task assignments.
Communication Improvement: Optimizes email and call handling.

NICE CXone is extensively utilized in industries focused on customer support and workforce management, especially within call centers. It optimizes quality management through call recordings and workforce efficiency by managing agent breaks and tasks. Its integration capability with Microsoft Dynamics 365 makes it a strategic tool for organizations aiming to streamline communication processes across multiple brands.

NICE

Live chat and messaging create a personal connection with customers looking for support. It’s a fast and effective way to offer help—without interrupting their experience.

Zendesk

Sample Customers

MoneyGram, Honeywell, Radisson Hotel Group, AAA, New Balance, MattressFIRM, Teleflora, Best Buy

Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber

Buyer's Guide

NICE CXone vs. Zendesk Messaging

February 2026

Free Report: NICE CXone vs. Zendesk Messaging

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