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Hornbill Systems Supportworks vs Zendesk comparison

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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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
661
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
Hornbill Systems Supportworks
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (33rd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (31st)
Zendesk
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (2nd), CRM (5th), Help Desk Software (3rd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (5th), Reporting (7th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (8th), AI IT Support (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
it_user1262703 - PeerSpot reviewer
Service Desk Team Leader at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Excels in call logging and call flows but is limited in terms of scalability
I'd advise others to map their processes out before starting with the solution. Hornbill has recently generated a new version of its product and it meets some of the requirements that we would have been looking for. It's a bit more scalable, a bit more responsive to a customer-focused model for support, and they've improved a lot of things like process flow and self-service. In terms of rating the solution, it's difficult to grade. It really depends on the size of the organization that's trying to use it as that tool. One of the reasons why we're looking to shift is because we've grown quite a bit over the years that we've had it, which makes it difficult for it to meet our demands. However, for an organization the size of what we were when we started our journey with it, I'd rate it ten out of ten. Where we are now, with our company size and needs, I'd rate it six out of ten.
AmandaSanchez - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams
The ability to communicate on the Zendesk ticket through the actual user software, so TOPs, would have been helpful. Somehow seeing a user's ticket history within our app would have been beneficial. That is the only thing that I do not think existed at the time that might have been helpful. Some people struggled with Zendesk, but it was always easy enough to show them how to use it and what they were missing. The only times we really had people report concerns about it was when they did not understand that it could do that or how to use it in that way.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product has everything that I want; I don't have to look for another tool to integrate with it."
"The time savings from using Document Automation are substantial, as previously a team of about five to ten people managed specific processes end-to-end, such as processing fourteen thousand entries in a month, but after automation, that entire process is streamlined, saving us a lot of FTEs."
"In some cases, we see savings on the order of $100,000 and, in the newer processes that we are trying to do, it may be up to $1,000,000."
"I have some metrics at the top of my head, but they're a little abstract. Accomplishing what we've done so far with the bots in production would take 40,000. It's not a direct correlation of full-time employees because that's all work that would not have gotten done because they don't have time for that kind of nitty-gritty work."
"None of the commands are unique to Automation Anywhere, which allows beginners to leverage external knowledge."
"AA has improved our digital strategy extensively and provided the required leverage to place ourselves above other peers in the O&G Industry. We were able to develop quick digital solutions by demonstrating the ROI and gain momentum by aligning the desired resources & budget from leadership."
"The deployment was good."
"Automation Anywhere's most valuable feature is its seamless integration into procurement software, allowing for the automation of purchase orders, billing, employee travel details, and other tasks."
"The solution's business process flow is quite strong. Its reporting is quite good. The standard, basic ITSM functionality like call logging and call flow, for example, are areas the solution really excels in."
"We've definitely seen an ROI; we've had the system in place for eight years, and it's provided a solid platform for us to deliver our services during that period."
"It is quite user friendly to use and has a lot of very useful features that makes the analyst/technician's life easier."
"It is very easy to connect back and forth between the requester and the person fulfilling the ticket."
"The ability to easily create macros, quickly see past correspondence from a recent sender, and view analytics are incredibly helpful features that are invaluable business tools."
"If their price is acceptable, I would recommend using Zendesk to all companies whose clients and employees need a simple way of raising issues."
"It works really well, is very seamless, and is very good software."
"It's an amazing product, it really helps out in organizing all our tasks."
"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use. If you take the standalone product, it is so easy to use, but if you want a tailor-made Zendesk Guide, you can't do it yourself. However, you can use a template that already exists—they have a lot, and they're very cheap, around 300-400 euros—and use it on all your brands. It's a very easy product to use."
"I love how the tickets would auto-populate very quickly in Zendesk, especially when a call comes in."
"Just buy it."
 

Cons

"I feel the cost of licensing is very high for the A2019 version."
"In the current organization, we had trouble initially because I think the documentation and support could be better than what it is now."
"I would like a better code migration solution, because this is something that we do a lot."
"If you are not on-premise, then you will need to have Citrix automation."
"The overall product in Automation Anywhere is good, but they need to improve a little bit on the overall architecture side."
"There are improvements needed in error handling processes, as currently, they rely on start and end error commands."
"The bot creation process is tedious. The solution has a lot of features, but since you have to drag down a lot of the commands, it can get tedious to use it. You end up having to use the mouse a lot more."
"In the debugging mode, it writes all the logs to text files, but it doesn't ever clean them up. We had one that got to 200K, and it bogged our whole machine down. We couldn't figure out what was going on until we found out that we had a 200K file sitting out there. We would like some sort of maintenance on the log files going forward."
"It's worked well for us for a significant period of time. However, we are kind-of outgrowing it at the moment. We're struggling a bit with making it meet our requirements."
"Customer Service: I'd rate it as a 5/10 or 6/10."
"As Zendesk is an international business and has customers world-wide, it would be nice if it would provide 24/7 support."
"We work in print so being able to preview files attached and having larger files (larger than 7MB would be great) would be a welcomed improvement."
"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."
"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."
"If I write an article, and I have a team of 30 people, and they all have a Zendesk account, when I write an article, I send them an email. "Hey guys, I just wrote this article. It's one of the most popular topics this month on which we are not covered. Please check it and make sure that you include it in your resolutions". The issue is, once I send it to those 30 people, and they open it, the next morning, that article is the most popular article."
"Zendesk Guide could be improved by allowing us to put our assets in one location. What happens now for each article, for example, is we have to upload the images for that article to that location, so the image reuse is still not something that they have perfected. If they could allow us to update all the images in one location, and then pull the image from there, it would be easier when working on Multibrand projects. There are no Multibrand updates available—we have to update each brand manually. For my company, I have come up with an API tool which allows me to push the content to multiple brands together, but if you don't have something like that, you have to manually do it."
"I really wish they had a chat feature - like Olark for example."
"We have been quite frustrated lately with Zendesk, to the point where we are actually considering switching to different software that is more intuitive and better organized."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Our advice is that anybody interested in this product should negotiate product bundles in order to reduce the cost of installation and setup."
"The pricing for Automation Anywhere is reasonable."
"I really enjoy the pricing options with Automation Anywhere, as they are able to flex their ability to adapt to the needs of the customer really well."
"We're just starting to renew our license, and we were quoted $115,000 without the IQ Bot. The IQ Bot is another $30,000. This is with very limited pages, as we go through our first projects. The majority of the cost was for ten days of onsite training."
"I don't deal have cost specifics but I can say it is a tool that provides value for the money."
"Currently, it stands as one of the more expensive RPA tools available."
"The solution is costly and the licensing is very confusing."
"I find the license pricing to be competitive and reflective of the pricing models throughout the RPA space, and I believe there is a lot of value in continuing to maintain the free community edition platform."
"Our organization pays about $40,000 annually. There are ongoing consultancy costs and if we want to change anything, we're charged a day rate. Other than that, there are no other extra costs involved in working with the solution."
"You have to pay extra for better support. So it's not only the license that you pay for, but you have to pay extra for the support as well."
"We pay for the solution on a yearly basis and my understanding is that the cost is about $30,000. That's the cost for 24 to 25 agents."
"Zendesk's licensing is not cheap. For Enterprise, we are paying $200 per agent. It's a per-month cost, so it's pretty steep. There are some services you need to pay extra for. For example, with Zendesk Guide, we had to buy the most expensive offering in order to get Multibrand and everything. We also had to pay a lot of money for themes."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
"The price is very competitive."
"There are different plans that are offered. We are using the entry-level plan. The overall price of the solution should be reduced. The price is too high."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
No data available
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business161
Midsize Enterprise82
Large Enterprise560
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk shows that pricing is really affordable compared to...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
Regarding my main use case for Zendesk, it is really easy to use, but one of the cons I have with it is that it takes...
What is your primary use case for Zendesk Support?
On a day-to-day basis, I use Zendesk to track, manage, and work on my cases. I also use it to upload information secu...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
Supportworks
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Aylesbury Vale District Council
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Hornbill Systems Supportworks vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.