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IBM Maximo vs Zendesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

IBM Maximo
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) (1st), Billing Software (5th)
Zendesk
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
67
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (4th), CRM (8th), Help Desk Software (4th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (6th), Sales Force Automation (4th), Reporting (10th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), Community Platforms (1st), AI Customer Support (7th), AI IT Support (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

IBM Maximo and Zendesk aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. IBM Maximo is designed for Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) and holds a mindshare of 16.0%, down 27.4% compared to last year.
Zendesk, on the other hand, focuses on CRM Customer Engagement Centers, holds 6.9% mindshare, up 6.4% since last year.
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
IBM Maximo16.0%
Oracle Enterprise Asset Management7.8%
IFS Cloud Platform7.4%
Other68.8%
Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)
CRM Customer Engagement Centers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zendesk6.9%
Microsoft Dynamics CRM14.1%
Salesforce Service Cloud11.1%
Other67.9%
CRM Customer Engagement Centers
 

Featured Reviews

Omar Samy - PeerSpot reviewer
Maximo Team lead at Masters United
Improved resource management and streamlined operations enhance organizational efficiency
IBM Maximo could be improved if they added a comprehensive finance module, as that would make it a more complete standalone application. Currently, if you need specific finance software, you need to purchase something such as SAP and integrate it with IBM Maximo. Coverage in this area would help reduce dependency on additional software. Regarding finance features, I would want to see payment capabilities added to IBM Maximo, particularly for factories making payments with providers and collections. This feature isn't adequately covered in IBM Maximo. Additionally, enhanced finance reporting and managing GL would be beneficial. IBM Maximo covers GL but only at a surface level. It doesn't provide deep account analysis.
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

"They have a real strength of tracking the asset itself along with the condition of the asset, the maintenance of the asset and who has access to the asset, etc."
"The Preventive Maintenance feature, especially in its inspection routines and KPI abilities, is valuable."
"Reliable, very configurable, and it's all integrated in the same database."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to correct maintenance."
"​Maximo is very stable. We really do not have problem with stability.​"
"Preventive maintenance management."
"IBM Maximo is a very strong and powerful tool in the market…Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"IBM Maximo is the best software for assets management."
"Zendesk has helped us to increase productivity and has reduced the time between when a ticket is opened and when it is completed."
"It is very easy to connect back and forth between the requester and the person fulfilling the ticket."
"The stability has been very good."
"The most valuable features of Zendesk Support are collaboration, reports, and a self-service portal. The customer and team can see all the information needed from the portal."
"The product offers very good management. It has a great ability to assign tickets based on content."
"I love how the tickets would auto-populate very quickly in Zendesk, especially when a call comes in."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The collaboration between agents is impressive, and I also use Zendesk Workspace, which provides a seamless experience when communicating through chat and email."
 

Cons

"​Maximo is a big system, so the initial setup is complex."
"IBM Maximo can improve the financial support and financial application, to make it more similar to an ERP as opposed to an EAM. Overall they can improve the financial processes."
"The solution is not stable. We can have one day when it is stable and another day it is not. Sometimes it crashes or becomes very slow, and there are times we are not even able to download all the databases. Without the database, we cannot work on that application. These are the small glitches, and stability issues we are facing."
"You can get lost using the application"
"The pricing model of the solution has room for improvement as well as the after-sales support."
"Vendor management needs enhancement."
"IBM is a big company and they have a lot of products. Level One, the first level of tech support, is the one that is used to stop the tsunami. For everyone, it's always work to get past that."
"This solution could improve by integrating or embedding finances, charts of accounts, and invoicing."
"The solution itself wasn't easy to set up."
"The support team is time-consuming, and they don't find the answer to our problem."
"Zendesk Guide's customization could be improved. I would like it to be easier and maybe open-sourced, so that if you have a developer in your company, you can do it yourself. Right now, that isn't allowed, so you need to have it done via the integrator. Another improvement—this is nit-picking—is that it could be less easy to make changes. Some things are so easy that they sometimes look a little amateur-ish. Most of the templates are built-in so they can be used directly, so they are very simple."
"The dashboard could be better."
"The price of the solution should be reduced."
"My experience with Zendesk's customer support has not been positive. When I open a ticket for a bug, it often does not expedite the resolution process."
"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 has not positively impacted my organization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of IBM Maximo could reduce, it is expensive."
"IBM Maximo offers a licensing application, and you have to comply with the license."
"The concurrent user license is much more effective in management and cost-wise, as it is more suitable for maintenance management."
"$USD700 per agent user."
"Where available, concurrent licenses can be more cost efficient and provide more flexibility."
"Explore the possibility of using DB2. You will avoid the cost of SQL Server or Oracle licenses."
"I do not know about the price of the solution. However, this has been an expensive project overall."
"You pay for what you get. There are lots of options depending on how you would like to implement Maximo."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise17
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IBM Maximo?
IBM Maximo could be improved if they added a comprehensive finance module, as that would make it a more complete standalone application. Currently, if you need specific finance software, you need t...
What is your primary use case for IBM Maximo?
My main use case for IBM Maximo is managing maintenance. I used it first as an end user, and later joined the implementation team. Now I'm administrating and implementing IBM Maximo. The transition...
What advice do you have for others considering IBM Maximo?
There are many good implemented functions in IBM Maximo, but I see these two functions as the most valuable ones from my point of view. My advice to others considering IBM Maximo is that top manage...
What do you like most about Zendesk Support?
I found the user experience with vendors on Zendesk to be straightforward, especially when it comes to understanding and searching for specific tickets. The search and navigation tools are easy to ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that is what prohibited us from expanding usage of it into more users and using more o...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
As of right now, I have nothing that comes to mind as an improvement needed or a feature that could work differently or be enhanced. I think across the board, Zendesk is amazing, and because they a...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Maximo
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Royal Boskalis Westminster N.V., DTE Energy, Swedish Match, Projetech, Fingrid, East Coast
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM, Prometheus Group, Infor and others in Enterprise Asset Management (EAM). Updated: December 2025.
879,899 professionals have used our research since 2012.