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IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs LiveAgent comparison

IBM and QualityUnit are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #27, while QualityUnit is ranked #36. IBM holds a 0.9% mindshare in HDS, compared to QualityUnit’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of QualityUnit users who would recommend it.
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews
  • 404 Views
  • 49 Comparison Views
88% willing to recommend
LiveAgent
Read 2 LiveAgent reviews
  • 199 Views
  • 35 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and LiveAgent compete in IT service management and customer support. LiveAgent seems to have an upper hand due to its extensive range of features, although IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is valued for its integration capabilities and support options.

Features: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is noted for its integration capabilities with enterprise systems, asset management, and robust service request management functions. LiveAgent is notable for its comprehensive customer support functionalities, including a universal inbox, automation tools, and extensive third-party integrations. The main difference is SmartCloud's focus on enterprise solutions versus LiveAgent's emphasis on flexible customer support.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk deployment can be complex due to its enterprise-scale nature, needing more planning and support, but offers comprehensive customer service. LiveAgent offers a straightforward deployment model with user-friendly configurations, enabling quick installation and efficient onboarding, complemented by proactive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk requires a significant initial setup cost but may offer long-term benefits for businesses needing robust IT asset management. This is reflective of its enterprise-grade capabilities. LiveAgent provides a more flexible pricing structure, potentially attractive for smaller organizations or those needing immediate customer service enhancements, likely offering a quicker return on investment for businesses prioritizing customer support functionalities.

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To learn more, read our detailed IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. LiveAgent Report (Updated: June 2025).
Buyer's Guide
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. LiveAgent
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

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
27th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
LiveAgent
Ranking in Help Desk Software
36th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (48th), Knowledge Management Software (24th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of IBM SmartCloud Control Desk is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of LiveAgent is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz - PeerSpot reviewer
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
OO
Prioritizes tasks and easily organizes messages and responses
I've not really noticed anything that needs to be improved with the solution. Generally, I enjoyed everything. Every feature LiveAgent has was a seamless journey for me. Maybe there are others who might notice one or two flaws on LiveAgent. I use LiveAgent, but based on my position in the company as a live chat professional, there is a level that I am restricted to. There are other products that are more popular and effective than LiveAgent, like Zendesk and HubSpot. They are among the most popular live chat products, and they have more users. I will advise that LiveAgent should look at what these other people are doing and use it to improve themselves. LiveAgent should add more functionalities.
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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

"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 solution has been stable."
"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."
"SLA integrations, reports, and integration with other applications are the most valuable."
"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."
"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 solution is very easy to work with."
More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros
"The most valuable feature was how the solution helped us to prioritize tasks."
"Provides service level optimization."
 

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 reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."
"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
"There are other products that are more popular."
"Connection to other softwares could be improved."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
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860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Comparisons

ServiceNow vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Logo
ServiceNow vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Compared 35% of the time
SCSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Logo
SCSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Compared 35% of the time
Zendesk vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Logo
Zendesk vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
Compared 30% of the time
More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Competitors
Zoho Desk vs LiveAgent Logo
Zoho Desk vs LiveAgent
Compared 100% of the time
More LiveAgent Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk
June 2025
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reportDownload IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report
Buyer's Guide
Help Desk Software
June 2025
LiveAgent reportDownload LiveAgent product report
 

Also Known As

SmartCloud Control Desk
No data available
 

Overview

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

Stay on top of all customer requests and inquiries with LiveAgent, the most reviewed and top-rated help desk software for SMB in 2020. LiveAgent boasts the fastest chat widget on the market and has over 150M end-users worldwide. LiveAgent is a fully-featured web-based live chat and helpdesk software. LiveAgent harnesses the power of a universal inbox, real-time live chat, built-in call center, and a robust customer service portal. LiveAgent has over 179+ helpful features such as advanced automation features, rules, tags, and 40+ integrations.

Join companies like BMW, Yamaha, Huawei and Oxford University in providing world-class customer service. Start your free 14-day trial today, no credit card required.

QualityUnit
 

Sample Customers

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology
Orange, Huawei, T Mobile, eOn, Solid Trust Pay, G4S, Oxford University
Buyer's Guide
IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. LiveAgent
June 2025
Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. LiveAgent
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