IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs Zoho Desk comparison

IBM and Zoho are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. IBM is ranked #26, while Zoho is ranked #8 with an average rating of 8.2. IBM holds a 0.9% mindshare in HDS, compared to Zoho’s 2.8% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Zoho users who would recommend it.

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Read 9 IBM SmartCloud Control Desk reviews

425 Views
408 Comparison Views

88% willing to recommend

Zoho Desk

Read 21 Zoho Desk reviews

1,103 Views
1,059 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Zoho Desk

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk and Zoho Desk are competing products in the IT service management and customer support space, respectively. IBM SmartCloud Control Desk shows strength in IT operation management due to its advanced feature set, while Zoho Desk is appealing for its user-friendliness, particularly in customer support operations.

Features: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk provides comprehensive IT asset management, detailed change management, and an effective service catalog. Its capabilities are tailored for complex IT environments. Zoho Desk brings to the table powerful ticket management, multichannel support, and strong automation features, making it ideal for agile customer service processes.

Room for Improvement: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk could benefit from enhanced user interface design, more simplified reporting features, and a more transparent pricing structure. Improvements in deployment times, user training resources, and cloud integration efficiency would benefit significantly. Zoho Desk has room to improve in customization flexibility, scalability for large enterprises, and the richness of its reporting features.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk offers robust integration options and detailed support, tailored for intricate IT systems management. Its deployment is tailored toward comprehensive IT framework applications. Zoho Desk offers a swift deployment process with easy configurations, quickly enhancing customer service delivery with a focus on immediate operational efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk typically involves higher initial setup investments due to its extensive IT management capabilities. It provides long-term value for large IT infrastructures. On the other hand, Zoho Desk presents a more affordable pricing model, promising faster ROI, making it attractive for businesses focused on efficient customer service without high upfront costs.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Zoho Desk Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Zoho Desk

July 2025

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Helped 865,384 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

26th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zoho Desk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

8th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of August 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 Zoho Desk is 2.8%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Jose Pedro Muñoz

Director of operations at Vetasi

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.

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Babatunde-Olugbode

Technical presales engineer at Avetium Consult Ltd

End-to-end solution to manage customer support tickets and consolidate all communication channels into one platform

For me, the valuable features are related to customer engagement because I want to ensure I don't miss any customer inquiries, no matter the channel. For example, I haven't seen any other platform that consolidates all channels into one console. That's a valuable feature to me. Then there's the pricing, which is better than Zendesk. Zendesk charges in USD per user, per month, whereas Zoho let us pay in Naira (Nigerian currency). Zoho can also identify user locations, letting you leverage existing reviews. These are valuable features that many organizations have adopted Zoho Desk for. We can download the mobile app to see requests and respond from anywhere. It is one of the most improved applications and widely integrated systems I've worked with. You can virtually integrate it with almost anything, like Microsoft Teams and other data applications. The marketplace lets you find native integrations. For example, we have an organization that uses multiple systems and wants to ensure agents don't log in to multiple platforms to see emails. They have a native integration system that takes care of that and works seamlessly.

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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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The solution has been stable."

"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."

"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."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk pros

"The tool has made support very flexible and strong. We can use chat boxes and auto-responses. If someone creates a ticket, it will be created in Zoho Desk's ticket module. We can get emails and respond to them within the product. We don't need a support email product to manage emails. We can easily manage it within Zoho Desk. The tool's interface is good since it updated the layout three months ago and the current interface is more effective."

"The tool's UI is very user-friendly. The solution's workflow is flexible and we can create our workflows. We can assign and create groups with the tool. We are also able to control the privileges with the tool."

"Zoho Desk offers a wide range of features that allow integration with different systems, enhancing ease of use."

"The deployment process is swift, typically taking just one day, and includes customization and automation setup."

"The most valuable feature of Zoho Desk is the parent and child task management feature."

"The integration part is a valuable feature in the solution, especially if we're talking about Zoho One solution. Zoho Desk is easy to integrate with Zoho platform."

"Overall, I consider Zoho CRM to be one of the best CRMs in the market today."

"The most valuable features of Zoho Desk are the user interface, pricing, and how they customize the solution for us."

More Zoho Desk pros

Cons

"The solution lacks a graphical user interface."

"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 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 reporting in relation to updating could be improved upon."

"Overall the user experience, as opposed to the system and databases, could be improved. It does work as it should and it's good, but they should invest more in the user interfaces to be less data oriented and more appealing for the user."

"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 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."

"It could use more facility or flexibility for reporting, and business intelligence in the tool."

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk cons

"The solution could improve its stability and scalability."

"As per customer requirements, it may have some limitations."

"Zoho Desk could be improved by making it multi-tenant, as it is currently not suitable for service providers with multiple customers."

"The main concern is the pricing of Zoho Desk, as I consider it to be on the expensive side."

"They could enhance the product’s features to customize the automated email responses."

"Zoho Desk should provide more integrations and improve the Zoho project integration."

"I would like to have integrated support, and integration between the ticketing tool and the project management tool."

"Zoho Desk needs to be enhanced to support IT service management policies."

More Zoho Desk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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 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."

"Zoho Desk's cost is pretty much okay."

"Regarding pricing, it's 35 USD per user a year and 45 USD per user a month. Under the price, I have access to all Zoho products since it all falls under Zoho One's package."

"Zoho Desk is a cost-effective solution."

"The product costs $10 to $25 per user per month."

"The pricing is better than Zendesk. Zendesk charges in USD per user per month, whereas Zoho let us pay in Naira (Nigerian currency)."

"The solution costs INR 8400 per user."

"For what it does, it's quite cheap."

"Zoho Desk's pricing is more flexible."

More Zoho Desk pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Government

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Zoho Desk?

The most valuable features of Zoho Desk are archiving queries and analytics.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho Desk?

The pricing in Brazil is complicated due to the high exchange rate, with one dollar equaling six reais. Altasnet has a favorable pricing from Zoho as an early account in Brazil, but current website...

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What needs improvement with Zoho Desk?

Zoho Desk could be improved by making it multi-tenant, as it is currently not suitable for service providers with multiple customers. Additionally, Zoho Desk's potential would be fully realized wit...

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Comparisons

ServiceNow vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 29% of the time

SCSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 24% of the time

Zendesk vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 24% of the time

Ivanti Neurons for ITSM vs IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

Compared 23% of the time

More IBM SmartCloud Control Desk Competitors

ServiceNow vs Zoho Desk

Compared 39% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs Zoho Desk

Compared 14% of the time

Freshdesk vs Zoho Desk

Compared 9% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs Zoho Desk

Compared 7% of the time

Zendesk vs Zoho Desk

Compared 6% of the time

More Zoho Desk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk

August 2025

Download IBM SmartCloud Control Desk product report

Buyer's Guide

Zoho Desk

July 2025

Download Zoho Desk 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

With Zoho Desk, agents become more productive, managers become more impactful, and customers become more empowered. It's customizable, convenient to use, and it doesn't cost you a fortune. Part of Zoho's 30-strong suite of business software, Zoho Desk brings you the power to put customer service at the heart of your company.

Zoho

Sample Customers

St Vincent's Health Australia, Kalibrate Pty. Ltd., Cognizant Technology

Intel, Sears, Daimler, Essilor, Aon Hewitt, Shop Your Way, CoffeeRocket

Buyer's Guide

IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Zoho Desk

July 2025

Free Report: IBM SmartCloud Control Desk vs. Zoho Desk

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