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JIRA Service Management vs Kayako 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

JIRA Service Management
Ranking in Help Desk Software
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (2nd)
Kayako
Ranking in Help Desk Software
46th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Shared Inbox (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of JIRA Service Management is 9.0%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kayako is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Karim Yousef - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently track and document projects with seamless tool integration
We are a management warehouse that provides services to different customers in different sectors. Primarily, we serve the banking sector and the military sector. We manage all the software delivery projects through tools such as JIRA Service Management or TFS Confluence is a great tool for…
reviewer1712472 - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexible, straightforward implementation, and helpful support
We are in the process of switching from Kayako to ManageEngine Desktop Central. We went through a full review of our service desk processing and one of the solutions we purchased was a ManageEngine Desktop Central. When we were looking at the integrations into the Kayako system and how it works, we found that ManageEngine Desktop Central did very similar things. It had better layers of classification, other templating, and additional features that we did not have with Kayako. Our service manager made the decision to switch at that time. My advice to others wanting to implement Kayako would be for them to plan out their service processes first, prior to trying to implement them in the tool. We made the mistake of jumping in too soon back 10 years ago. I started using it in a way that we could have tooled it in a different way to make it better. We could have had more implementation process information to make sure we received what we wanted to out of the solution. I rate Kayako an eight out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I think one of the most valuable things is that it's all integrated."
"Two features I like about Jira are its ticketing system and its compatibility with Confluence. Also, the Knowledge Base is one of the more valuable features that would really benefit us."
"The most valuable feature of JIRA Service Management is a plugin we are using for the front end for simple user forms."
"Jira Service Management has a workflow feature you can configure for your specific requirements. It also lets you efficiently manage service requests with team members."
"Everyone knows how to use it, so there's no need to teach new members."
"The solution offers lots of information on the website to assist with technical queries. There are also many community sites to help you troubleshoot any problems."
"It has improved our work in a number of ways. First, it has made everything much faster. Before Jira Service Management, it could take weeks to resolve a ticket."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of Kayako is its flexibility. We can do anything we want with it, which is nice."
 

Cons

"The interface could be made easier to use. While it is not the worst, there is still room for improvement."
"Integration possibilities with other products that are not Atlassian would be helpful. Support should also provide separate installation guides for each product even though they are easy to install."
"The pricing could be better."
"It should be easier to log in."
"The deployment can be a bit complex, especially for those who are not technical."
"From the customer side, it's not friendly used compared to other competitors, like ServiceNow or BMC. It's also not fully ITSM management if you compare it with ServiceNow or BMC. They have a full model of ITSM. In BMC they have TrueSight, they have Discovery, which helps IT to discover IT equipment with a serial number, with the specs, capacity of the server."
"This solution lacks features for project management."
"The support we received was not fully provided at that time."
"Some of the reporting in Kayako could be improved. It only has two levels of classification and if there were additional levels added for reporting purposes it would be awesome for our environment."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We need a license because we have a higher number than the free part."
"I price of JIRA Service Management is reasonable."
"Licensing can become quite expensive."
"We may upgrade the license that we have. The license that we currently have is good for 500 agents, and it's not full yet."
"This is pricey solution. Should we move to using all cloud solutions in our business, we may move to different tools that have multiple functionality versus having a solution for each area. This would be too pricey and we would need to replace Jira with a different solution that also offers other features."
"It costs around $150 to $200 per user."
"I am using the free version, but my clients are paying for it. When they start, they evaluate it for 30 days, and after seeing the value, they move to its paid version."
"We have paid $20,000 recently for a one-year license for our on-prem server."
"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Also Known As

JIRA Service Desk
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

mgm technology partners, Telestream, Build.com, Zend Technologies, OfficeDrop, PGS Software, American Diabetes Association, NEPTUNE Canada
Toshiba Canada, Disney, Avast, Namecheap, Texas Tech University
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: May 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.