JIRA Service Management vs Zendesk comparison

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JIRA Service Management

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 29, 2025

JIRA Service Management and Zendesk compete in the customer support software category. JIRA seems to have the upper hand with its customizable and integration-friendly features, whereas Zendesk stands out due to its ease of use and comprehensive ticket management capabilities.

Features: JIRA Service Management offers flexibility with high customization options such as workflows, user forms, and SLA management. Additionally, its integration with Atlassian products and customizable dashboards enhance project management. In contrast, Zendesk is known for its ease of configuration, macro functionality, and comprehensive multi-channel ticket management. Zendesk's integration capabilities with various platforms further its appeal.

Room for Improvement: JIRA could develop better email integration, enhance reporting features, and improve mobile connectivity. Also, adding more customer-facing functionalities and offering a more flexible licensing model would be beneficial. Zendesk could refine its UI for novice users, streamline integration processes, and enhance reporting capabilities. Cost-effectiveness and more extensive support options also represent areas for enhancement.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: JIRA Service Management offers various deployment options, including on-premise and cloud configurations, but Atlassian's customer service can be resource-intensive. Zendesk, though similar in deployment flexibility, excels in customer satisfaction with user-friendly interfaces and accessible support resources, including extensive online materials and a robust community.

Pricing and ROI: JIRA's pricing structure, while reasonable for its features, can become costly at scale due to additional plugin costs. It offers high ROI potential for extensive customization needs. Zendesk's pricing is perceived as higher, particularly for large teams needing extensive licenses, but many users justify this cost due to its comprehensive features and positive impact on operational efficiency.

To learn more, read our detailed JIRA Service Management vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: December 2025).

JIRA Service Management vs. Zendesk

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Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

6.6

JIRA Service Management streamlines workflows, cuts costs, enhances productivity, and benefits virtual teams with its cloud-based platform.

Sentiment score

6.2

Zendesk delivers cost savings and efficiency with flexible pricing and integration, addressing operational needs despite ROI measurement challenges.

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the JIRA Service Management report

I can tell you that we probably saved at least three employees full-time with the ticket management and the automation and the macros and the user follow-up being built in.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

Time saved is definitely a benefit because it puts all of our tickets in one spot.

reviewer2795478

Technical Solutions Lead at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

I feel that Zendesk helped us set up our platform for providing support way faster than other platforms due to its easy configuration.

Filipe Abreu

Junior system analyst at Wevt clous

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.1

Atlassian's customer service is efficient but faces challenges with time zones and technical support accessibility, relying on local partners.

Sentiment score

6.3

Zendesk support is generally responsive and professional, with some users experiencing delays and a lack of 24/7 chat support.

No quotes available

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There appears to be a lack of connection between the bot and the agents, making it feel scripted rather than helpful.

Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

The technical support provided by Zendesk has been very satisfactory.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Their support team from Zendesk is excellent, similar to what you have in Freshdesk.

Anita Orioma

Customer Success Manager at Mimshackworks Endeavors

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.3

JIRA Service Management is scalable, flexible, and integrates well, supporting various organizations with excellent scalability ratings and licensing options.

Sentiment score

7.3

Zendesk scales well across team sizes, despite challenges in backups, updates, customization, and larger organization's specific scalability needs.

It supports introducing new features or levels efficiently across our global locations, helping everyone stay informed.

reviewer2597127

R&D Engineering - Program Manager at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees

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We have not hit a peak or a turn yet that Zendesk has not been able to go with us or been able to grow with us in the process, change or pivot that the company is making.

Dimitri Cooper

Project Manager III at City of Union City Government

Zendesk can scale from very small companies to very large ones.

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Zendesk's scalability is excellent.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.8

JIRA Service Management is highly stable and reliable, frequently updated, with most users rating its stability between 8-9/10.

Sentiment score

7.8

Zendesk is stable and reliable, with occasional outages swiftly resolved, making it ideal for small businesses and startups.

There should be more governance for permissions and more options for customized access without frequently involving the admin.

reviewer2597127

R&D Engineering - Program Manager at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the JIRA Service Management report

They are always informing us with a status update and an ETA, and the turnaround time is usually within the same day with no extended downtime that would cause a detriment to our company.

Dimitri Cooper

Project Manager III at City of Union City Government

Zendesk is quite stable; we experience major outages only once or twice a year, making it very reliable.

Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

The stability has been quite reliable.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Room For Improvement

JIRA Service Management struggles with integration, customization, interface usability, and lacks key features like advanced dashboards and asset management.

Zendesk users seek improved usability, better integration, enhanced reporting, customization, mobile support, streamlined management, and communication tools.

JIRA's user interface needs training to understand and utilize.

reviewer2597127

R&D Engineering - Program Manager at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees

It remains one of the main barriers to using JIRA Service Management across our entire company.

Karim Yousef

GB, Development Practice - Technical Director at EJADA

We need to consider which AI tool would be most suitable for our project.

KrishnaGadepalli

Database Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

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Zendesk could actually support HTML on the tickets so we could format our text better than the current options such as size, bold, italic, or underscored, because the text processing is too simple.

Filipe Abreu

Junior system analyst at Wevt clous

Zendesk is missing an AI aspect that could help provide quick answers based on the knowledge housed within the platform.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees

Zendesk is amazing, and because they are always working on a new upgrade or a new integration, they are very forward-thinking from an engineering perspective.

Dimitri Cooper

Project Manager III at City of Union City Government

Setup Cost

JIRA Service Management's pricing is competitive but can be costly with more users and add-ons, varying by market.

Zendesk's pricing can be high, impacting decisions, but offers flexibility and valuable CX features if negotiated effectively.

We used Jira's free version for some time.

Prakhar Goel

Sr Test Lead at Emerson

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It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.

CEO at Etcetera Networks

The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

Valuable Features

JIRA Service Management offers customizable dashboards, integration capabilities, and flexibility, enhancing project management and collaboration for varied needs.

Zendesk excels in integration, user-friendly ticket management, automation, customization, and robust analytics to enhance productivity and user experience.

JIRA itself is valuable for managing tickets, user stories, and pipeline.

Karim Yousef

GB, Development Practice - Technical Director at EJADA

For every task we are working on, the project manager can see the status once we update the stories mentioned.

Prathamesh DMarathe

Senior Software Engineer at Annalect

It is beneficial if someone is on vacation since others can follow up on the tickets.

Alark Singh

Senior Technical Analyst at Allianz

For more quotes and insights, download the JIRA Service Management report

It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities.

CEO at Etcetera Networks

Zendesk is way cheaper than other ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow, providing a good platform at a lower price so we could offer good support with a low budget for the license.

Filipe Abreu

Junior system analyst at Wevt clous

Being able to put response counters on certain tickets and have certain ones that are high priority and have a tighter SLA than lower priority items, being able to categorize them as a question versus an urgent request, and being able to bucket them as feature requests or product enhancements.

For more quotes and insights, download the Zendesk report

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

Categories and Ranking

JIRA Service Management

Ranking in Help Desk Software

2nd

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Zendesk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

4th

Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)

6th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

CRM Customer Engagement Centers (4th), CRM (8th), Sales Force Automation (4th), Reporting (10th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), Community Platforms (1st), AI Customer Support (7th), AI IT Support (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of JIRA Service Management is 6.5%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 5.1%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
JIRA Service Management	6.5%
Zendesk	5.1%
Other	88.4%

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Sohaib Ahmad

Vice President Service Delivery at quixel

Comprehensive workflows and data views have supported complex teams but still need cost improvements

JIRA Service Management is costly. The pricing structure needs improvement. When I add some plugins, I have to pay the cost for every user whether they are using it or not. For smaller companies, the detailed workflow editing and the kind of details that JIRA Service Management provides would be complex. For startups and smaller companies, JIRA Service Management would be complex. The cloud offering is easier because I don't have to manage the infrastructure. There are two templates of the project: company-managed and team-managed. Team-managed is a newer feature, which is good for startup-kind companies where they don't need control over data from multiple projects displaying in one dashboard. For startups, JIRA Service Management is somewhat complex with its schemes and everything. Capacity management should be improved in terms of additional features in the next release of JIRA Service Management.

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Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams

Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises

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.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Performing Arts

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	33

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	36
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What is your favorite Help Desk Software and why?

JIRA Due to its agility.

What do you like most about JIRA Service Management?

JIRA Service Management is a very user-friendly solution.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JIRA Service Management?

The price is actually reasonable.

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...

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Product Reports

JIRA Service Management

Download JIRA Service Management product report

Download Zendesk product report

Also Known As

JIRA Service Desk, Atlassian Jira Service Management

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Overview

JIRA Service Management is recognized for customization, ease of use, and integration capabilities, offering flexible workflows and dashboards that enhance ticket management in organizations.

This platform contributes to streamlining business operations with features like automation and real-time updates. Businesses implement JIRA Service Management to manage ITIL processes, support tickets, and issue tracking both internally and externally. It is utilized for project management and lifecycle tracking, with Kanban boards and Confluence integration supporting change, incident, and problem management.

What are the key features of JIRA Service Management?

Customizable Workflows: Adapt workflows to meet business needs.
Integration: Seamlessly connects with other tools, including Jira and Confluence.
Real-Time Updates: Keeps teams informed and synchronized.
Automation: Reduces manual tasks with automated processes.
Scalability: Grows with organizations, accommodating increasing demands.

What benefits and ROI can be expected from JIRA Service Management?

Efficiency Gains: Improves operational efficiency through streamlined processes.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies adoption with intuitive navigation.
Comprehensive Reporting: Provides valuable insights to drive decisions.
Quick Setup: Fast deployment enhances time-to-value.
SLA Management: Ensures service level agreements are met effectively.

Service management platforms like JIRA Service Management are integral to industries focusing on managing IT services, such as tech firms and support-focused sectors. Organizations frequently utilize its capabilities to enhance their customer service operations, supporting optimal SLA adherence and efficient query management across departments. By tailoring its application to unique operational workflows, companies achieve improved service delivery and responsive issue resolution.

Atlassian

Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

Sample Customers

mgm technology partners, Telestream, Build.com, Zend Technologies, OfficeDrop, PGS Software, American Diabetes Association, NEPTUNE Canada

Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber

JIRA Service Management vs. Zendesk