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Salesforce Community Cloud 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

Salesforce Community Cloud
Ranking in Community Platforms
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (10th)
Zendesk
Ranking in Community Platforms
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (6th), CRM (18th), Help Desk Software (8th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (7th), Sales Force Automation (8th), Reporting (14th), Knowledge Management Software (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Community Platforms category, the mindshare of Salesforce Community Cloud is 17.1%, down from 20.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 20.7%, up from 20.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Community Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zendesk20.7%
Salesforce Community Cloud17.1%
Other62.2%
Community Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Julio Divietro - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps us with sales management of customer life cycles with good business intelligence
Our primary use case for the solution is sales management of customer life cycles. We deploy the solution on cloud The stability and ease of use are valuable. Additionally, the granularity of the tool provides a great experience because of the several variables we can manage during the process.…
JohanSkibdahl - PeerSpot reviewer
Automating customer support with advanced AI capabilities and seamless communication
Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls. It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. This intelligent tool can manage complex queries before users even realize they are interacting with a non-human. Additionally, we have integrated Zendesk with Datto and Klaviyo, enhancing our workflows.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I found most valuable in Salesforce CRM is its reporting feature because it's extensive and it's very accurate. I also like that you can move opportunities by stages. I find that feature very important and very useful because it helps you understand where opportunities get stuck, and at what stage it is currently."
"All the business intelligence included in the tool gives more information about the cycle of the sales stage."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The stability has been very good."
"It's very convenient to use."
"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 use, and I haven't encountered any issues with delays or communication gaps in ticket resolutions."
"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."
"We rarely had issues with Zendesk."
"The initial setup is simple and straightforward."
"Zendesk has been invaluable in automating communications such as email and phone calls."
 

Cons

"The user interface can be improved."
"An area for improvement in Salesforce CRM is that there's still a lot of manual input you need to make. If it could pick up things automatically from an email and auto-populate, that would make the tool better. Another area for improvement is that the Salesforce CRM connector for G-suite does not work effectively."
"Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries."
"The dashboard could be better."
"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."
"The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook."
"There is always a network issue with Zendesk. But we don’t know whether it is managed. The network issue is that when I call, it does not let us."
"Zendesk Guide could be improved by allowing us to put our assets in one location. What happens now for each article, for example, is we have to upload the images for that article to that location, so the image reuse is still not something that they have perfected. If they could allow us to update all the images in one location, and then pull the image from there, it would be easier when working on Multibrand projects. There are no Multibrand updates available—we have to update each brand manually. For my company, I have come up with an API tool which allows me to push the content to multiple brands together, but if you don't have something like that, you have to manually do it."
"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."
"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing for Salesforce CRM is extremely expensive."
"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."
"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."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
15%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Performing Arts
6%
University
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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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?
Zendesk's pricing is reasonable. It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
I'm going to piggyback on what I said regarding Freshdesk concerning what could be better in Zendesk: incorporate more AI. I know many CRM tools are already on the way to do that.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Brown-Forman, GE Aviation, Pernod Ricard, Toyota, Virgin America, GE, IAVA
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Salesforce Community Cloud vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.