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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
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Community Platforms (2nd), Digital Experience Platforms (DXP) (6th)
Zendesk
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (3rd), CRM (9th), Help Desk Software (3rd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (5th), Reporting (11th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (7th), AI IT Support (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Customer Relationship Management solutions, they serve different purposes. Salesforce Community Cloud is designed for Community Platforms and holds a mindshare of 20.3%, down 30.0% compared to last year.
Zendesk, on the other hand, focuses on IT Service Management (ITSM), holds 4.9% mindshare, up 3.8% since last year.
Community Platforms Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Salesforce Community Cloud20.3%
Sprinklr17.3%
Lithium15.5%
Other46.9%
Community Platforms
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zendesk4.9%
ServiceNow14.2%
JIRA Service Management6.9%
Other74.0%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Julio Divietro - PeerSpot reviewer
Customer success manger at Peletex
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.…
AmandaSanchez - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams
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.

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."
"What I found most valuable in Salesforce CRM is its reporting feature because it's extensive and it's very accurate."
"It has good management, the ability to sign tickets based on content, the multi-channel support, the self service portal, the integration with Salesforce, the setup process, and the product features as we are currently using them."
"Triggers and Automations greatly help with our workflow."
"Of the several different help desk ticket systems I have used Zendesk was the easiest to learn and use during a call."
"This is one of the better solutions on the market for SMBs."
"Zendesk was chosen because it is the most user friendly."
"The collaboration between agents is impressive, and I also use Zendesk Workspace, which provides a seamless experience when communicating through chat and email."
"One of the most valuable features is the ease of use. If you take the standalone product, it is so easy to use, but if you want a tailor-made Zendesk Guide, you can't do it yourself. However, you can use a template that already exists—they have a lot, and they're very cheap, around 300-400 euros—and use it on all your brands. It's a very easy product to use."
"It works really well, is very seamless, and is very good software."
 

Cons

"The support for Salesforce CRM was not very prompt. It took us a lot of time to receive support."
"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."
"The user interface can be improved."
"Recently they have been under some stability issues, but they do have @ZendeskOps to keep us posted on Twitter when they have issues."
"We work in print so being able to preview files attached and having larger files (larger than 7MB would be great) would be a welcomed improvement."
"One of the drawbacks of Zendesk is that it doesn't provide a secure way for us to send data. So, we usually use a secure SharePoint folder link. We put that in the Zendesk ticket so that the requester has a secure way of getting to their data."
"There is an option, I would like to see, the ability to group my requests into different states."
"It's expensive."
"I would like to see improvement in the "trigger" sections and "macros" as well."
"I would like to see more freedom when creating "Triggers" and "Automations"."
"The more customization you do, the slower it will be. Maybe this could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing for Salesforce CRM is extremely expensive."
"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."
"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."
"The price is very competitive."
"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
No data available
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
I wish there was a more easily dynamic tool. Currently, it is quite difficult because not all the tools are labeled. A feature that would be beneficial is if hovering over an icon would tell you wh...
What is your primary use case for Zendesk Support?
I have been using Zendesk for approximately five years now. I use Zendesk for keeping track of emails and customer tickets. Whenever a customer has issues or questions about our product, they email...
 

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: March 2026.
895,151 professionals have used our research since 2012.