ServiceNow vs Zendesk comparison

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ServiceNow Logo
19,138 views|11,633 comparisons
91% willing to recommend
Zendesk Logo
3,257 views|2,091 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between ServiceNow and Zendesk based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Help Desk Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed ServiceNow vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Your time-to-market, or TTM, becomes faster when you use ServiceNow. Even individuals that are not tech savvy can quickly change processes and workflows in it. This can make the organization as a whole more agile.""We have found change management and CMDB to be very useful.""It offers ready-built automation and simpler configuration for workflows.""This solution is a single-storage for our user community to submit help desk tickets.""I like the incident module, which is useful for tracking your incidents and other things. It is a reliable solution.""The flow designer for application development is the most valuable. The newest version of flow designer allows us to develop applications quite fast. We can have custom and mobile applications. It has an interface for mobiles, and it also has a good reputation.""The biggest feature is that it is cloud-based, so it's always updated, it's always current. We don't have to worry about patches, revisions. We're always working with the latest version.""In financial management, this platform has the infrastructure allowing us to expand the way we want to. For example, it gives you many business rules and budget models that you can use to optimize your workflow. It does not put you in a box. Additionally, integrating this solution with other platforms is extremely easy to do."

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"We rarely had issues with Zendesk.""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.""It's very convenient to use.""The stability has been very good.""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.""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.""Its agility and simplicity are the most valuable features. This tool is very user-friendly.""Zendesk Support has a lot of good APIs."

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Cons
"The challenge with ServiceNow lies in its expansive portfolio of services. It can be complex, and users may find it expensive and challenging to understand. There is a need for a configurator within ServiceNow that guides users on how to utilize the tool effectively. This configurator should provide insights into licensing, team requirements, and the best licensing model based on whether companies prefer ownership or consumption-based models.""The solution is lacking in the mobile application area that could be improved.""When it comes to reference fields, there are some limitations where you aren't able to use them, like in relationship queries. In Remedy, when you click a menu, you get options directly, whereas here, if you use a reference field, it points you to a different form. So the UI experience totally changes for the end user.""I am interested to see the firm's strategic plans for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), and how the particular areas it will expand on from its existing investments (that feature, for example, in its ITSM Pro and CSM Pro modules).""The product’s standard user experience is not the best.""It should include information on navigating various user interfaces for creating diverse requests directed to different teams.""We find it good in general. Obviously, there are areas of improvement for every capability. As they evolve more, if they keep on adding more intelligence into the capabilities, it will improve. The improvement areas are more integration across the landscape and more intelligence for the overall capability of the solution.""It became kind of complex to set it up without a general lack of knowledge of the particular feature-function capabilities. Features and capabilities could have been explained better to the end-users."

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"The dashboard could be better.""The solution itself wasn't easy to set up.""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.""It wasn't easy to set up so we're only using a third of all of the features,""The data you get when logged in to Zendesk Support differs from the data you get when you programmatically query Zendesk Support through its API because of a sync time delay.""The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook.""The support team is time-consuming, and they don't find the answer to our problem.""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."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "The first impact for the customer is that it is expensive, but do not forget that it is a solution that includes infrastructure; a single cost, easy to justify."
  • "It has a higher cost compared to local/regional solutions."
  • "We know that ServiceNow is not cheap, it's more expensive than other solutions. But we are trying to increase our ability to handle tickets so that the cost per ticket is less."
  • "It's sold as a less expensive solution, but it has to be highly modified. That's where you get into the cost."
  • "ServiceNow pricing is an art, not a science. The deal depends on how commercially savvy you are, which does make it something that is quite difficult to get right. It is most definitely an opportunity area for ServiceNow to improve and have more visibility around pricing of the different products within the platform."
  • "ServiceNow is a leader and its pricing is quite good, quite competitive... Sometimes some plugins are not priced reasonably but, generally, the platform itself, its modules, are priced reasonably."
  • "Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."
  • "Initially, the licensing model ServiceNow came up with was very good. But now, from a licensing perspective, they are changing their model day by day. It is becoming a bit expensive for customers."
  • More ServiceNow Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "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."
  • "The price is very competitive."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • More Zendesk Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping the… more »
    Top Answer:Hi Netanya I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp.  Because ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will… more »
    Top Answer:It is user-friendly and simple to use.
    Top Answer: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… more »
    Top Answer: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. The pricing is expensive. Back then, we were paying $51 per… more »
    Top Answer:As per me, there arent much significant issues or areas for improvement with Zendesk, as my usage of it is limited. I appreciate its ability to organize tickets effectively based on tags, allowing me… more »
    Ranking
    1st
    out of 59 in Help Desk Software
    Views
    19,138
    Comparisons
    11,633
    Reviews
    23
    Average Words per Review
    452
    Rating
    8.5
    10th
    out of 59 in Help Desk Software
    Views
    3,257
    Comparisons
    2,091
    Reviews
    6
    Average Words per Review
    539
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    BMC Helix ITSM logo
    Compared 10% of the time.
    Microsoft Power Apps logo
    Compared 9% of the time.
    Pega BPM logo
    Compared 9% of the time.
    IBM Maximo logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Appian logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    JIRA Service Management logo
    Compared 17% of the time.
    Atlassian Confluence logo
    Compared 11% of the time.
    Freshservice logo
    Compared 9% of the time.
    Microsoft Dynamics CRM logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Moveworks logo
    Compared 4% of the time.
    Also Known As
    Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
    Learn More
    Overview

    ServiceNow is a cloud-based task-management platform that specializes in IT operations management (ITOM), IT services management (ITSM), and IT business management (ITBM). ServiceNow allows users to manage their teams, projects, and customer interactions using a variety of different plugins and apps with which it easily integrates.

    ServiceNow offers prebuilt applications to support any process, as well as a framework and tools that allow you to build your own.

    ServiceNow’s service management solutions include change, request, incident, problem, and cost management, as well as HR, IT, field service, and facilities management solutions. They also cover business management solutions such as vendor performance management, financial management, performance analytics and project portfolio suite, as well as governance, risk, and compliance.

    “The Smarter Way to Workflow”

    ServiceNow’s activities, processes, and tasks are overseen as part of a comprehensive managed workflow that supports such features as real-time collaboration, communication, and resource sharing. ServiceNow’s suite of products allow for operation using serverless computing, and include the categories of Business Apps, Customer Service, HR, IT, and Security.

    ServiceNow can be used to support most workflows because of the wide range of tools it offers. These include on-suite ticketing tools, predictive modeling to manage workflows, and benchmarking for the tracking of progress. ServiceNow can assist with artificial intelligence and machine learning processes and can be used to organize the cases of a help/service desk as well as for instance management and problem management. It also smoothly integrates with many legacy systems.

    ServiceNow offers service management software for industries including:

    Cloud services
    Education
    Financial services
    Government
    Healthcare
    Manufacturing
    Telecommunications

    Reviews from Real Users

    PeerSpot users prefer ServiceNow to its competitors because of its scalability, stability, and ease of use. It helps everyone in the company to be on the same page by creating a single source of record across all departments. One user stated that “I’ve definitely used over 20 project management solutions, but they can't be compared with ServiceNow.” Another said that “ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI.

    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
    AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow    
    Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Healthcare Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization22%
    Computer Software Company11%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Government7%
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company24%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Construction Company10%
    Non Profit7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company22%
    Educational Organization10%
    Financial Services Firm6%
    University6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise65%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business15%
    Midsize Enterprise30%
    Large Enterprise56%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business46%
    Midsize Enterprise35%
    Large Enterprise19%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise55%
    Buyer's Guide
    ServiceNow vs. Zendesk
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    ServiceNow is ranked 1st in Help Desk Software with 212 reviews while Zendesk is ranked 10th in Help Desk Software with 57 reviews. ServiceNow is rated 8.4, while Zendesk is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of ServiceNow writes "A stable and scalable solution that has excellent features and is useful for collecting data and building KPIs". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zendesk writes "Straightforward, very transparent, and very well organized". ServiceNow is most compared with BMC Helix ITSM, Microsoft Power Apps, Pega BPM, IBM Maximo and Appian, whereas Zendesk is most compared with JIRA Service Management, Atlassian Confluence, Freshservice, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Moveworks. See our ServiceNow vs. Zendesk report.

    See our list of best Help Desk Software vendors and best IT Service Management (ITSM) vendors.

    We monitor all Help Desk Software reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.