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SolarWinds Service Desk vs Zendesk comparison

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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

Automation Anywhere
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
666
Ranking in other categories
Business Process Management (BPM) (2nd), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) (2nd), Process Mining (1st), Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) (1st), Agentic Automation (1st), Business Orchestration and Automation Technologies (2nd), AI Legal & Compliance (1st), AI Finance & Accounting (2nd), AI Procurement & Supply Chain (1st)
SolarWinds Service Desk
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (14th)
Zendesk
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (2nd), CRM (5th), Help Desk Software (3rd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (3rd), Reporting (7th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (9th), AI IT Support (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash - PeerSpot reviewer
Management Consultant at Accenture
Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions
Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.
Vaibhav Patkar - PeerSpot reviewer
CISO at Orient Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Improved service requests and network monitoring have increased efficiency but integration needs work
SolarWinds Service Desk is a recognized product across the world and a dependable product. Kaseya is somewhat dated, and SolarWinds Service Desk has better connectivity in terms of superior integration facilities compared to Kaseya. Additionally, SolarWinds Service Desk offers multiple options within the same tool, including ITSM as well as NOC and network monitoring capabilities. SolarWinds Service Desk has much greater acceptability in the market and a wide range of implementations and integrations with various tools and applications. Life becomes simpler when choosing a standard product, whereas Kaseya may not be as highly regarded in the market. SolarWinds Service Desk may have some flaws, but work is being done to address them. SolarWinds Service Desk is an affordable product. SolarWinds Service Desk is suitable for all customers ranging from small to enterprise. There are some small customers, and the primary usage is within the company itself, and then as customers require it, access can be provided to them.
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

"The ability to create automation itself is a benefit that reduces human error and enhances efficiency. Technical support is unsurpassed."
"The reporting capabilities are pretty nice."
"Using this solution has freed internal operations employees to do more "human value-add" work by removing mundane manual tasks."
"The features like IQ Bot and Metabot have helped our organization to gain business trust and provide a greater number of unique solutions to our clients for complex projects."
"This tool provides us with easy accessibility for adopting the new process, as it is more user-friendly, and many new resources are able to grasp the tool and start doing the automation with ease, which is basically missing in the other vendors' tools."
"Before the automation, it used to take about two to three hours, now, with automation, it takes about 40 minutes."
"It has improved the efficiency and reliability of the data in the systems."
"It is also easy to design and implement, even for business users who don't have technical skills. A little bit of training is required, about five to seven days, and then they can start. The learning curve is low."
"What I appreciate the most about the product is that, as per the name given, it brings better visibility to the client in terms of their infrastructure, application, and performance."
"The solution is very stable."
"SolarWinds Service Desk is a recognized product across the world and a dependable product."
"I'd say that the integration options that Zendesk offers are the most valuable features to our team."
"Triggers and Automations greatly help with our workflow."
"The product offers very good management. It has a great ability to assign tickets based on content."
"If their price is acceptable, I would recommend using Zendesk to all companies whose clients and employees need a simple way of raising issues."
"We loved the notifications and the way to build custom views for a specific user's open tickets and to see how long they have been open, how long it was since the last request."
"My advice to others looking into using Zendesk is that if you need an alternative to GitHub Actions or GitHub issues, this is worth looking at."
"Ticket submission has been completely streamlined and our ability to respond has been greatly simplified coming from our past solution (Sharepoint-based)."
"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."
 

Cons

"I am not technically inclined, and it involves many steps for a process to function properly. It requires a lot of work initially to design and develop a process. I find it somewhat challenging. If you take time to understand it, it's not too difficult, but it seems complicated at the beginning if you're not a technical person."
"On the cognitive side, some of their competitors, when we were originally shopping, were a little more advanced in that space. Making use of probabilistic outcomes and presenting them to a business user is a feature that, at the time of our evaluation, did not feel like a strong, mature solution for Automation Anywhere. Nevertheless, they won our business. That is one feature where I feel they are trying to make investments to address those gaps."
"Scaling from small to medium automation works well, but if building out very big applications, sometimes the code can be too lengthy and uncontrollable."
"In the learning track, I was looking at the latest feature which is coming in A2019, which is very nice, because it is a web-based. So, we can do our development while sitting from anywhere. We don't need any type of installation. It's a web-based. Nowadays, everyone has the Internet."
"They should improve process discovery features."
"The biggest challenge in attended automation, every time the agent has to log in to the control room and execute bot for most of the agents this is a time-consuming activity plus they are not tech-savvy."
"The Help menu/description can be provided while hovering over actions so that it can help us better to know them."
"We only faced some problems when integrating it with SAP, and Oracle integration was a bit challenging, especially with Oracle Fusion. We had some issues when we were trying to connect some of the applications on the API level. But, in general, integration using Automation Anywhere is fine."
"The integration with other applications can use improvement because, for example, it was nearly impossible to integrate SolarWinds Service Desk with monday.com because we had to get an add-on from Zapier."
"The primary concern so far is the integration part because of the APIs; this is the main area of concern."
"The only additional features I would like to see in the future, to make it closer to perfection, are intelligent features that are currently being developed on the cloud platform and not on the on-premise model."
"An area of opportunity for Zendesk is probably just when there's a long email chain and everything gets forwarded to support, I know it can be time consuming for them to extract the important information from the email chain."
"Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries."
"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."
"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 to easily gather and analyze customer feedback and requests."
"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."
"Report Generator needs to be improved."
"The stability was a problem as our help desk grew. The product would need work on its stability (system hangs) and being able to handle larger groups."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing for Automation Anywhere (AA) is paid on a yearly basis. Out of all the RPA tools, it has the most value for money, e.g. what you pay is what you get."
"Currently, it stands as one of the more expensive RPA tools available."
"In most of the cases, the product value is very good. If the infrastructure, implementation, and framework are good, then generally, the client can get a good return on investment."
"The initial setup and licensing fees are high, and although it saves costs in the long run, reaching the break-even point can take at least six months."
"Overall, the pricing of Automation Anywhere is good."
"They all are very competitive today. At the end of the day, it boils down to the negotiations that happen and what type of partner you are."
"When I started working on it, it was difficult to obtain a trial version (barrier to entry). Now, they have a Community Edition, which may make it easy to get started."
"It's very good in terms of cost and pricing."
Information not available
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
No data available
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business161
Midsize Enterprise85
Large Enterprise561
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...
How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?
It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.
What needs improvement with SolarWinds Service Desk?
The primary concern so far is the integration part because of the APIs; this is the main area of concern. Currently, ...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Service Desk?
SolarWinds Service Desk is used for ITSM and network monitoring purposes. The major use cases being utilized are from...
What advice do you have for others considering SolarWinds Service Desk?
I think the pricing of SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability is now comparative and suited to our business model, whi...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk shows that pricing is really affordable compared to...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
Regarding my main use case for Zendesk, it is really easy to use, but one of the cons I have with it is that it takes...
What is your primary use case for Zendesk Support?
On a day-to-day basis, I use Zendesk to track, manage, and work on my cases. I also use it to upload information secu...
 

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)
No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics
Information Not Available
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about SolarWinds Service Desk vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,938 professionals have used our research since 2012.