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SolarWinds Service Desk 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

SolarWinds Service Desk
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zendesk
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
7th
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), Sales Force Automation (8th), Reporting (14th), Knowledge Management Software (4th), Community Platforms (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of SolarWinds Service Desk is 0.5%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 4.0%, up from 4.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zendesk4.0%
SolarWinds Service Desk0.5%
Other95.5%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

Featured Reviews

Rajendra Karad - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides superior visibility and efficiency with excellent analytics capabilities
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. SolarWinds Service Desk is a quite matured product now, making it one of the best options on the market. The incident management feature is aligned to the ITIL framework. The asset management feature is also a very thoughtful framework they have implemented. Right from onboarding an asset till scrapping it, the complete lifecycle is cleanly maintained within the system itself. All the approval chains, their logs, and even the contract information have been made very easy for the users to maintain. The knowledge base feature is an out-of-the-box knowledge base, and additionally, we can integrate our own DMS. Machine learning is something that they have been following, and we can integrate an external DMS with that, which helps in searching SOPs and even the global knowledge base over the internet, allowing it to be searched within the same single window itself. Change management in SolarWinds Service Desk is linked with the service catalog, and since it also has a service portal, a self-service portal for users, introducing a service catalog that's integrated with the change management actually completes the flow and makes life easier for IT administrators.
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

"The solution is very stable."
"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."
"What is cool about Zendesk Guide is how it works together with others Zendesk products. Especially with support and with the analytics. Put those together for a small or medium-sized company and it's a really powerful tool."
"It is a scalable solution."
"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."
"We rarely had issues with Zendesk."
"It's a very stable tool, very powerful."
"The stability has been very good."
"One of the most valuable features is that Zendesk gives you a lot of configurability, and a lot of leeway in terms of customizing the look and theme. Zendesk offers you the facility to design your own landing page, as well as the look and feel of the entire knowledge base. At the same time, they offer themes that you can simply purchase and implement. Either way, it can really be turned into the right look and feel of the knowledge base required by our company, which is very important—if you have a bland-looking page, most of the time, people will lose interest. Zendesk also allows you to test the customizations before you publish it. It gives you a sandbox location where you can test everything new that you're trying to create and publish, which is very interesting."
 

Cons

"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."
"It wasn't easy to set up so we're only using a third of all of the features,"
"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."
"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."
"There could be improvements in integration, which can be achieved with APIs or tools like Zapier."
"The price of the solution should be reduced."
"Sometimes if there was a way to just flag the actual issue out of those email chains - that would be really helpful."
"You couldn't give administrative access to new hires."
"The dashboard could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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."
"The price is very competitive."
"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."
"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."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
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

What needs improvement with SolarWinds Service Desk?
The industry standard practices that this product is already certified for show that there will always be room for improvement since it is a service-led product, so we'll keep on giving feedback wh...
What is your primary use case for SolarWinds Service Desk?
Instead of Traverse, we are now using SolarWinds Hybrid Cloud Observability, as we have replaced Kaseya Traverse with that. I recommend it to my customers. We are now dealing with SolarWinds Servic...
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, which is the reason we have moved to that. It has actually helped my customers' tec...
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

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 2025.
868,706 professionals have used our research since 2012.