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SugarCRM Platform vs Zendesk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

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

SugarCRM Platform
Ranking in CRM Customer Engagement Centers
9th
Ranking in CRM
23rd
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Automation (11th), Sales Force Automation (6th)
Zendesk
Ranking in CRM Customer Engagement Centers
3rd
Ranking in CRM
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (3rd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (5th), Reporting (7th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (9th), AI IT Support (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the CRM Customer Engagement Centers category, the mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 4.4%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 8.7%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Customer Engagement Centers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zendesk8.7%
SugarCRM Platform4.4%
Other86.9%
CRM Customer Engagement Centers
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1345677 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager / IT Planning & Architecture Services at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Easily customizable, automation enhances the marketing campaigns but support is the main hiccup for us
It has been effective in managing customer relationships. It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory. And there are centralized reports for the CEO and the general managers. We work with automation for these marketing and email campaigns. It sends out emails to prospective customers related to sales offers automatically. And it copies the sales team so that they can follow up. They are tracking the sales leads. So, the automation within SugarCRM enhances the marketing campaigns. For now, my work is done because I am the IT strategy and planning manager. I just try to deliver the solution according to the requirements of the business. From my side, it's implemented already, the requirement related to the sales funnel. But if they have any other requirement from the business side, they will submit it to me, and then I will look for a suitable solution.
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

"By default, it comes with a really good model where you can start working with it without having a lot of developers in your team."
"Available source code, good documentation, training programs, and a relatively active community, provide the hallmarks for a successful open source effort."
"The most valuable features of Sugar Enterprise are the exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks."
"The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost, and it works well."
"Affordable and commercial open source solution is good for organizations with budget constraints."
"It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory."
"This solution's stability is very good, it runs almost without effort, and we don't have any support issues with it."
"Zendesk is a great product but find a software package that will work best for your team and company."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The outcome: Better workflows, more control, a better understanding of reports and numbers in general."
"It forced the organization to rethink sub-par work processes and enabled us to work smarter."
"Zendesk Support has a lot of good APIs."
"The product offers very good management. It has a great ability to assign tickets based on content."
"The JIRA integration has helped tremendously with bug tracking and timely resolution."
"My advice to others looking into using Zendesk is that if you are looking for a tool that is cheaper than others but provides a good solution, I would let them know that Zendesk is the best option."
 

Cons

"Functionality and features are well suited for small business companies only."
"While it is already user-friendly, a slight enhancement in UI design, especially in terms of color combinations, could make the platform more visually appealing and comfortable to use."
"Sugar Enterprise could improve by removing bugs and glitches. For example, a comment was made but in the comment section, it was never displayed. However, the problems we faced might not be the fault of the solution."
"Pipelines, forecasts, and reporting in general, are not that good in the free version."
"You cannot include all your entities under one instance at the moment."
"I would appreciate it if SugarCRM could support us in on-premise implementation."
"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."
"I would like to see more integration on a mobile platform in the next release."
"It's expensive."
"Not that it was particularly difficult, but we needed direct assistance from Zendesk for the implementation."
"Support is not great. Their support is that specific support you get from a big American tech company."
"The dashboard could be better."
"As Zendesk is an international business and has customers world-wide, it would be nice if it would provide 24/7 support."
"If you are only using it for the knowledge base, it may not be the best product."
"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."
"Recently they have been under some stability issues, but they do have @ZendeskOps to keep us posted on Twitter when they have issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
16%
Engineering Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Construction Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sugar Enterprise?
All are almost the same pricing. Maybe the cheapest is Salesforce, I believe.
What needs improvement with Sugar Enterprise?
The only challenge was that we implemented it in our on-premise data center instead of using it in the cloud. That was a little bit of a challenge. But it was overcome with the help of SugarCRM com...
What advice do you have for others considering Sugar Enterprise?
To start with, SugarCRM is a very good platform. It's easy to implement and easily customizable. Might be later when you want to scale, then I would recommend Salesforce. Overall, I would rate it a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zendesk Support?
I actually have no idea about pricing, setup costs, and licensing. That was provided by our client, so they handled those kinds of things. We were only using the application, so I have no idea abou...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
The time saved or how quickly we resolve tickets now compared to before depends on the situation we are handling. If a customer is facing issues that need some testing in the backend, it takes time...
What is your primary use case for Zendesk Support?
My main use case for Zendesk is for ticketing purposes. I was replying to customers over Zendesk, and I was also using Zendesk for live chat purposes. As a specific example, suppose a customer is f...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Redglaze Group, TengoInternet, Hilco, Bancvue, Vet Adivsor
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about SugarCRM Platform vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.