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SugarCRM Platform vs Zendesk comparison

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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
11th
Ranking in CRM
29th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Automation (16th), Sales Force Automation (7th)
Zendesk
Ranking in CRM Customer Engagement Centers
2nd
Ranking in CRM
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
Help Desk Software (3rd), IT Service Management (ITSM) (5th), Reporting (7th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (8th), AI IT Support (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the CRM Customer Engagement Centers category, the mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 4.6%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 8.8%, up from 6.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Customer Engagement Centers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zendesk8.8%
SugarCRM Platform4.6%
Other86.6%
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

"Good, basic out-of-the-box solution, however, in my estimation not a long term play as the design flow and user interface make it a true chore to enter data."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."
"My advice to others is this is a good solution for importing or exporting any graphics."
"The most valuable features of Sugar Enterprise are the exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks."
"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."
"Available source code, good documentation, training programs, and a relatively active community, provide the hallmarks for a successful open source effort."
"Zendesk has helped us to better connect and respond quicker to our clients."
"Of the several different help desk ticket systems I have used Zendesk was the easiest to learn and use during a call."
"It helps us save costs, time, and energy, and it improves the relationship with my customers."
"We have found the stability to be quite good."
"The initial setup was incredibly simple: choose your integration method, set up your fields and workflow, and it’s running."
"It is easy to use, highly customizable and makes our work faster."
"If their price is acceptable, I would recommend using Zendesk to all companies whose clients and employees need a simple way of raising issues."
"Even though I haven't tried other solutions, I think this product is very useful and easy to use."
 

Cons

"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."
"In the next release, I would like to see personalization of information about customers or specific businesses or opportunities."
"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."
"Putting so many things into SugarCRM became a much-hated task, mainly because of the horrible UI."
"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."
"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."
"Functionality and features are well suited for small business companies only."
"My one negative critique would be the user interface. It's pretty busy and isn't the most user friendly; at times it is hard to navigate through or understand where you're at."
"They have something called Zendesk Explore, which isn't as good as what they had in place previously."
"The dashboard could be better."
"You couldn't give administrative access to new hires."
"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."
"I would also mention that the Zendesk app on iOS is not very good."
"Not that it was particularly difficult, but we needed direct assistance from Zendesk for the implementation."
"We had to modify extensively the reporting features to be meaningful to our business."
 

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."
"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."
"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
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Engineering Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
10%
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 Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise22
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
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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 other customer management software. The setup is pretty simple as well, but if ...
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 some time to load information. Most of the time, if a particular candidate has ...
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 securely, and this is not only limited to documents but also to images and reports. ...
 

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: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.