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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
25th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Marketing Automation (12th), Sales Force Automation (4th)
Zendesk
Ranking in CRM Customer Engagement Centers
3rd
Ranking in CRM
9th
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 (11th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (7th), AI IT Support (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the CRM Customer Engagement Centers category, the mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 4.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 8.7%, up from 6.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
CRM Customer Engagement Centers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zendesk8.7%
SugarCRM Platform4.5%
Other86.8%
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

"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost, and it works well."
"The most valuable features of Sugar Enterprise are the exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks."
"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."
"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."
"Saying that, it has a small server footprint and is easy to set up."
"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 the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost."
"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."
"Zendesk has helped us to increase productivity and has reduced the time between when a ticket is opened and when it is completed."
"Our company is based on this model and wouldn't be as successful as we are today without this support structure in place."
"The initial setup was incredibly simple: choose your integration method, set up your fields and workflow, and it’s running."
"We tried to find a solution better and cheaper than Zendesk locally and we have not found any solution so complete and flexible as Zendesk."
"Zendesk is a great product but find a software package that will work best for your team and company."
"Zendesk was chosen because it is the most user friendly."
"This feature allowed our team organize and assign certain members to a particular group."
 

Cons

"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"Functionality and features are well suited for small business companies only."
"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."
"Pipelines, forecasts, and reporting in general, are not that good in the free version."
"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."
"The UX was such that it limited the use of it."
"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."
"They need to fix the email thread response problem."
"It needs to improve in terms of its flexibility, price, and installation."
"Zendesk has not positively impacted my organization."
"The solution could integrate better with QR codes from some websites such as Facebook."
"I would like easy access for the mobile app as it can take quite a while to load the data."
"Report generation is still slightly tricky and not very customizable as per my inquiries."
"The price of the solution should be reduced."
"Zendesk could actually support HTML on the tickets so we could format our text better than the current options such as size, bold, italic, or underscored, because the text processing is too simple."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
14%
Engineering Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

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 Enterprise11
 

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?
From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that is what prohibited us from expanding usage of it into more users and using more o...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
I wish there was a more easily dynamic tool. Currently, it is quite difficult because not all the tools are labeled. A feature that would be beneficial is if hovering over an icon would tell you wh...
What is your primary use case for Zendesk Support?
I have been using Zendesk for approximately five years now. I use Zendesk for keeping track of emails and customer tickets. Whenever a customer has issues or questions about our product, they email...
 

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: April 2026.
896,034 professionals have used our research since 2012.