SugarCRM Platform vs Zendesk comparison

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SugarCRM Platform

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

SugarCRM Platform and Zendesk are competitive products in the CRM and customer support software category. SugarCRM has an edge in pricing and support, while Zendesk excels due to its feature richness.

Features: SugarCRM includes customizable CRM options, essential CRM functions like lead and account management, and marketing automation capabilities. Zendesk offers an efficient ticketing system, integration possibilities with tools like JIRA, and a comprehensive self-service portal.

Room for Improvement: SugarCRM could improve its user interface and ease of deployment. It may also benefit from enhancing its integration capabilities. Zendesk can develop more robust reporting features, simplify its pricing structure, and improve the flexibility of its help center design options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SugarCRM provides strong support with adaptable deployment models requiring effort for customization. Zendesk offers seamless cloud-based deployment and ongoing customer service excellence, preferred for ease and efficiency.

Pricing and ROI: SugarCRM typically presents a lower upfront cost with good ROI due to its adaptable capabilities. Zendesk has a higher initial cost but offers cost-effectiveness over time with comprehensive features and reliable service.

To learn more, read our detailed SugarCRM Platform vs. Zendesk Report (Updated: September 2025).

SugarCRM Platform vs. Zendesk

September 2025

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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

8th

Ranking in CRM

26th

Ranking in Sales Force Automation

5th

Average Rating

7.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Marketing Automation (9th)

Zendesk

Ranking in CRM Customer Engagement Centers

6th

Ranking in CRM

17th

Ranking in Sales Force Automation

9th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Help Desk Software (8th), IT Service Management (ITSM) (8th), Reporting (15th), Knowledge Management Software (5th), Community Platforms (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the CRM Customer Engagement Centers category, the mindshare of SugarCRM Platform is 2.6%, up from 2.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 6.9%, down from 7.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

CRM Customer Engagement Centers Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Zendesk	6.9%
SugarCRM Platform	2.6%
Other	90.5%

CRM Customer Engagement Centers

Featured Reviews

Styliana Araouzou

Senior Operations Analyst at Etoro

Customizable, easy to configure, and reliable

My company is considered a customer and an end-user. I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using right now. It's a company that offers lots of user manuals and you can find most of your stuff there before starting development. I'd advise potential new users to go through everything. I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 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. It's a system that includes everything related to the client and you can see everything under one screen without having a different product or system. It's been great, for the most part.

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JohanSkibdahl

CEO at Etcetera Networks

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It works well with Jira. You can customize it to fit your needs."

"It has sales email campaigns, plus integration with Active Directory."

"The most valuable feature is relation capability, which allows us to relay customers with invoice orders."

"The most valuable features of Sugar Enterprise are the exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks."

"The most valuable aspect of this solution is its low cost."

"The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards."

"I love how the tickets would auto-populate very quickly in Zendesk, especially when a call comes in."

"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."

"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."

"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."

"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."

"Zendesk Support has a lot of good APIs."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The most valuable feature is the trackability of incoming requests. The system keeps a comprehensive history of work requests, making it a useful tool for our internal processes."

More Zendesk pros

Cons

"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."

"I would like to see more integration on a mobile platform in the next release."

"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."

"In the next release, I would like to see personalization of information about customers or specific businesses or opportunities."

"It lacks customization, and this is the main reason that we are switching to a different solution."

"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."

"You couldn't give administrative access to new hires."

"I'm going to piggyback on what I said regarding Freshdesk concerning what could be better in Zendesk: incorporate more AI."

"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."

"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."

"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."

"The dashboard could be better."

"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."

"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."

More Zendesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Engineering Company

20%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Computer Software Company

22%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	3

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	29
Midsize Enterprise	20
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Sugar Enterprise?

The most valuable features of the SugarCRM platform include its flexibility in customizing fields, layouts, and dashboards.

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 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.

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Product Reports

Download SugarCRM Platform product report

SugarCRM Platform

August 2025

Download Zendesk product report

August 2025

Also Known As

No data available

Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell

Overview

SugarCRM is a versatile CRM solution that facilitates communication and organization within a company. Its primary use case includes call and comment logging, account relation, customer detail storage, verification handling, transaction tracking, marketing material management, and payment transaction handling. The most valuable functionalities include customizable exports of graphics, statuses, complaints, and tasks, as well as its scalability, stability, and low cost. It integrates well with Jira and can be easily configured. The platform improves efficiency, productivity, collaboration, communication, and coordination within organizations, while also providing valuable insights and data analytics for informed decision-making.

SugarCRM

Zendesk Support is intuitive, and it's built with support agents in mind. Everything they need lives in a single, dynamic help desk interface so it's easy to be productive and manage customer interactions.

Sample Customers

Redglaze Group, TengoInternet, Hilco, Bancvue, Vet Adivsor

Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber