Alternatives to Zendesk

A hosted customer and employee service platform for handling support tickets across channels. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

  • Zendesk

    A hosted customer and employee service platform for handling support tickets across channels.

    PaidProprietaryWeb

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as Zendesk.

  • Freshdesk

    A cloud customer service help desk with omnichannel ticketing, automated workflows and AI agents.

    FreemiumProprietaryWeb

    Freshdesk is a hosted omnichannel help desk with automated workflows and AI agents, and it offers a free plan to start, unlike Zendesk.

  • Zoho Desk

    A cloud help desk that collects support requests from several channels into one ticket inbox.

    FreemiumProprietaryWeb

    Zoho Desk is a hosted help desk with a free tier, a multichannel inbox, a built-in help center and integration with the wider Zoho suite.

  • Help Scout

    A hosted shared inbox and help desk service for customer support teams.

    FreemiumProprietaryWeb

    Help Scout is a hosted shared inbox for support teams with a free tier, positioned as lower cost than larger platforms, with a narrower feature set.

  • Freshservice

    A cloud IT service management platform for help desk tickets, IT operations and asset management.

    PaidProprietaryWeb

    Freshservice is a paid hosted platform focused on IT service management around ITIL, adding IT operations and asset management to help desk tickets.

  • Jira Service Management

    Atlassian's hosted IT service management tool for requests, incidents and change management.

    FreemiumProprietaryWeb

    Jira Service Management is Atlassian's hosted ITSM tool for incidents, changes and requests, with a free tier limited to three agents.

  • Zammad

    A web-based open source help desk and ticketing system you install on your own server.

    FreeOpen sourceLinuxWebSelf-hosted

    Zammad is an open-source help desk you install on your own Linux server, keeping ticket data under your control instead of stored by a vendor.

  • FreeScout

    A self-hosted open source help desk and shared inbox, modelled on Help Scout and Zendesk.

    FreeOpen sourceWebSelf-hosted

    FreeScout is a free open-source help desk modelled on Zendesk, with unlimited agents and mailboxes on your own PHP and MySQL hosting.

  • Chatwoot

    An open-source customer support desk for live chat, email, WhatsApp and social conversations.

    FreemiumOpen sourceWebSelf-hosted

    Chatwoot is an open-source, self-hostable support desk combining live chat, email, WhatsApp and social channels with a knowledge base and AI reply suggestions.

Also worth comparing

These listings name Zendesk as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.

  • Jitbit Helpdesk

    An email-first help desk ticketing system available as a hosted service or a self-hosted install.

    PaidProprietaryWebSelf-hosted

    Zendesk is a hosted-only proprietary platform for customer and employee service with many channels, an integration marketplace and built-in analytics.

  • Libredesk

    An open-source, self-hosted customer support desk that ships as a single binary.

    FreeOpen sourceLinuxSelf-hosted

    Zendesk replaces self-hosting with a paid proprietary hosted service offering many channels and a large integration marketplace.

  • ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

    A service desk platform combining IT service management, asset management and a CMDB.

    PaidProprietaryWebSelf-hosted

    Zendesk is a proprietary hosted ticketing platform for customer and employee service across many channels, without the built-in CMDB and asset management.

  • osTicket

    A long-established open source support ticketing system that you host on your own server.

    FreeOpen sourceWebSelf-hosted

    Zendesk is a paid proprietary hosted platform with a large integration marketplace, so there is no server to maintain but data is stored by Zendesk.

  • Request Tracker

    An open-source ticketing system that turns support email into trackable tickets through a web interface.

    FreemiumOpen sourceWebSelf-hosted

    Zendesk is a proprietary hosted ticketing platform with many channels and integrations, removing server work but storing data with Zendesk.

  • Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk

    A hosted IT help desk for tracking, prioritizing and managing user support requests.

    FreemiumProprietaryAndroidiOSWeb

    Zendesk is a paid hosted platform that gathers tickets from many channels and covers both customer and employee service, with a large integration marketplace, but it has no free plan.

  • Znuny

    An open-source ticketing and service desk system forked from the OTRS Community Edition.

    FreeOpen sourceWebSelf-hosted

    Zendesk is a proprietary hosted service desk with multichannel tickets and a large integration marketplace, removing server maintenance but storing data with Zendesk.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.

  • Hesk

    A lightweight PHP help desk with ticketing and a built-in knowledge base, self-hosted or cloud.

    FreemiumProprietaryWebSelf-hosted

  • PagerDuty

    A hosted incident management and on-call platform that routes alerts to responders and automates response.

    PaidProprietaryWeb