Help Scout vs Freshdesk vs SolarWinds Service Desk
Overview
Help Scout
Help Scout is a cloud-like customer service platform being able to scale its toolset for businesses of any range and field. What makes it different from the systems on the market i...s no ticketing or portals for managing customer requests. Help Scout is built in an alternative way - as a shared mailbox that enables providing your customer service in the most human-like manner. However, it but doesn’t forget about your business management needs as well.
Platforms supported
- macOS
- Linux
- iOS app
- Android app
Support Options
- FAQs/Forum
- Knowledge Base
- 24/7 (Live rep)
- Phone Support
- Email/Help Desk
- Chat
Training Options
- Live Online
- Documentation
- In Person
- Videos
- Webinars
Screenshots
Freshdesk
The help desk platforms for IT support and ITIL management had already hit the market of business software. Freshservice turns out to be a good option if you are looking for produc...tive IT support with a ticketing system. This help desk offers a handful of advanced tools for handling multiple channels, automate workflows, prevent damages, and analyze problems in any corporate scenario.
Platforms supported
- macOS
- Linux
- iOS app
- Android app
Support Options
- FAQs/Forum
- Knowledge Base
- 24/7 (Live rep)
- Phone Support
- Email/Help Desk
- Chat
Training Options
- Live Online
- Documentation
- In Person
- Videos
- Webinars
Screenshots
SolarWinds Service Desk
For starters, we need to define what a help desk system is in the first place. Why you might be asking? It will give you a better idea of what to expect, as well as you will know h...ow to use one more effectively. So, a help desk system is a piece of software that is designed to accelerate work, eliminate mundane tasks, and push more sales. There are many different iterations of the same software and each of them has a distinct set of characteristics/functions that help businesses achieve certain results.
Platforms supported
- macOS
- Linux
- iOS app
- Android app
Support Options
- FAQs/Forum
- Knowledge Base
- 24/7 (Live rep)
- Phone Support
- Email/Help Desk
- Chat
Training Options
- Live Online
- Documentation
- In Person
- Videos
- Webinars
Screenshots
Pricing
Help Scout
- Help Scout Standard $25
- Help Scout Plus $50
- Help Scout Company $65
—
- Free trial not available
Freshdesk
- Freshdesk Sprout $0
- Freshdesk Blossom $15
- Freshdesk Estate $49
- Freshdesk Forest $79
- Free trial not available
SolarWinds Service Desk
- SolarWinds Service Desk Team $39
- SolarWinds Service Desk Business $79
- SolarWinds Service Desk Professional $99
—
- Free trial not available
Feature comparison
Help Scout
6.2/10
- Agent collision prevention
- Auto Bcc
- Bulk actions
- Edit/hide threads
- Email signatures
- Filtered Search
- Group your agents
- Interaction History (Ticket activities)
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Macros
- Mobile app
- Multilingual (Multiple) content
- Personal canned responses
- Private Comments within tickets
- Responsive, mobile-friendly Help Center
- Shared canned responses
- Tags
- Traffic cop
- Add reminders on to-dos
- Canned forms
- Contextual Workspaces
- Custom & Group Views
- Dynamic content
- Occasional agents
- Restricted conversation views
- Session replay
- Skills-based routing
- Summary app
- To-dos
2.5/10
- Collaboration
- Contextual collaboration with Freshconnect
- Linked tickets
- Parent-child ticketing
4.6/10
- Contact Form
- Contacts & Accounts Management
- Contacts & ticket history
- Customer 360
- Customer profiles
- Customer satisfaction ratings (CSAT)
- Custom user and organization fields
- Customer journey
- Customer segments
- Group contacts by organization
- Identify contacts using external ID
- Organization profiles
- Device data log
8.9/10
- Auto reply
- Automatic ticket assignment using Dispatch'r
- Custom business rules (triggers & automations)
- Event-triggered workflow automations
- Multi-task workflows with one-touch Scenarios
- Time-based Rules
- Time-triggered automations
- Workflow automations
- Round robin ticket assignment
4.5/10
- Business Hours
- Custom ticket fields
- Set your Time Zone
- Ticket file attachment size
- Ticket sharing
- Custom status
- Dynamic ticket forms
- Multiple Ticket Forms
- Sandbox test environment
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) management
- SLA reporting
1.4/10
- Auto-suggest Solutions
- Form templates
- Multiple SLA Policies
- Task Management
- Approval Workflows
- Customize Incident Lifecycle
- Service Catalog
7.1/10
- Branding removal (email)
- Complete portal customization
- CSS customization
- Custom domain mapping
- Public portal customization
- Branding removal (Help Center)
- FreshThemes gallery
8.8/10
- 301 Redirection
- Internal Help Center
- Knowledge base
- Related articles
- Rich text Help Center articles
- SEO
- Unlimited data
- Community forums
7.9/10
- API rate limit
- Cloud telephony integration app
- Email integration with Outlook
- Google Apps (G Suite)
- HubSpot Integration
- Integration with Atlassian Jira
- Integrations
- Salesforce integration
- Slack integration
- Webhooks
- Zapier integration
- Gamification
- Private custom apps
- Public apps (Marketplace)
6.7/10
- Beacon builder
- Javascript API
- Open tracking
- Update conversations remotely
- Mobile Devices
- People Shared Services Ready
4.8/10
- Analytics
- Custom Reports
- Export reports
- Google Analytics for Help Center
- Helpdesk in-depth report
- Performance distribution
- Save reports
- Ticket drill down in reports
- Tickets closed reports
- User-specific reporting
- Advanced Insights
- Agent Dashboard (Agent Scorecard)
- Overview dashboard
- Schedule Data Export
- Schedule Reports
- Support Performance dashboards
- Team Dashboards
- Ticket lifecycle report
- Ticket volume trends
- Manager Dashboard (The Headquarters)
- Zendesk Benchmark
7.6/10
- Ability to configure for HIPAA
- Business rules analysis
- Custom roles and permissions
- Digitally signed emails (DKIM/DMARC)
- Disaster recovery
- Domain Whitelisting
- Encryption: data at rest and in motion
- GDPR compliance
- Guaranteed availability SLA (1 Hour Support SLA)
- Independently Tested
- Log in with Google
- Network access restriction (IP Whitelisting)
- PCI compliance (Level 1)
- Privacy Shield and Safe Harbor compliant
- Single sign on with SAML
- Single sign-on (SSO) for web and mobile
- SPF(Sender Policy Framework)
- SSL encryption
- Two-Factor Authentication
- Advanced password policy for agents and customers
- Audit logs
- Custom email servers
- Custom SSL certificates (default free)
- Data center location
- User provisioning
3.3/10
- Calling
- Live chat
- Multibrand Support
- SDK
- Chat Support (in English)
- Email Support
- Facebook
- Phone Support (in English)
- Support Bot
- Twitter
- Web Widget
- Guidance Program
3.5/10
- Email forwarding
- Mailboxes (inboxes)
- Merge tickets
- Outbound email
- Outgoing SMTP settings
- Public and private notes in tickets
- Spam filtering
- Annotated image attachments
- Assume identity
- Custom Email Templates
- Email tickets
- Satisfaction surveys - Customizable
- Sort ticket conversations
- Split tickets
- Support workflow
- Ticket export
- Ticket templates
- Time tracking
- Undo send
- Watch tickets
7/10
- Automatic sitemap generation
- Backup
- Date comparisons
- Notifications
- Printer-friendly
- Unlimited End Users
- Voicemail integration
- Announcements
- Community forums
- Facebook in-sync app
0/10
- Asset Relationship Mapping
- ITSM Process Integration
0/10
- Asset Auto-discovery
- Asset Lifecycle Management
- Contract Management
- IT Inventory Management
- Managed Assets
- Purchase Order (PO) Management
- QR and Barcode Asset Scanner
- Risk Management
- Software Asset Management
- Software License Management
- Warranty Information
0/10
- Change Management
- Problem Management
- Release Management
Freshdesk
9.3/10
- Agent collision prevention
- Auto Bcc
- Bulk actions
- Edit/hide threads
- Email signatures
- Filtered Search
- Group your agents
- Interaction History (Ticket activities)
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Macros
- Mobile app
- Multilingual (Multiple) content
- Personal canned responses
- Private Comments within tickets
- Responsive, mobile-friendly Help Center
- Shared canned responses
- Tags
- Traffic cop
- Add reminders on to-dos
- Canned forms
- Contextual Workspaces
- Custom & Group Views
- Dynamic content
- Occasional agents
- Restricted conversation views
- Session replay
- Skills-based routing
- Summary app
- To-dos
10/10
- Collaboration
- Contextual collaboration with Freshconnect
- Linked tickets
- Parent-child ticketing
9.2/10
- Contact Form
- Contacts & Accounts Management
- Contacts & ticket history
- Customer 360
- Customer profiles
- Customer satisfaction ratings (CSAT)
- Custom user and organization fields
- Customer journey
- Customer segments
- Group contacts by organization
- Identify contacts using external ID
- Organization profiles
- Device data log
8.9/10
- Auto reply
- Automatic ticket assignment using Dispatch'r
- Custom business rules (triggers & automations)
- Event-triggered workflow automations
- Multi-task workflows with one-touch Scenarios
- Time-based Rules
- Time-triggered automations
- Workflow automations
- Round robin ticket assignment
10/10
- Business Hours
- Custom ticket fields
- Set your Time Zone
- Ticket file attachment size
- Ticket sharing
- Custom status
- Dynamic ticket forms
- Multiple Ticket Forms
- Sandbox test environment
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) management
- SLA reporting
5.7/10
- Auto-suggest Solutions
- Form templates
- Multiple SLA Policies
- Task Management
- Approval Workflows
- Customize Incident Lifecycle
- Service Catalog
10/10
- Branding removal (email)
- Complete portal customization
- CSS customization
- Custom domain mapping
- Public portal customization
- Branding removal (Help Center)
- FreshThemes gallery
7.5/10
- 301 Redirection
- Internal Help Center
- Knowledge base
- Related articles
- Rich text Help Center articles
- SEO
- Unlimited data
- Community forums
10/10
- API rate limit
- Cloud telephony integration app
- Email integration with Outlook
- Google Apps (G Suite)
- HubSpot Integration
- Integration with Atlassian Jira
- Integrations
- Salesforce integration
- Slack integration
- Webhooks
- Zapier integration
- Gamification
- Private custom apps
- Public apps (Marketplace)
0/10
- Beacon builder
- Javascript API
- Open tracking
- Update conversations remotely
- Mobile Devices
- People Shared Services Ready
7.6/10
- Analytics
- Custom Reports
- Export reports
- Google Analytics for Help Center
- Helpdesk in-depth report
- Performance distribution
- Save reports
- Ticket drill down in reports
- Tickets closed reports
- User-specific reporting
- Advanced Insights
- Agent Dashboard (Agent Scorecard)
- Overview dashboard
- Schedule Data Export
- Schedule Reports
- Support Performance dashboards
- Team Dashboards
- Ticket lifecycle report
- Ticket volume trends
- Manager Dashboard (The Headquarters)
- Zendesk Benchmark
7.2/10
- Ability to configure for HIPAA
- Business rules analysis
- Custom roles and permissions
- Digitally signed emails (DKIM/DMARC)
- Disaster recovery
- Domain Whitelisting
- Encryption: data at rest and in motion
- GDPR compliance
- Guaranteed availability SLA (1 Hour Support SLA)
- Independently Tested
- Log in with Google
- Network access restriction (IP Whitelisting)
- PCI compliance (Level 1)
- Privacy Shield and Safe Harbor compliant
- Single sign on with SAML
- Single sign-on (SSO) for web and mobile
- SPF(Sender Policy Framework)
- SSL encryption
- Two-Factor Authentication
- Advanced password policy for agents and customers
- Audit logs
- Custom email servers
- Custom SSL certificates (default free)
- Data center location
- User provisioning
9.2/10
- Calling
- Live chat
- Multibrand Support
- SDK
- Chat Support (in English)
- Email Support
- Facebook
- Phone Support (in English)
- Support Bot
- Twitter
- Web Widget
- Guidance Program
10/10
- Email forwarding
- Mailboxes (inboxes)
- Merge tickets
- Outbound email
- Outgoing SMTP settings
- Public and private notes in tickets
- Spam filtering
- Annotated image attachments
- Assume identity
- Custom Email Templates
- Email tickets
- Satisfaction surveys - Customizable
- Sort ticket conversations
- Split tickets
- Support workflow
- Ticket export
- Ticket templates
- Time tracking
- Undo send
- Watch tickets
9/10
- Automatic sitemap generation
- Backup
- Date comparisons
- Notifications
- Printer-friendly
- Unlimited End Users
- Voicemail integration
- Announcements
- Community forums
- Facebook in-sync app
0/10
- Asset Relationship Mapping
- ITSM Process Integration
0/10
- Asset Auto-discovery
- Asset Lifecycle Management
- Contract Management
- IT Inventory Management
- Managed Assets
- Purchase Order (PO) Management
- QR and Barcode Asset Scanner
- Risk Management
- Software Asset Management
- Software License Management
- Warranty Information
0/10
- Change Management
- Problem Management
- Release Management
SolarWinds Service Desk
5.9/10
- Agent collision prevention
- Auto Bcc
- Bulk actions
- Edit/hide threads
- Email signatures
- Filtered Search
- Group your agents
- Interaction History (Ticket activities)
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Macros
- Mobile app
- Multilingual (Multiple) content
- Personal canned responses
- Private Comments within tickets
- Responsive, mobile-friendly Help Center
- Shared canned responses
- Tags
- Traffic cop
- Add reminders on to-dos
- Canned forms
- Contextual Workspaces
- Custom & Group Views
- Dynamic content
- Occasional agents
- Restricted conversation views
- Session replay
- Skills-based routing
- Summary app
- To-dos
2.5/10
- Collaboration
- Contextual collaboration with Freshconnect
- Linked tickets
- Parent-child ticketing
6.9/10
- Contact Form
- Contacts & Accounts Management
- Contacts & ticket history
- Customer 360
- Customer profiles
- Customer satisfaction ratings (CSAT)
- Custom user and organization fields
- Customer journey
- Customer segments
- Group contacts by organization
- Identify contacts using external ID
- Organization profiles
- Device data log
6.7/10
- Auto reply
- Automatic ticket assignment using Dispatch'r
- Custom business rules (triggers & automations)
- Event-triggered workflow automations
- Multi-task workflows with one-touch Scenarios
- Time-based Rules
- Time-triggered automations
- Workflow automations
- Round robin ticket assignment
7.3/10
- Business Hours
- Custom ticket fields
- Set your Time Zone
- Ticket file attachment size
- Ticket sharing
- Custom status
- Dynamic ticket forms
- Multiple Ticket Forms
- Sandbox test environment
- Service Level Agreement (SLA) management
- SLA reporting
7.1/10
- Auto-suggest Solutions
- Form templates
- Multiple SLA Policies
- Task Management
- Approval Workflows
- Customize Incident Lifecycle
- Service Catalog
7.1/10
- Branding removal (email)
- Complete portal customization
- CSS customization
- Custom domain mapping
- Public portal customization
- Branding removal (Help Center)
- FreshThemes gallery
5/10
- 301 Redirection
- Internal Help Center
- Knowledge base
- Related articles
- Rich text Help Center articles
- SEO
- Unlimited data
- Community forums
5.7/10
- API rate limit
- Cloud telephony integration app
- Email integration with Outlook
- Google Apps (G Suite)
- HubSpot Integration
- Integration with Atlassian Jira
- Integrations
- Salesforce integration
- Slack integration
- Webhooks
- Zapier integration
- Gamification
- Private custom apps
- Public apps (Marketplace)
3.3/10
- Beacon builder
- Javascript API
- Open tracking
- Update conversations remotely
- Mobile Devices
- People Shared Services Ready
4.8/10
- Analytics
- Custom Reports
- Export reports
- Google Analytics for Help Center
- Helpdesk in-depth report
- Performance distribution
- Save reports
- Ticket drill down in reports
- Tickets closed reports
- User-specific reporting
- Advanced Insights
- Agent Dashboard (Agent Scorecard)
- Overview dashboard
- Schedule Data Export
- Schedule Reports
- Support Performance dashboards
- Team Dashboards
- Ticket lifecycle report
- Ticket volume trends
- Manager Dashboard (The Headquarters)
- Zendesk Benchmark
6.4/10
- Ability to configure for HIPAA
- Business rules analysis
- Custom roles and permissions
- Digitally signed emails (DKIM/DMARC)
- Disaster recovery
- Domain Whitelisting
- Encryption: data at rest and in motion
- GDPR compliance
- Guaranteed availability SLA (1 Hour Support SLA)
- Independently Tested
- Log in with Google
- Network access restriction (IP Whitelisting)
- PCI compliance (Level 1)
- Privacy Shield and Safe Harbor compliant
- Single sign on with SAML
- Single sign-on (SSO) for web and mobile
- SPF(Sender Policy Framework)
- SSL encryption
- Two-Factor Authentication
- Advanced password policy for agents and customers
- Audit logs
- Custom email servers
- Custom SSL certificates (default free)
- Data center location
- User provisioning
3.3/10
- Calling
- Live chat
- Multibrand Support
- SDK
- Chat Support (in English)
- Email Support
- Facebook
- Phone Support (in English)
- Support Bot
- Twitter
- Web Widget
- Guidance Program
4.5/10
- Email forwarding
- Mailboxes (inboxes)
- Merge tickets
- Outbound email
- Outgoing SMTP settings
- Public and private notes in tickets
- Spam filtering
- Annotated image attachments
- Assume identity
- Custom Email Templates
- Email tickets
- Satisfaction surveys - Customizable
- Sort ticket conversations
- Split tickets
- Support workflow
- Ticket export
- Ticket templates
- Time tracking
- Undo send
- Watch tickets
6/10
- Automatic sitemap generation
- Backup
- Date comparisons
- Notifications
- Printer-friendly
- Unlimited End Users
- Voicemail integration
- Announcements
- Community forums
- Facebook in-sync app
10/10
- Asset Relationship Mapping
- ITSM Process Integration
10/10
- Asset Auto-discovery
- Asset Lifecycle Management
- Contract Management
- IT Inventory Management
- Managed Assets
- Purchase Order (PO) Management
- QR and Barcode Asset Scanner
- Risk Management
- Software Asset Management
- Software License Management
- Warranty Information
10/10
- Change Management
- Problem Management
- Release Management
Reviews
Help Scout
4 of 5 December 10, 2020
PROS: Help Scout offers a well-designed interface that is easy to use. The Saved Auto Replies feature helps us to respond quickly to cu...
3 of 5 December 8, 2020
Help Scout offers wonderful customer support and a community experience. Our company has 80 employees using this software, and they are...
5 of 5 December 8, 2020
An admirable aspect is the vendor keeps improving the software by constantly releasing new features. One feature I love is “Edit this a...
Freshdesk
4 of 5 March 28, 2019
The call center integrated with Freshdesk works great - the call is turned into a ticket right away after the agent has finished a conv...
4 of 5 March 28, 2019
Freshdesk delivers lots of useful options. To be more precise, it enables dealing with multiple customers at the same time without any ...
5 of 5 March 18, 2019
The fast and quality service become an obligation if you want to retain a customer. How to handle multiple tickets? The answer is in he...
SolarWinds Service Desk
4 of 5 March 15, 2018
The service desk was easy to implement and frankly, it meets all of our needs. With it, we can post various solutions in an easy to dig...
4 of 5 March 13, 2018
Samanage is a powerful tool that is made to track assets, keep IT in order, and most importantly, manage work orders. It is a perfect s...
5 of 5 January 20, 2018
The best part of Samanage is that it allows you to track the entire life-cycle of a ticket. Ever since we started to use Samanage our p...