Top 14 Freshdesk Alternatives and Competitors for 2024

If you’re in the market for help desk software, you’ve probably heard of Freshdesk — or maybe you’re already using it. Whatever the case, you might not be aware of how Freshdesk’s competitors compare.

There’s no denying that Freshdesk can be a good tool for some businesses, but certainly not for all of them. One of the main issues is that the app has a whole laundry list of features, which might sound like a good thing. However, most teams only use a few specific features; the rest is clutter.

Another important issue is that the user interface and functionality aren’t as intuitive as many others, and setting up your whole customer support team can take weeks.

The tool has positives as well. In a world that is focused on implementing AI in every aspect of business, Freshdesk has some good AI tools to help customer support teams. Freddy AI can help with reporting, provide agent assistance, and enable teams to offer self-service care through chatbots.

The only catch with AI is that the features are only offered as an add-on, which may put them out of reach of teams who were coming to the platform for a freemium or low-cost plan. 

The 14 best Freshdesk alternatives for 2024

If you’re not sure if Freshdesk is the right choice for you, this guide will give you an overview of the 14 best alternatives to Freshdesk, looking at their key features, unique selling points, pricing, and best use cases.

1. Help Scout

2. Keeping

3. ProProfs

4. Zoho Desk

5. Zendesk

6. Intercom

7. HubSpot Service Hub

8. Front

9. LiveAgent

10. Salesforce Service Cloud

11. HappyFox

12. Groove

13. Spiceworks

14. Jira Service Management

1. Help Scout - Best for growing teams

Help Scout is a communications platform that is focused on creating tools that help teams provide delightful, customer-centric support. It’s a good platform for growing teams because it provides a lot of value without being overwhelming or breaking the bank.

The heart of the Help Scout platform is Inbox, a shared mailbox that enables your team to work collaboratively to respond to customer conversations across channels like email, live chat, and social media.

Inbox has all of the features needed to stay on top of the queue like conversation assignments, internal notes, collision detection, customer profiles, customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys, and more.

In addition, it has features that can help with productivity and organization like tags, custom fields, saved replies, and workflows. Workflows help automate routine tasks like conversation assignments and tagging so that your team doesn’t get bogged down by busywork.

Help Scout is also great for customer engagement. We have a web widget, Beacon, which can help keep your customers engaged through chat, targeted messaging, in-app surveys, proactive support, and self-service.

Speaking of self-service, Help Scout’s knowledge base product, Docs, makes it easy to publish the information your customers need to get the most out of your product, service, or business. Docs articles can be viewed via a customizable Help Center or accessed from any website or app via a Beacon.

For those looking to add AI to their customer communications processes, Help Scout offers three AI tools that can help your team do their best work: AI summarize, AI assist, and AI drafts.

• AI summarize: Reading through long conversation threads to get context about a request can be time-consuming. AI summarize condenses long threads into a few bullet points, helping your team get up to speed quickly.

• AI assist: Available in our inbox, chat, and Docs editors, AI assist can lengthen, or shorten a response, check grammar, or even translate text into a different language. It can also adjust the tone of a message, making sure every response hits the mark.

• AI drafts: Using past conversations and articles in your help center, AI drafts can draft responses to your incoming conversations. Agents can choose to edit the draft or send it as is, saving time and getting customers a response more quickly.

Finally, Help Scout reporting can help you keep track of your efforts. See how individual teammates are performing, measure contact volume or response time, see which knowledge base articles are making an impact, and where you have room to improve. For those who need to do more, you can also tap into our integrations or use the Help Scout API to connect with other data-management tools in your company’s tech stack.

Considering a move to Help Scout? Out data migration capabilities make it easy to bring your existing customer data and conversation history with you, with no IT involvement required.

Price: Free trial available. Plans start at $22/user per month.

2. Keeping - Best for teams who prefer to stay on Gmail

Are you a fan of Gmail? Or would you prefer to not have to log into a dedicated tool to answer support requests? If it’s the latter, then Keeping might be for you. Keeping works by turning Gmail into a fully featured help desk.

If you need to tweak workflow automation or view reports, its clutter-free admin area is one of the most streamlined on this list.

Even though Keeping works inside Gmail, it still has a host of features you expect from help desk software:

• Shared mailboxes

• Unlimited help desk ticketing

• Collision detection

• Shopify integration

Keeping is a great option for startups with smaller budgets and for those who prefer a small tech stack.

Price: Free trial available. Plans start at $12/user per month.

3. ProProfs - Best for teams with smaller budgets.

Another help desk and customer service solution provider is ProProfs. A great option for mid-sized businesses, the ProProfs help desk is bursting with features to help your team members deal with support issues.

ProProfs comes with all the features you expect and on a clean and easy-to-read dashboard:

• Agent routing

• SLA management

• Internal notes and chats

• Multichannel support

• Mobile app for agents to support via iOS and Android

All in all, ProProfs can help you streamline your customer support service at a reasonable cost, even if you have multiple teams.

Price: Free trial and plan available. Paid plans start at $19.99/operator per month.

4. Zoho Desk - Best for sales-focused teams

You might know Zoho as an email service provider, CRM provider, or even as a website builder. If so, it may not surprise you to know that Zoho also has a help desk product — Zoho Desk.

If you’re already a user of any of Zoho’s other products, it would make sense to keep your customer service under the same umbrella. Zoho Desk has features that work for lots of different-sized businesses, from freelancers to enterprises:

• Omnichannel communication

• Agent productivity tools/reports

• Call center functionality

• Self-service knowledge base

• A chatbot, “Zia,” which works with voice and text

• Additional AI tools to help with things like sentiment analysis and auto-tagging 

Price: Free trial and plan available. Paid plans start at $7/user per month.

If you're considering Zoho Desk, you might want to take a look at our run-through of the best Zoho Desk alternatives, and see whether it's right for you.

5. Zendesk - Best for enterprise companies

Zendesk is another big name in the SaaS customer support software space. If you’re running a large business (more than 500 employees), Zendesk is likely a great option for you. While setting up can be daunting at first, the payoff is a solid system that can cope with huge demands.

As you’d expect from a company that specializes in enterprise, Zendesk boasts some large-scale features:

• Industry-leading support ticket system

• 1,000+ apps and integrations

• Workflow automation

• Multilingual support and content

• A community forum builder

• Real-time reporting capabilities

• AI features to help with productivity and efficiency

Whether your customers are contacting you through social media, chat, email, phone, or SMS, Zendesk’s ticket management can help your team manage their requests.

Price: Free trial available. Plans start at $19/agent per month.

Zendesk is a great customer support software solution for enterprise companies, but there could be better options for small businesses. If you have a small business or want something a bit more personal, then our breakdown of the best Zendesk alternatives can help you find the right software for you.

6. Intercom - Best for customer engagement

Intercom provides a useful suite of tools designed to improve your customer engagement. As a Freshdesk alternative, Intercom ticks several boxes when it comes to features:

• Live chat

• A shared inbox

• A knowledge base builder

• Proactive messaging

• In-app product tours

• Fin AI, which includes chatbots and agent assist tools

Intercom was previously known as a tool focused on sales and marketing use cases, though its workspace has become more support-friendly in the last few years. However, given the robust messaging and engagement features, it would probably be best for larger companies looking for a tool that can meet the needs of all three teams.

Price: Free trial available. Plans start at $39/seat per month.

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7. HubSpot Service Hub - Best for teams using HubSpot CRM

HubSpot is another familiar name for many marketers and sales professionals. If you already use HubSpot for its CRM product, integrating it with the Service Hub is an option for tool consolidation. You can connect your HubSpot CRM data to the Service Hub so your team can get a better context for customer communication.

HubSpot Service Hub has all the tools small to large businesses need (though the prices increase quickly if you need more functionality):

• Simple ticketing

• Team email and shared inbox

• Reporting dashboard

• Live chat functions

• AI features

• Deep integration with Sales and Marketing Hub

If your team prioritizes the need to connect your marketing efforts to customer service, HubSpot Service Hub can help.

Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $15/seat per month.

HubSpot comes with so many bells and whistles that can help you run your CRM, email marketing, and ecommerce store. But if you're looking for a more straightforward help desk solution, then our guide on the best HubSpot alternatives is here to help.

8. Front - Best for email-only support

Front resembles a normal email inbox, with the ability to respond with either a team/group email or a personal email. Though it can support many other channels like chat, social, and self-service, it’s a good option for support teams that focus on email.

• Email, chat, and social channels

• Use personal email addresses alongside group email addresses

• Knowledge base builder

• Automatic workflows

• AI features

• Analytics for higher-tiered plans

Price: Free trial available. Plans start at $19/user per month.

If you're looking for customer service software that's customizable to your needs, then our list of the best Front alternatives is a good place to start.

9. LiveAgent - Best for live chat support

If chat widgets are your most wanted feature, LiveAgent is the live chat specialist. However, the platform is more than just chat bubbles. It has a ticketing system that can handle any customer interaction through channels like email and social and a customer portal that allows for self-service support options like a knowledge base or community forum.

• Fast live chat

• Customer portal/knowledge base

• Call center functionality

• Popular service integrations

• A WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor for emails, templates, and knowledge base articles

LiveAgent offers a basic free plan with live chat, but most teams will need one of its paid plans.

Price: Free trial and plan available. Paid plans start at $9/agent per month.

10. Salesforce Service Cloud - Best for teams using Salesforce CRM

Like HubSpot Service Hub, picking up the Salesforce help desk is an option if you already use its CRM or marketing products. Many of the key features mentioned here will be all the more helpful if you integrate other Salesforce products into your stack:

• Multichannel support

• Automated admin tasks

• “Einstein” AI features

• Live chat and chatbot functions

• Personalized support using data from sales and marketing

You can get a feel for Salesforce’s more premium features with a free trial, without the need to give your credit card information.

Price: Free trial available. Plans start at $25/user per month.

11. HappyFox - Best for teams wanting project management features

If your business moves quickly and is always building new projects, HappyFox might be a good option. Startup builders are probably familiar with project management tools like Kanban-style boards and task lists, which HappyFox integrates right into the help desk software.

Here are some features you can expect to find as part of the HappyFox platform:

• Advanced ticketing system

• Canned actions (templates)

• Knowledge base builder

• Help desk reports

• Asset management for IT teams

• A baked-in task management system

In addition to the its help desk offering, HappyFox also has chat, chatbot, service desk, and AI tools, but they require separate subscriptions.

Price: Free trial available. Plans start at $29/agent per month.

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12. Groove - Best for small support teams

If you have a smaller support team that doesn’t need access to a ton of integrations, then Groove could be a good option. Groove is a cloud-based help desk that has all the basics like a shared inbox and knowledge base builder at a monthly price that won’t break the bank.

Some other notable features Groove has are: 

• Teammate ticket assignment 

• Custom signatures 

• AI tag assist

• Teammate roles

• Productivity reports

Groove may not have the same kind of power as Freshdesk or Zendesk, but it’s a capable tool to help support teams deliver a strong customer experience. 

Price: Free trial available. Plans start at $16/user per month.  

13. Spiceworks - Best free alternative

If you’re looking for another free alternative to Freshdesk, Spiceworks might be a good fit. The platform works a little differently than some other help desks. Instead of taking requests through email or live chat, customers make requests through a customizable web portal. It’s a slightly different process for customers, but it still gives the same access.

A few other Spiceworks features to take note of are: 

• Mobile app

• Knowledge base builder 

• Conversation analytics

Spiceworks may be a bit different than a conventional help desk, but it’s certainly one to keep on your shortlist if budget is a concern. 

Price: Free. 

14. Jira Service Management - Best for IT teams

Most of the tools on this list have focused on serving external customers, but some teams handle mostly internal requests and that’s where Jira Service Management shines. You can create custom request portals for different teams, making it easy for employees to get access to the right people. You can also create self-service portals where employees can find answers on their own. 

Some other standout features are: 

• Dynamic forms

• Prebuilt integrations 

• Request template library 

• Customizable SLAs

• AI features

Jira Service management may not be the best solution for primarily customer-facing teams, but it’s a great option for those focused mostly on internal requests. 

Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $17.65/agent per month.

Buyer’s Guide to Choosing the Right Customer Support Tool

Tailored to help you identify your customer support needs, this guide will help you find the right solution, simplify your purchase decision, and get leadership buy-in.

Get the guide

Find the right help desk for your company

When it comes to deciding which help desk software is right for you, it often comes down to the details. Freshdesk can be a great option for your business — especially if you want to expand your team into a fully-fledged call center.

However, you might want to keep your business online with live chat, email, and social. Whichever the case, finding the right solution involves asking yourself what your business needs are and what tools will best help you address them.

Most of the providers on this list have either a free plan or a free trial, so you can test your options to see what solution fits best.

Additional content for this post was provided by Jesse Short and the Help Scout team.