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Cherwell Service Management vs Freshservice comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 3, 2024

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

Cherwell Service Management
Ranking in Help Desk Software
27th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
27th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Freshservice
Ranking in Help Desk Software
5th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Project Management Software (9th), Cloud Management (12th), IT Asset Management (5th), AI IT Support (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.6%, up from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Freshservice is 4.0%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Freshservice4.0%
Cherwell Service Management1.6%
Other94.4%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Thobile Moeketsi - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at Sasria SOC Ltd.
Having everything in one location has significantly improved our efficiency and reporting
We need to be on VPN in order to set up and access the solution, and that has created some challenges. Even though it uses our Windows login, we still have to be on VPN. The product should be able to log tickets directly from system to system. We haven't got there yet and I'm not sure it's possible but it would determine the product's capability to integrate with other systems.
RF
IT Service Delivery Manager at Symposiam
Automation and AI have transformed our service delivery and have made IT support faster and more efficient
I always keep up with Freshservice's roadmaps and new features. Freshservice has been very good at listening to feedback and adding those feature requests into their next iterations. I wish they would offer more granular data export options for utilizing in Power BI, along with predictive analytics for capacity planning and SLA breaches to enable more proactive support management and reduce firefighting. While the dashboards are effective, some users find custom reporting limited compared to ServiceNow or Jira. I would also appreciate deeper integrations, especially for niche apps requiring development coding work to enable advanced orchestration. Native integrations for DevOps pipelines such as GitHub Actions and Jenkins, along with stronger API flexibility for complex workflows, would enhance functionality. Although the CMDB and asset management are solid, they do lack advanced dependency mapping compared to other enterprise tools. My wishlist includes automated impact analysis for changes and improved visualization of asset relationships, enabling quicker resolutions from an agent's perspective when alerts come in. I acknowledge that Device42 may enhance this, but it is an extra cost beyond what we already pay. While Freddy AI is excellent for triage and suggestions, some users desire more proactive automation, such as predictive ticket routing based on historical patterns and AI-driven capacity forecasting. Lastly, the pricing tiers might seem rigid for mid-sized teams, so a more granular add-on option for features such as Device42 or pay-per-use for orchestration workflows could be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"Its integration features, orchestration features, and discovery tools are the most valuable. It is also pretty stable, and it can be as scalable as you want."
"I do like the workflow automation capabilities, where based upon certain actions, it will automatically go and route tickets to a particular person. It is fairly user-friendly."
"My advice for others looking into using Freshservice is that it is a very great tool, as it saves your time, your money, and your team efforts."
"We use the ticketing system primarily, which is very easy to use for all users."
"What I have seen in Freshservice is there's no room for customization. Which works as an advantage in some cases and it works as a disadvantage in others. If you are someone that starts managing your IT services, it is a great solution, because there's no way to go out away from the direction of the system. You have to follow the process as it was intended for the designers of a solution because there's no room for customization or configuration."
"The most valuable features of Freshservice are the notifications, customization, and flexibility."
"The workflow and the change management process are valuable."
"There is a nice user interface."
"We found the initial setup to be very simple."
 

Cons

"Areas for improvement would be the service catalog and customer catalog, which is not very user-friendly. The shopping cart experience is also terrible - you submit and go straight to the cart, you can't continue shopping or see your overall cost."
"Application service mapping, GRC, SecOps, and things like that need improvement."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"The chat portal is not that great."
"The product should look at BCM or ServiceNow and see if there are features that would make nice additions. It would help them stay competitive."
"The ability to customize the user interface is a bit lacking, and the reporting is a bit lacking because they're very stringent upon what you can pull reporting-wise within Freshservice. They have a lot of built-in reports that are very nice, but when it comes to customizing these, they just provide you with certain data. When you try to build your own report wizard, you aren't able to go and select some of the data that is shown in some of the reports that come with Freshservice. This is something that we have brought up with our account representative, and we have suggested these as feature updates in the future. We're still waiting on them to go and implement something like that."
"A chat bot needs to be added to the portal."
"Freshservice could improve the integration with Microsoft Outlook."
"Freshservice could improve the delegation and workflow management features."
"Asset management can definitely be improved because it doesn't pick up every single device on the network or every single piece of information. Some manual information still needs to be entered."
"The analytics could be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"Freshservice is a fairly cheap solution. Though monthly payments can be made towards the licensing costs of the solution, my company prefers to make annual payments."
"Our licensing fee for Freshservice is $2,500 a year."
"The solution has an annual licensing model."
"It was a middle tier. It wasn't an expensive one. It was a tier model usage. Licensing costs varied between admin users and regular users."
"Compared to other tools, Freshservice is affordable."
"I don't think it's expensive for the US or some European markets. Still, when I used Freshservice in Mexico, some customers found it a bit pricey, especially considering the platform's features. I think the pricing is fair for use in the European market, but it might be perceived differently in Latin America."
"Freshservice's licensing costs are pretty good, and it has different categories of pricing based on what modules and features you choose, which gives a lot of flexibility."
"Freshservice price is competitive, it is not more than other solutions on the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Energy/Utilities Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Retailer
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
8%
Educational Organization
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business24
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What do you like most about Freshservice?
The solution has been very helpful engineering insights into the client's environment. We have been able to manage calls and incidence very efficiently which provides us with a clear understanding...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Freshservice?
Regarding cost savings, switching from previous ITSM tools has led to a 50% reduction in licensing costs, flexibility to scale for different business areas, which included service catalog items, ag...
What needs improvement with Freshservice?
I always keep up with Freshservice's roadmaps and new features. Freshservice has been very good at listening to feedback and adding those feature requests into their next iterations. I wish they wo...
 

Also Known As

No data available
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Western Carriers, Judson University, Golf Canada, Travix, Proxama, Paymentez, Ready Auto Transport
Find out what your peers are saying about Cherwell Service Management vs. Freshservice and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.