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Cherwell Service Management vs Zendesk 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
28th
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
Zendesk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
4th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
5th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (4th), CRM (9th), Reporting (10th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), AI Customer Support (20th), AI IT Support (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the IT Service Management (ITSM) category, the mindshare of Cherwell Service Management is 1.7%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 4.8%, up from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Service Management (ITSM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Zendesk4.8%
Cherwell Service Management1.7%
Other93.5%
IT Service Management (ITSM)
 

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.
AmandaSanchez - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
Macros and automation have streamlined workflows and reduced manual effort across support teams
The ability to communicate on the Zendesk ticket through the actual user software, so TOPs, would have been helpful. Somehow seeing a user's ticket history within our app would have been beneficial. That is the only thing that I do not think existed at the time that might have been helpful. Some people struggled with Zendesk, but it was always easy enough to show them how to use it and what they were missing. The only times we really had people report concerns about it was when they did not understand that it could do that or how to use it in that way.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"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."
"The dashboard and the reporting functionality are the solution's most valuable features."
"All our activities are carried out in the one place."
"Clear processes with transparent responsibilities led to more efficiencies within the teams."
"The best feature is the ability to create functional dashboards, where the IT manager can interact with its data through the dashboard using the drill down feature."
"The dashboard is very useful to get a quick overview of current tasks."
"The most valuable features are problem management and change management."
"The most valuable feature was its simplicity as it was made easy to use."
"I'd say that the integration options that Zendesk offers are the most valuable features to our team."
"The feature to move over my customer experience team tickets for different specialists is very valuable for my team."
"I love how the tickets would auto-populate very quickly in Zendesk, especially when a call comes in."
"The benefits I have seen from using Zendesk include faster response times; as a CSM, faster response is the goal, which solves the customer's challenge in a timely manner, and Zendesk offers that capability, which is beneficial."
"It forced the organization to rethink sub-par work processes and enabled us to work smarter."
"Our CS team has been able to quickly and effectively run through customer inquiries using the Zendesk platform."
"As I am a big fan of assigning tasks to people who are most skilled at doing them in a timely fashion, I found the auto-tagging function to be most valuable."
 

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."
"They need to improve their mobile interface, as well as features regarding the extension of the mobile access to the end user."
"Access is only available if we're on VPN."
"Agile delivery should be supported."
"The stability, specifically in the on-premises deployment model, could be improved."
"It needs to improve in terms of its flexibility, price, and installation."
"It could use better analytics for trend tracking as well as the ability to tie the customer support and sales items together."
"Zendesk's stability on inbound calls could be improved as compared to Talkdesk."
"The price of the solution should be reduced."
"Additionally, "Internal note" is never just an internal note, it is sent to all recipients on the ticket, which has led to quite a lot of miscommunication and frustration."
"I would love to see an easier way to add users to Zendesk as well as a way to BCC people on tickets."
"Zendesk could actually support HTML on the tickets so we could format our text better than the current options such as size, bold, italic, or underscored, because the text processing is too simple."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For an ITIL user, the cost is probably about 50 bucks a month."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The price is very competitive."
"From what I hear, Zendesk's pricing is a little expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Energy/Utilities Company
11%
Healthcare Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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?
From what I recall, the experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive and that is what prohibited us from expanding usage of it into more users and using more o...
What needs improvement with Zendesk Support?
I wish there was a more easily dynamic tool. Currently, it is quite difficult because not all the tools are labeled. A feature that would be beneficial is if hovering over an icon would tell you wh...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ausenco, Highlights for Children, B/E Aerospace
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Cherwell Service Management vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.