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Clarity SM 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.5
Clarity SM yields satisfactory ROI; larger organizations benefit more, but simpler tasks might incur unnecessary costs, with limited data available.
Sentiment score
6.0
Zendesk provides significant ROI with cost savings, productivity boosts, and improved efficiency through better ticket management and supportive sales team.
I can tell you that we probably saved at least three employees full-time with the ticket management and the automation and the macros and the user follow-up being built in.
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
Time saved is definitely a benefit because it puts all of our tickets in one spot.
Technical Solutions Lead at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I feel that Zendesk helped us set up our platform for providing support way faster than other platforms due to its easy configuration.
Junior system analyst at Wevt clous
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Clarity SM's customer and technical support receives mixed reviews, praised for knowledge but criticized for inconsistent and slow resolutions.
Sentiment score
6.2
Zendesk support is praised for responsiveness and availability but criticized for slow responses and lack of personal interaction.
There appears to be a lack of connection between the bot and the agents, making it feel scripted rather than helpful.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The technical support provided by Zendesk has been very satisfactory.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
Their support team from Zendesk is excellent, similar to what you have in Freshdesk.
Customer Success Manager at Mimshackworks Endeavors
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
Clarity SM efficiently scales for thousands, adapting to various environments and processes, proving reliable for large enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.2
Zendesk is adaptable and scalable for diverse organizations, handling growth well but posing challenges in cost and customization.
We have not hit a peak or a turn yet that Zendesk has not been able to go with us or been able to grow with us in the process, change or pivot that the company is making.
Project Manager III at City of Union City Government
Zendesk can scale from very small companies to very large ones.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
Zendesk's scalability is excellent.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Clarity SM offers stable performance with improved reliability, though larger deployments face challenges; system configuration is crucial.
Sentiment score
7.8
Zendesk is reliable and stable, with minor issues and rare outages, communicated promptly via Twitter, ideal for small businesses.
They are always informing us with a status update and an ETA, and the turnaround time is usually within the same day with no extended downtime that would cause a detriment to our company.
Project Manager III at City of Union City Government
Zendesk is quite stable; we experience major outages only once or twice a year, making it very reliable.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
The stability has been quite reliable.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
 

Room For Improvement

Clarity SM requires updates in scalability, UI modernization, integration, reporting, mobile experience, customization, stability, and comprehensive documentation.
Zendesk users seek enhancements like efficient ticket merging, advanced reporting, better integrations, improved usability, and AI features.
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.
Junior system analyst at Wevt clous
Zendesk is missing an AI aspect that could help provide quick answers based on the knowledge housed within the platform.
Technical Support Engineer/ QA at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Zendesk is amazing, and because they are always working on a new upgrade or a new integration, they are very forward-thinking from an engineering perspective.
Project Manager III at City of Union City Government
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find Clarity SM pricing competitive but express concerns about cost management and prefer its flexible licensing models.
Zendesk's pricing is high but flexible, justified by its value in saving time and enhancing customer experience.
It is not the cheapest solution nor the most expensive, but it provides value for money.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Zendesk was quite expensive.
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
 

Valuable Features

Clarity SM offers robust ticket management, seamless integration, customization, automation, and ITSM support, enhancing security, scalability, and user satisfaction.
Zendesk enhances productivity with customizable ticket management, CRM integrations, automation, and multi-channel support for improved customer satisfaction.
It allows us to handle more support cases with fewer people due to its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities.
CEO at Etcetera Networks
Zendesk is way cheaper than other ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow, providing a good platform at a lower price so we could offer good support with a low budget for the license.
Junior system analyst at Wevt clous
Being able to put response counters on certain tickets and have certain ones that are high priority and have a tighter SLA than lower priority items, being able to categorize them as a question versus an urgent request, and being able to bucket them as feature requests or product enhancements.
Consultant and Startup Founder at AimHi Enterprises
 

Categories and Ranking

Clarity SM
Ranking in Help Desk Software
25th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
23rd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
107
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zendesk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
4th
Ranking in IT Service Management (ITSM)
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (4th), CRM (8th), Sales Force Automation (4th), Reporting (10th), Knowledge Management Software (3rd), Community Platforms (1st), AI Customer Support (7th), AI IT Support (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Clarity SM is 1.4%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zendesk is 5.1%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Zendesk5.1%
Clarity SM1.4%
Other93.5%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Türker Kara - PeerSpot reviewer
Application & Software Architect at Turkiye Finans Participation Bank
Quite good back-end architecture for end users but the API is very, very bad
Our company uses the solution for system, program, service request, change, and knowledge-based management.  We perform CMD authorizations and use a lot of integrations for our in-house or third-party applications. We also use Salesforce automations and Microsoft orchestrations.  We have about…
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.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Media Company
10%
Performing Arts
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Performing Arts
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise66
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

CA Service Desk Manager, Clarity Service Management, CA Service Management, Unicenter Service Desk, CA SDM, CA Service Catalog, CA Business Service Insight
Zendesk Support, Zendesk Guide, Zendesk Sell
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Banco G&T Continental City of Perth, FEMSA, Fujitsu, Manpower, Muslim Commercial Bank - MCB, Punjab National Bank, Santa Clara County Social Services, Stefanini
Mailchimp, Tesco, Vimeo, Instacart, Mediaocean, Slack, Uber
Find out what your peers are saying about Clarity SM vs. Zendesk and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.