ConnectWise PSA vs Freshdesk comparison

ConnectWise and Freshworks are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. ConnectWise is ranked #15 with an average rating of 8.0, while Freshworks is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.1. ConnectWise holds a 1.3% mindshare in HDS, compared to Freshworks’s 3.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of ConnectWise users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Freshworks users who would recommend it.

ConnectWise PSA

Read 21 ConnectWise PSA reviews

2,275 Views
1,706 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Freshdesk

Read 41 Freshdesk reviews

4,673 Views
2,897 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

ConnectWise PSA

Freshdesk

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Freshdesk and ConnectWise PSA compete in customer support and project management categories. Freshdesk appears to have an advantage in ease of integration and user-friendliness, while ConnectWise PSA excels in project management and integration capabilities.

Features: Freshdesk enhances customer service management through easy ticket automation and flexible integrations from email and social media. It offers remote accessibility and customization, which users find valuable. ConnectWise PSA provides robust project management with extensive automation, ideal for end-to-end service management from sales to delivery. Its integration abilities are beneficial for tech-heavy workflows.

Room for Improvement: Freshdesk could improve in customization of the solutions center and ticket statuses, as well as simplifying API integration for multiple team member management on tickets. ConnectWise PSA users suggest enhancing search functions within tickets and addressing UI clunkiness, while increasing mobile app functionality and third-party integrations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Freshdesk's multiple public cloud deployment options receive mixed reviews regarding technical support effectiveness. Users find the support team knowledgeable but less responsive for complex issues. ConnectWise PSA offers hybrid and private cloud deployments, seen as more suited to tech-heavy environments, though users cite setup complexity and documentation needs for ease of use.

Pricing and ROI: Freshdesk's pricing model is competitive, especially against competitors like Zendesk, offering ROI through cost efficiency. Yet some users find it expensive due to additional integration fees. ConnectWise PSA's pricing structure, while justified by its features, might not fit smaller companies due to its licensing approach, showing ROI but requiring a higher investment aligning with larger business needs.

To learn more, read our detailed ConnectWise PSA vs. Freshdesk Report (Updated: April 2026).

Buyer's Guide

ConnectWise PSA vs. Freshdesk

April 2026

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Helped 893,164 peers since 2012

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

ConnectWise PSA

Ranking in Help Desk Software

15th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Business Management Software (1st), Professional Services Automation (PSA) (1st)

Freshdesk

Ranking in Help Desk Software

5th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Customer Experience Management (3rd), Field Service Management (3rd), Knowledge Management Software (5th)

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of ConnectWise PSA is 1.3%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Freshdesk is 3.2%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Freshdesk	3.2%
ConnectWise PSA	1.3%
Other	95.5%

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Sivashankar Krishnamoorthie

Associate Director at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees

Centralized alerts and ticketing have improved SLA compliance and guided infrastructure decisions

For system monitoring and the alert system within ConnectWise PSA, we find it very useful, and its critical alerts are very important for us for ISOs and SOC compliances. The ticketing follow-up system is good, and there are many features that are very good in ConnectWise PSA. We use the time tracking feature with ConnectWise PSA, specifically for SLAs. The time tracking feature helps us improve billing accuracy, as it is really useful in improving the SLA of the tickets. We have different SLAs for different customers, including those who need a response within one hour and those who need a solution in one hour. According to those customer requirements, we have set the SLAs on the platform, and we get alerts if a ticket is going to be nearing the SLA. With the help of that, we improve the turnaround time and achieve the SLAs up to 90 percent maximum. ConnectWise PSA's reporting tools help our decision-making process a lot because, at certain points, we must make critical calls on moving and rebuilding servers. We can see the number of tickets and analyze server performance to make decisions, so it helps in that way.

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Gauri Thakur

Director, Portfolio Projects at Microland Limited

Integrated support workflows have provided a unified view but need broader enterprise flexibility

Freshdesk's scalability could be improved for larger businesses across departments. Its intuitive interface is appealing for small to medium-sized businesses. However, when you look at larger enterprise levels, ServiceNow operates more efficiently. This scalability is an area where Freshdesk could expand its offerings. Additionally, I don't have too much hands-on experience with Freshdesk ticket routing. I need to check with the service desk team if they've used it. Similarly, for analytics capability, I haven't explored much on Freshdesk, but I have done it for ServiceNow. I have seen a lot on ServiceNow and the BMC Remedy, so I can speak better for them. I haven't had the chance to look at it so much that I can do a comparison. I haven't had much experience with Freshdesk's reporting. Within its paradigm of customer service management, Freshdesk is quite scalable. But I've said that inter-department and the interoperability is better off in ServiceNow than in Freshdesk.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup isn't too difficult."

"The most valuable feature is the management of projects from start to finish, starting with sales and going right to project delivery, with automation and integration with our other systems and really good usability supported by a very thorough knowledge base."

"All the features of ConnectWise Manage are valuable. However, ticketing, customer management, customer communication, technician efficiency, calendars, coding, billing, invoicing, and contract management are available. It's a complete solution. Additionally, the company is responsive with the ability to progress or make necessary changes happen."

"We like the way that ConnectWise is completely integrated. So you when you identify an opportunity, you can save it, and ConnectWise pushes it through to the whole invoicing process."

"It's a nice ticketing system."

"Contact integration to customers faster way to update the ticket searching for tickets when it is needed."

"We are able to use our ticket system to track any remediation of a device stored in our configurations."

"ConnectWise PSA's reporting tools help our decision-making process a lot because, at certain points, we must make critical calls on moving and rebuilding servers."

More ConnectWise PSA pros

"Ticket system - provides us with support tickets submitted by customers from various sources Sharing - team members can share progress of tickets"

"Freshdesk has played a huge role in allowing me to deliver solutions to my customers in a fast, timely fashion, which is why it rates high in my books."

"It's a product that is very easy to use and very user-friendly."

"The UI is easy to use."

"The ticketing system is smooth, but since we use a free version, we do not have many facilities available."

"Getting Freshdesk was like a breath of fresh air because it was simple to use and required zero or negligible training effort on the part of my team."

"The built-in customer satisfaction surveys made it easy for us to see areas that need improvement, and the ticket automations allows us to set priorities on incoming tickets based on who is submitting it."

"When it is the appropriate solution, Freshdesk is fantastic."

More Freshdesk pros

Cons

"If you've got 40 tickets that come in, that get generated, that don't get properly tagged with the company, you can't just check them all and reassign them to another company. You have to individually reassign each one of those tickets to a new company."

"A lot of times, it'll take a couple of moments for things to go through. If you're not patient about it, it may seem like things aren't working."

"There should be some improvements to the interface. It is not completely intuitive."

"All other ticket systems can search previous tickets, whether they were homegrown in Oracle or something else. In ConnectWise, you can only search the summaries, which is ridiculous because it needs to be a usable knowledge base."

"Sometimes it is a little bit slow, which is the only complaint I have about it."

"The speed could be better, and the reporting could be a lot better."

"The UI needs a lot of improvement. ConnectWise has a very outdated 90s interface and it's difficult to access from the mobile app because of the limited number of features you can access."

"They definitely need better tech support. There is a lot of instances where we are kind of forced to go to them for their support team, it is a slow process and it constantly just feels like they're pretty much sending you to the documentation page that you already would have found, rather than actually offering direct assistance."

More ConnectWise PSA cons

"The solution's inbound calls could be improved."

"The billing issues I have with Freshdesk are in terms of additional users getting subscribed without my intervention."

"I would like on-the-go translation,"

"I think the main problem with Freshdesk is the deep settings, interface, and analytics."

"Freshdesk I do not like as much. It's much more time-consuming; it's much more complicated."

"While it's good for a small number of tickets, definitely in the future, we will require something more powerful."

"I would like to be able to change the subject in emails for ourselves. If we could have the option to do that, it would improve our speed and the overall cleanliness of the CRM."

"There are some restrictions where you need automations and sometimes there is just no way to achieve what you need - but this is common with other tools."

More Freshdesk cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We're paying $940 a month for 14 users."

"The pricing is not based on my clients so much as it is on how many people I have accessing the system, and I think it's pretty good."

"There are some different add-ons and benefits that are optional and come at an additional cost."

"The cost can be the main barrier. It's not a solution for a three person company. It just isn't going to be cost effective. Because ConnectWise Manage does have everything there, the licensing is a little bit restrictive as far as how they want to granularly assign licenses rather than having more of an all-inclusive package."

"The pricing of ConnectWise Manage is reasonable."

"I have one monthly license for all of the ConnectWise products I use, and it's $85 per user."

"We use a combination of Freshdesk, Freshservice, and Freshchat. We use the whole suite. Weirdly enough, we pay more for Freshdesk than we do for Freshservice. I would rate it a three out of five in terms of pricing. You can get different bundles, and you can always move to different plans that are standard. Freshservice can go anywhere from $19 up to $120 per agent, per month. There is such a wide range, and it is very customizable to your needs."

"Freshdesk was the best solution with the best price. It was cost efficient and included all the features that we needed."

"The best system plan is enterprise. It costs basically 79 Euros per agent per month when it's billed annually and 95 Euros per agent per month when it's billed monthly."

"The price could be better, but it's okay. Compared to ServiceNow and JIRA, Freshworks offers a competitive price. There are also additional licensing costs because you need Microsoft Outlook. Each new email account costs around $15 to $19."

"We use a licensing model only so we pay for the number of agents we have configured in the system only."

"It was definitely not expensive. It was two grand or maybe three grand total for a year. It has just straight and simple standard licensing fees. There is no additional fee."

"It is costly."

"The pricing is pretty manageable and acceptable."

More Freshdesk pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

11%

Performing Arts

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	3
Large Enterprise	1

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	14

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ConnectWise Manage?

We are purchasing 1,000 seats per year, so I am aware of the pricing and we are getting it at a dealer's price. The pricing of ConnectWise PSA is affordable, although the only part where I find the...

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What needs improvement with ConnectWise Manage?

The only area of ConnectWise PSA that I find could be improved is in configuring everything, as we have to take help from support or raise a ticket with to get it forwarded. The configuration part...

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What is your primary use case for ConnectWise Manage?

I have been working with ConnectWise PSA for the past four years, and we are using the platform for our ticketing system and to automate systems. My main use cases with ConnectWise PSA include taki...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Freshdesk?

Freshdesk can be improved by addressing the lack of a custom dashboard, which would help design it to the client's requirement, and the API rate limit, which would be best if they provided an optio...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Freshdesk?

Our main use case of Freshdesk includes using it as a ticketing platform with live chat and support email for customers to send us tickets. We have agents on Freshdesk monitoring traffic and respon...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Freshdesk?

My advice to others looking into using Freshdesk is that when customers themselves want to contact a company for an issue, Freshdesk is best at helping them create tickets and reach out to the comp...

See all answers

Comparisons

ServiceNow vs ConnectWise PSA

Compared 13% of the time

IT Care Center vs ConnectWise PSA

Compared 7% of the time

Freshservice vs ConnectWise PSA

Compared 6% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs ConnectWise PSA

Compared 6% of the time

Kaseya BMS vs ConnectWise PSA

Compared 5% of the time

More ConnectWise PSA Competitors

ServiceNow vs Freshdesk

Compared 14% of the time

Zendesk vs Freshdesk

Compared 8% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs Freshdesk

Compared 7% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs Freshdesk

Compared 4% of the time

Zoho Desk vs Freshdesk

Compared 3% of the time

More Freshdesk Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

ConnectWise PSA

May 2026

Download ConnectWise PSA product report

Buyer's Guide

Freshdesk

May 2026

Download Freshdesk product report

Also Known As

ConnectWise Manage

No data available

Overview

ConnectWise PSA provides cloud-based features for seamless customer management, efficient ticketing, and enhanced technician productivity. With integration capabilities, it supports contract management, sales operations, inventory tracking, and billing flexibility, meeting diverse needs of users.

ConnectWise PSA addresses core functionalities such as customer relations management and IT issue management. It simplifies operations through critical alerts, SLA management, and comprehensive reporting tools, providing decision-makers with valuable insights. Complex contract support, along with integration capabilities, allows existing systems to function smoothly within the ConnectWise ecosystem. Users benefit from automated procedures, shortcuts, and search functionalities that streamline processes and improve efficiency in project management, financial tracking, and inventory maintenance.

What features define ConnectWise PSA?

Cloud-based Functionality: Ensures easy access and management across platforms.
Ticketing System: Enhances customer management and improves operational efficiency.
SLA Alerts and Reporting: Provides timely insights for better decision-making.
Automation and Shortcuts: Streamlines processes to increase productivity.
Seamless Integration: Works with existing systems, improving resource management.

What benefits should be expected?

Improved Technician Efficiency: Facilitates quick service delivery and task management.
Enhanced Customer Management: Provides vital tools for maintaining strong client relations.
Decision-Making Support: Offers robust reporting tools for strategic planning.
Billing Flexibility: Adapts to varied financial needs.

In industries like IT services, managed service providers utilize ConnectWise PSA for effective ticket management and comprehensive service desk functionalities. The platform facilitates tracking sales and managing endpoints, ensuring swift access to client configurations. Organizations leverage procurement and dispatch scheduling capabilities for streamlined operations. By integrating MSP Help Desk functionalities, they enhance invoice management and bulk ticket management, supporting optimum service delivery.

ConnectWise

Freshdesk enhances support operations with features like a centralized ticketing system, omnichannel communication, and seamless tool integration. It addresses customer queries and automates processes, driving efficiency and satisfaction.

Freshdesk offers robust capabilities for managing customer support, enhancing efficiency through automation and integration. Its streamlined ticketing system centralizes queries from multiple platforms, including email, chat, and social media. Features like a knowledge base help reduce repetitive inquiries, while its easy integration with tools such as Slack and Jira supports effective team collaboration. However, users seek improvements in customization flexibility, scalability, and pricing for advanced features. Performance issues may arise with high volumes, and there's room for improved API limits and cloud availability. Freshdesk's automation and communication abilities make it crucial for both internal IT and external customer service, ensuring seamless resolutions and SLA compliance.

What Features Stand Out in Freshdesk?

Ticketing System: Centralizes customer interactions for streamlined management.
Omnichannel Support: Integrates communication platforms for consistent service.
Automation: Reduces manual tasks, boosting efficiency.
Knowledge Base: Decreases repetitive inquiries with self-service resources.
Tool Integration: Connects seamlessly with platforms like Slack and Jira.
Analytics & Reporting: Tracks performance for informed decision-making.

What Benefits Should Users Look For?

Improved Efficiency: Automation and centralized systems enhance support speed.
Customer Satisfaction: Consistent and responsive service elevates user experience.
Scalability: Adapts to growing support needs with integrations and customization.
Reduced Manual Effort: Automates repetitive tasks, allowing focus on complex issues.

Freshdesk is widely adopted in industries like IT and customer service, where efficient issue resolution and communication are critical. By converting emails to tickets and automating assignments, companies enhance their response times and maintain SLA compliance. Its integration capabilities support diverse tools, facilitating a multi-channel approach for superior customer experiences.

Freshworks

Sample Customers

IT Connexx, High Standards Technology Inc, Solvere One, MyIT, ConnectWise, Simpatico Systems, Fred IT Group, ECS, OneStop, K2 Technologies, Clark Integrated Technologies, Jmark, Geek on Wheels

Honda, 3M, Hugo Boss, Petronas, Sony Pictures, The Atlantic, goodreads, Clear Channel Radio, Penn University of Pennsylvania, unicef, Kuoni, Movember

Buyer's Guide

ConnectWise PSA vs. Freshdesk

April 2026

Free Report: ConnectWise PSA vs. Freshdesk

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