JIRA Service Management vs Kayako comparison

Atlassian and Kayako are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. Atlassian is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.1, while Kayako is ranked #61. Atlassian holds a 6.4% mindshare in HDS, compared to Kayako’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Atlassian users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Kayako users who would recommend it.

JIRA Service Management

Read 88 JIRA Service Management reviews

5,671 Views
4,083 Comparison Views

93% willing to recommend

Kayako

Read 1 Kayako review

251 Views
241 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

JIRA Service Management

Kayako

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 29, 2025

JIRA Service Management and Kayako compete in customer service and IT support solutions. Kayako holds an advantage due to its comprehensive feature set, although JIRA is favored for pricing and integration compatibility.

Features: JIRA Service Management offers workflow automation, extensive integration, and robust ITSM capabilities. Kayako provides multichannel support, an intuitive ticketing system, and a complete feature suite suited for businesses requiring diverse support services.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: JIRA Service Management uses cloud-based deployment suitable for teams familiar with Atlassian, with reliable customer support. Kayako allows for straightforward deployment, also cloud-supported, and emphasizes personal customer interaction, offering a more personalized onboarding experience.

Pricing and ROI: JIRA Service Management is cost-effective for Atlassian clients, enhancing ROI through integration. Kayako entails a higher initial cost but provides long-term value with its extensive features and flexible support, offering a comprehensive service package.

To learn more, read our detailed Help Desk Software Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

January 2026

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Helped 881,757 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

JIRA Service Management

Ranking in Help Desk Software

2nd

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IT Service Management (ITSM) (2nd)

Kayako

Ranking in Help Desk Software

61st

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

5.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Shared Inbox (11th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of JIRA Service Management is 6.4%, down from 10.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kayako is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
JIRA Service Management	6.4%
Kayako	0.4%
Other	93.2%

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

Sohaib Ahmad

Vice President Service Delivery at quixel

Comprehensive workflows and data views have supported complex teams but still need cost improvements

JIRA Service Management is costly. The pricing structure needs improvement. When I add some plugins, I have to pay the cost for every user whether they are using it or not. For smaller companies, the detailed workflow editing and the kind of details that JIRA Service Management provides would be complex. For startups and smaller companies, JIRA Service Management would be complex. The cloud offering is easier because I don't have to manage the infrastructure. There are two templates of the project: company-managed and team-managed. Team-managed is a newer feature, which is good for startup-kind companies where they don't need control over data from multiple projects displaying in one dashboard. For startups, JIRA Service Management is somewhat complex with its schemes and everything. Capacity management should be improved in terms of additional features in the next release of JIRA Service Management.

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reviewer1712472

Operations and Support Manager at a consultancy with 501-1,000 employees

Flexible, straightforward implementation, and helpful support

We are in the process of switching from Kayako to ManageEngine Desktop Central. We went through a full review of our service desk processing and one of the solutions we purchased was a ManageEngine Desktop Central. When we were looking at the integrations into the Kayako system and how it works, we found that ManageEngine Desktop Central did very similar things. It had better layers of classification, other templating, and additional features that we did not have with Kayako. Our service manager made the decision to switch at that time. My advice to others wanting to implement Kayako would be for them to plan out their service processes first, prior to trying to implement them in the tool. We made the mistake of jumping in too soon back 10 years ago. I started using it in a way that we could have tooled it in a different way to make it better. We could have had more implementation process information to make sure we received what we wanted to out of the solution. I rate Kayako an eight out of ten.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Allows customized processes for our service contracts."

"Two features I like about Jira are its ticketing system and its compatibility with Confluence. Also, the Knowledge Base is one of the more valuable features that would really benefit us."

"In Jira Service Management, the most beneficial features are process improvement, workflows, and escalations."

"Its integration is most valuable. It is pretty open for integration."

"One of the valuable features is that an automatic response or action can be taken on tickets."

"I think one of the most valuable things is that it's all integrated."

"The most valuable features are the flexibility of defining your own workflows and automation around the workflows, and the integration with the gate or any repository."

"It is 100% stable."

More JIRA Service Management pros

"The most valuable feature of Kayako is its flexibility. We can do anything we want with it, which is nice."

Cons

"The solution should be more formalized. It could be more user-friendly."

"Include a split configuration in a layer part to allow cloud services to have almost full admin rights in SaaS."

"The way it handles subtasks can be improved. We would really like the ability to have different types of subtasks. If we have a user story for a feature, we would like to have a subtask for documentation, a subtask for requirements, a subtask for development, and a subtask for testing. Right now, we just make four subtasks, but there is no way to specify their type, so we have to add a custom field to specify what type of work is this. It just means you've got to look at more data. For logging time or time tracking, we would like to have something using which we can define the work type we're doing. We would like to log whether we're working on a bug, a new development, scope change, or rework. We've got a user story for which we do the dev, and then we have to do more dev. It is the same story, but some of it could have been a scope change, and some of it could be a rework because we either screwed up the first time or missed something obvious. Currently, we have to have a custom field and track that separately. It would be nice to have some kind of work type for logging time."

"This solution lacks features for project management."

"The queries are weak and lack advanced functionality. You can do rudimentary queries, but you can't aggregate. You can't filter for a lot of things that would be useful, so you need to use plugins to write writing advanced queries. I run into problems when working with different organizations because they always have restrictions on what kind of plugins they allow."

"A lot of users have said that they want a feature that was on the on-prem version of Jira and the vendor can't deliver. They're either unwilling or unable to give feature parity."

"It would be useful to be ale to link tickets across different gantt charts in Jira and Confluence."

"It should be easier to log in."

More JIRA Service Management cons

"Some of the reporting in Kayako could be improved. It only has two levels of classification and if there were additional levels added for reporting purposes it would be awesome for our environment."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Costs are about $50 per user per year. JIRA is sold in user tiers of 25, 50, 100, 250, 500, 2000, 10,000, and unlimited users. It is bad when you have 51 users then the price is based on that 100 user tier. Users at 100 will be the most cost effective."

"We have an annual license with JIRA Service Management, but it is billed monthly."

"It's not really expensive, especially when you compare to ServiceNow or other solutions, and it's not expensive to maintain."

"On a scale of one to five, where five is a good price and one is high, I would rate this solution as a three. It isn't cheap but it's not ridiculous."

"But about the plugins, I found one plug-in — its name is Actionable Metric I think — and it is $3000. That is very expensive for users in Iran."

"The license we use is on a yearly basis. As a Solution Partner, we were using the free one and were using the free plugins. We were also giving our own plugins to the Atlassian Solution Partners for free. We don't pay anything to Atlassian."

"I price of JIRA Service Management is reasonable."

"For the people like us, the lower the price, the better. But when compared to other competitors, I think it's Jira's price is okay."

More JIRA Service Management pricing and cost advice

"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	30
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	33

No data available

Questions from the Community

What is your favorite Help Desk Software and why?

JIRA Due to its agility.

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What do you like most about JIRA Service Management?

JIRA Service Management is a very user-friendly solution.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for JIRA Service Management?

The price is actually reasonable.

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Comparisons

ServiceNow vs JIRA Service Management

Compared 15% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs JIRA Service Management

Compared 9% of the time

PagerDuty Operations Cloud vs JIRA Service Management

Compared 7% of the time

Zendesk vs JIRA Service Management

Compared 6% of the time

Freshservice vs JIRA Service Management

Compared 6% of the time

More JIRA Service Management Competitors

ServiceNow vs Kayako

Compared 52% of the time

More Kayako Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

JIRA Service Management

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

January 2026

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Also Known As

JIRA Service Desk, Atlassian Jira Service Management

No data available

Overview

JIRA Service Management is recognized for customization, ease of use, and integration capabilities, offering flexible workflows and dashboards that enhance ticket management in organizations.

This platform contributes to streamlining business operations with features like automation and real-time updates. Businesses implement JIRA Service Management to manage ITIL processes, support tickets, and issue tracking both internally and externally. It is utilized for project management and lifecycle tracking, with Kanban boards and Confluence integration supporting change, incident, and problem management.

What are the key features of JIRA Service Management?

Customizable Workflows: Adapt workflows to meet business needs.
Integration: Seamlessly connects with other tools, including Jira and Confluence.
Real-Time Updates: Keeps teams informed and synchronized.
Automation: Reduces manual tasks with automated processes.
Scalability: Grows with organizations, accommodating increasing demands.

What benefits and ROI can be expected from JIRA Service Management?

Efficiency Gains: Improves operational efficiency through streamlined processes.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies adoption with intuitive navigation.
Comprehensive Reporting: Provides valuable insights to drive decisions.
Quick Setup: Fast deployment enhances time-to-value.
SLA Management: Ensures service level agreements are met effectively.

Service management platforms like JIRA Service Management are integral to industries focusing on managing IT services, such as tech firms and support-focused sectors. Organizations frequently utilize its capabilities to enhance their customer service operations, supporting optimal SLA adherence and efficient query management across departments. By tailoring its application to unique operational workflows, companies achieve improved service delivery and responsive issue resolution.

Atlassian

Kayako is a powerful customer service and support platform that gives your team the tools they need to communicate with customers across live chat, email, facebook and twitter.

Our approach brings every interaction your customer has with your business into Kayako and presents your agents with a comprehensive customer journey. This gives your team the context they need to immediately respond and support customers in a way that’s quick, accurate and personal.

Kayako is used by over 130,000 customer support pros in businesses of all sizes around the world, including Peugeot, NASA, Fedex, and GE.

Kayako

Sample Customers

mgm technology partners, Telestream, Build.com, Zend Technologies, OfficeDrop, PGS Software, American Diabetes Association, NEPTUNE Canada

Toshiba Canada, Disney, Avast, Namecheap, Texas Tech University

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, ManageEngine and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: January 2026.

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