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JIRA Service Management vs Kayako comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
7.0
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
IT Service Management (ITSM) (2nd)
Kayako
Ranking in Help Desk Software
51st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Shared Inbox (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of JIRA Service Management is 7.4%, down from 11.4% 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
JIRA Service Management7.4%
Kayako0.4%
Other92.2%
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Karim Yousef - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficiently track and document projects with seamless tool integration
We are a management warehouse that provides services to different customers in different sectors. Primarily, we serve the banking sector and the military sector. We manage all the software delivery projects through tools such as JIRA Service Management or TFS Confluence is a great tool for…
reviewer1712472 - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Some of the most valuable features are simplicity, ease of configuration, and ease of customization."
"Developing processes is easy and user-friendly."
"The visibility features are great."
"We use JIRA Service Management for tracking purposes, planning, and execution."
"Easy to use and user-friendly."
"We have an Agile environment and using Jira makes it easy to adhere to Agile best practices."
"The most valuable feature of JIRA Service Management is a plugin we are using for the front end for simple user forms."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its SLA, which everybody wants when it comes to a service-based offering."
"The most valuable feature of Kayako is its flexibility. We can do anything we want with it, which is nice."
 

Cons

"Jira Service Management is expensive and not worth the money compared to monday.com."
"Lacks an interface where the customer can report issues."
"The deployment can be a bit complex, especially for those who are not technical."
"Cost has prohibited us from switching entirely to this solution."
"The pricing could be better."
"Every time there's a problem with JIRA Service Management, you have to have a look at how to solve it, and there's always a feature request or the feature request on the solution is too large and the development cycles are too slow."
"The search function could be improved. We have to search a certain way. There is no generic search; it is more object-oriented search."
"The initial setup of JIRA Service Management can be complex for new users. There is a lot of configuration."
"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

"JIRA Service Management's pricing is pretty decent compared to competitors. I rate the pricing an eight to nine on a scale of one to ten."
"The price for JIRA Service Management is reasonable and cheaper than other ITSM solutions, but the licensing model is different, so you cannot compare it with other solutions. Overall, the pricing for the solution is acceptable."
"Actually in Iran we don't have copyright or intellectual property, so we can use JIRA for free."
"I would suggest to always buy licenses through an Atlassian partner, so you can also rely on their expertise."
"I am using the free version, but my clients are paying for it. When they start, they evaluate it for 30 days, and after seeing the value, they move to its paid version."
"Do not forget to calculate add-on costs. These cost a percentage of the JIRA purchasing costs and are based on the number of JIRA users."
"On a scale of one to five, with one being really high and five being good, I would rate the price of this solution as a four."
"Buying a software solution is only a half part of the solution (or even less). You need to optimize usage of the software by hiring professionals who will help you to make the most of the software, especially in the beginning."
"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise33
No data available
 

Also Known As

JIRA Service Desk
No data available
 

Overview

 

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: September 2025.
868,787 professionals have used our research since 2012.