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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
46th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Shared Inbox (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of JIRA Service Management is 8.8%, down from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kayako is 0.2%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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

"The most valuable feature of the solution is its SLA, which everybody wants when it comes to a service-based offering."
"The most valuable features of JIRA Service Management are the service level agreement or management, and the ticketing system. Additionally, there are frequent updates that provide improvements."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The customer portal with connection with our knowledge base has been most valuable."
"It makes the IT department more transparent and helps the employees."
"The query language and the ability to create views of the data are very useful."
"I like the history, the dimensioning, and how I can configure a space based on my preferences or the project circumstances."
"A good organizational tool."
"The most valuable feature of Kayako is its flexibility. We can do anything we want with it, which is nice."
 

Cons

"Cost has prohibited us from switching entirely to this solution."
"The main issue with this solution is there's no limited subscription available for plugins we only use for a few people. If we only have a team of twenty using a plugin, we still have to purchase a subscription for the whole 200 users."
"One thing I would suggest is that before we create an epic, we mention the required stories in its description. Then AI could directly create those stories instead of doing it manually inside the table, so that integration can occur."
"What needs to be added in Jira Service Management is the user screen. You'll find it very weird if this is your first time using the solution. The user-friendliness of its interface needs improvement."
"I don't think the program is very scalable."
"Jira Service Management is expensive and not worth the money compared to monday.com."
"It would be beneficial if we could turn comments into subtasks or other JIRA tickets directly."
"The licensing model could be improved."
"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

"It depends on the number of users but it starts at $20 per month per user. I would rate them a three out of five for pricing."
"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."
"The pricing is free for us because we are an associate partner for the product."
"I price of JIRA Service Management is reasonable."
"We have paid $20,000 recently for a one-year license for our on-prem server."
"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."
"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."
"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
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: August 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.