Kayako vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus comparison

Kayako and ManageEngine are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. Kayako is ranked #52, while ManageEngine is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3. Additionally, 100% of Kayako users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of ManageEngine users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Kayako and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow, Atlassian, Zendesk and others in Help Desk Software.

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

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

August 2026

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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

Automation Anywhere

Featured Reviews

Venkat Sivaprakash

Management Consultant at Accenture

Has significantly improved document-driven workflows and reduced processing time across finance and HR functions

Automation Anywhere has evolved significantly and upgraded itself to provide agentic AI and AI-based automation solutions for document automation. The product has matured considerably over time. We can create workflows that can call an API. We can include prompts in particular workflows for ChatGPT-related functions, connecting to an LLM and RAG to perform tasks. For document automation, modern features are available to train documents, ensuring high accuracy and repeatability over time. The system is very easy to use. I recently completed a course in document automation, typically designed for people involved in coding and technical aspects. Though I understand coding comprehensively, I don't do actual coding. The course was very accessible. Currently, extensive coding isn't necessary due to the hybrid model incorporating GenAI aspects, low-code, no-code capabilities, APIs, and numerous pre-built objects in Automation Anywhere. The features include GenAI-driven prompting methods and workflow creation capabilities. In these workflows, we can create decision boxes and call APIs without coding. We simply pull objects, drop them, connect them, and add minimal coding when needed. The most crucial aspect isn't coding but rather sizing the automation and fleshing out the details. Automation Co-pilot takes notes and performs automated analysis. It can extract details from videos, summarize conversations, and provide detailed information. During calls, it identifies instructions and performs tasks such as preparing reports and reconciliation. Automation Anywhere can also connect with Microsoft Co-pilot. Through Co-pilot, real-time operations can be executed, allowing direct interaction between vendors and automation through this component.

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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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Mostafiz Miah

Sr. Presales & Technical Lead at Elitbuzz Technologies Ltd

Automation has transformed daily request handling and now tracks every customer interaction

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus helps my team manage and resolve requests compared to previous methods as we previously managed things through paperwork and diaries. After deploying ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whenever any customer request comes, we provide the customer a product demo if they ask about the products. We then convert that request to a lead, which is converted to a demo, and then to the product POC, allowing us to follow up every stage of the requests. Everything can be tracked from ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, whether at the closing stage or the initial stage. I use ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus daily in a unique way because previously everyone managed their own tracking system through their diary, but now everyone inputs data into this solution so that at the end of the day, we can get reports on how many leads we have taken care of and when they need to be taken care of. This information is visible from the ServiceDesk tool, and using the dashboard, we can easily identify it, providing an at-a-glance view. The best features ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers for my team include automating manual tasks, which allows whatever tasks we previously did manually to be converted into automatic tasks. Currently, they have also introduced Zia, a very helpful solution for us. Using Zia, we can search for anything, not only inside the tool but also outside, integrating it with ChatGPT and Teams, and it can integrate with other ManageEngine solutions as well as solutions such as Jira and ServiceNow. When we integrate our network monitoring solutions with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, it automatically raises an incident ticket and assigns it to the right team whenever any incident has occurred, which saves us time and reduces manual tasks. Previously, we had to communicate to the right people through mail or phone calls after an incident, but now the incidents are automatically converted and assigned to the relevant support groups along with the SLA. The integration with Teams allows us to raise tickets without logging into the portal, and we can see the ticket status and add comments through Teams, which is very helpful. Additionally, mail integration can automatically convert emails into tickets, adding further efficiency. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has positively impacted our organization, particularly in customer satisfaction. Previously, customers managed service requests, incidents, changes, and problems manually, but after integration, most of these processes are automated. This includes change requests that now follow a workflow based on organizational needs and ITIL best practices, making tracking incidents and requests much easier for end customers through scheduled reports.

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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

"The Control Room for the bots and its ability to connect bots with APIs are the most valuable features."

"We have saved customers 400% in terms of time saved by implementing this product."

"In terms of approximate time savings, traditionally processing an invoice took twenty minutes, but with all of this—not just Document Automation, but with all the other features—we are able to cut it down to less than five minutes, achieving almost a seventy-five to eighty percent efficiency gain."

"With the cash flow generated just on the one bot we had operating, it's paid for itself in the first month."

"It has helped us to save a lot of FTEs for our solutions that we have provided to our companies. Suppose a job which was done by a group of eight to nine people on a daily basis for 24 hours was taking a lot of time, so we created a bot with Automation Anywhere. It was done with a bot working 24/7. It reduced the numbers of guys required to do that process."

"Automation Anywhere's central command center is good."

"The best features are the ease of use, the short learning curve, and the good support from our local partner."

"A has a bouquet of features that can be used in our projects. We have utilized all the features in our existing projects. It may be task bots, meta bots, or IQ bots. The features in the AA bots may be object cloning or security features where the bots can be triggered only from the control room and will help clients to maintain their security concerns."

More Automation Anywhere pros

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

"ServiceDesk Plus improved the turnaround time for asset allocation and the employee onboarding process."

"The primary benefit of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is its ease of use."

"Initially, mistakes took four hours time, now they can be completed in one to two hours."

"I like that ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus has everything and can be integrated into a single product like SAP. It has also got operations, helpdesk, MDM, and everything integrated. Multiple products can be integrated into one product. You don't have to go for them separately. I also like that they have many partners in India who can come to the site and complete installations."

"It's stable."

"The GUI is very good."

"The most valuable feature of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is change management."

"The workflow automation is the most valuable feature of this solution."

More ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus pros

Cons

"The Automation Anywhere University courses have helped us, but it could improve some things, like how the courses are designed."

"Automation Anywhere is one of the least stable RPA tools out of the top five RPA solutions."

"They are working on scalability, but I'm expecting them maybe a faster pace for the thing already in place. They need to improve the extraction and accuracy. It's a sort of a journey that we started with a few fears that may end up with a 100 or 200 fears. These are our expectations from IQ Bot. We are quite hopeful that a future release will solve this problem."

"The license cost is high and needs improvement."

"Automation Anywhere changed OCR features in A2019. My suggestion is to improve the OCR command scope and usability. We use OCR for PDF data extraction as we use in V. 11.x product."

"We've had some technical difficulties connecting, but that's more on our environment and how we have the machines and everything set up. It's not specific to Automation Anywhere. However, it's pricier than some of the other tools."

"When I used this tool in the bot, it did not work. I got this issue when using the document automation learning instance."

"They want to get more accuracy in handwritten forms, which might take some time."

More Automation Anywhere 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."

"We had issues wherein the software stopped working. We had to re-install the software and configure again. We were unable to import the old data into the new installation."

"The only challenge we are having is integrating with Jira."

"A 360-degree view of the asset life cycle should be integrated with the service desk to provide better understanding and asset management."

"The service delivery could be improved."

"There is room for improvement in the automation. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus should take note of repeated incidents and automatically offer solutions to them."

"The reporting capabilities are not as good as Ivanti's. So, ManageEngine could certainly improve on that."

"Its reporting can be improved. It can have better analytics reports. Even though they provide integration with another tool called Analytics Plus to get those reports, it would be quite helpful to have them on the fly and out of the box. A lot of improvement is required in change management and release management. Their change management module is quite simple, and they need to do a lot of work on the change management module. The release management is out only on the cloud. It is not available in on-premises deployments. In the next release, I would like it to have effective project management. They do provide the project management and contracts management modules, but these modules need a bit of improvement."

"I think that the tool should try to streamline the user interface even more because there are a lot of options that can be offered to users."

More ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I feel the cost of licensing is very high for the A2019 version."

"The licensing needs to be made simpler or shortened."

"Yearly, our licensing costs are about $90,000 to $100,000. There will be additional licensing costs when we add more Bot Runners to our infrastructure."

"The cost is high for small-scale businesses but it is fine for medium and large enterprises. Its high licensing cost may affect small-scale businesses. Reducing licensing costs would benefit many users."

"I don't deal have cost specifics but I can say it is a tool that provides value for the money."

"When I started working on it, it was difficult to obtain a trial version (barrier to entry). Now, they have a Community Edition, which may make it easy to get started."

"On a scale of one to ten with ten being the most expensive, I rate the price of Automation Anywhere an eight out of ten."

"Automation Anywhere falls within a mid-range price point when compared to other RPA tools on the market."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."

"The price is much better than other products so pricing is rated an eight out of ten."

"It is not an expensive solution."

"The only issue for us is the pricing, which is quite high in comparison with the competition."

"The prices are attractive. Customer can use a subscription if they do not have enough budget."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The platform has good pricing."

"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus' price is very reasonable."

"ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is a reasonably priced product."

More ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Construction Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

10%

No data available

Construction Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	157
Midsize Enterprise	81
Large Enterprise	558

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	33
Midsize Enterprise	24
Large Enterprise	20

Questions from the Community

How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It depends on your use case. Is it simply to automate a couple of processes? Is it to augment a human team? AA is ver...

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How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

From my experience using AA tool, it depends on the applications that you want to automate, because there some applic...

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How good is Automation Anywhere for RPA processes?

It is a highly preferred RPA tool. You can check my Automation Anywhere Review to know more.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

Regarding pricing, ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus offers three editions: Standard edition, Professional, and Enterpris...

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What needs improvement with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

The biggest friction point or frustration I have run into with ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is the upgrade risk and ...

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What is your primary use case for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

My main use case for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is that we are receiving tickets from multiple users regarding iss...

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Comparisons

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Compared 35% of the time

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Compared 13% of the time

Salesforce Service Cloud vs Kayako

Compared 7% of the time

SCSM vs Kayako

Compared 7% of the time

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Compared 12% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

August 2026

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

August 2026

Download Kayako product report

Buyer's Guide

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

July 2026

Download ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus product report

Also Known As

Automation Anywhere, Testing Anywhere, Automation Anywhere Enterprise, Agentic Process Automation System (Now Certified for WorkSpaces)

No data available

Interactive Demo

Automation Anywhere

Demo not available

Kayako

Demo not available

ManageEngine

Overview

Automation Anywhere offers ease of use, robust system connectivity, and GenAI-driven document automation through a cloud-native platform, significantly enhancing productivity across multiple industries with advanced AI features.

Delivering a comprehensive suite of tools designed for easy integration and rapid deployment, Automation Anywhere drives efficiency by reducing costs and automating repetitive tasks. Its cloud-native platform supports broad industry adoption, including advanced AI features like process automation and Co-Pilot, streamlining complex workflows with minimal technical skills required. Users benefit from robust integration capabilities, which facilitate seamless interaction with multiple systems. However, there is room for improvement in areas such as user-friendliness for beginners, stability, flexible licensing, and enhanced OCR functionality. Organizations in sectors such as banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare gain from the improved operational efficiency and ROI Automation Anywhere offers.

What are the important features of Automation Anywhere?

Ease of Use: Simplifies automation tasks with a user-centric interface.
Robust Connectivity: Provides seamless integration with multiple systems.
GenAI-Driven Document Automation: Leverages AI to automate document management.
Process Automation & Co-Pilot: Enhances workflow automation with advanced AI.
Cloud-Native Platform: Enables rapid deployment and integration.

What benefits should be evaluated in reviews?

Time Savings: Automation drastically reduces manual processing time.
Cost Efficiency: Decreases overall operational costs by automating tasks.
Productivity Enhancement: Streamlines workflows with AI-driven tools.
Improved Integration: Enhances ability to work with multiple systems.
Scalability: Supports growth with a flexible cloud-native architecture.

In the insurance industry, Automation Anywhere is utilized for automating processes such as enrollment management and compliance checks. Its applications extend to supply chain management, financial transactions, and business performance monitoring across sectors like banking, finance, manufacturing, and healthcare, helping organizations to automate routine tasks, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.

Automation Anywhere

Kayako offers an integrated helpdesk solution that aids businesses in managing customer interactions efficiently. Its user-friendly design and robust features cater to various customer service needs.

Kayako transforms customer support by streamlining and organizing interactions across platforms, providing businesses with a cohesive view of customer queries and feedback. It bridges communication gaps by integrating chat, email, and social media responses into a single dashboard. This aligns support teams and enhances customer satisfaction through consistent and timely responses. Its adaptability makes it suitable for startups to large enterprises, allowing scalability and customization according to business demands.

What are Kayako's most valuable features?

Live Chat: Real-time interactions through customizable chat widgets.
Unified Dashboard: Centralized platform for email, chat, and social media.
Customer Insights: Detailed analytics and reporting tools for better decision-making.
Automated Workflows: Streamline repetitive tasks and improve efficiency.

What benefits and ROI should users consider?

Increased Efficiency: Reduce response time with automated and streamlined processes.
Enhanced Customer Experience: Improved satisfaction through personalized support.
Cost Reduction: Optimize support operations and minimize overhead costs.

Kayako is implemented in various industries such as e-commerce, ensuring seamless customer communication through live chat, enabling faster issue resolution. Technology firms use it to manage complex inquiries, while financial services ensure customer privacy and support through secure communication channels. It aligns with industry standards, ensuring compliance and efficient operations.

Kayako

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is an ITIL-compliant tool designed for IT help desk and incident management. It offers user-friendly ticketing, automation, and integration features, assisting businesses in effective IT service management.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus provides comprehensive solutions for ticketing, automation, and integration with third-party tools. Its features include project, change, and asset management, which are essential for streamlining IT operations. The intuitive interface supports both technical and non-technical users. The platform's reporting, SLA management, and CMDB functions significantly enhance business operations. Despite its strengths, there are areas for improvement, such as customization and integration capabilities. Users often seek better automation for active and asset management, enhanced search functionality, and improved security.

What are the key features of ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

Ticketing System: Facilitates efficient issue tracking and resolution.
Automation: Allows the creation of automated workflows to reduce manual effort.
Customizability: Enables tailoring of the platform to fit specific business needs.
Integration: Seamless connectivity with third-party tools for enhanced functionality.
Project Management: Supports planning and execution of IT projects.
Change Management: Helps in managing IT service changes systematically.
Asset Management: Tracks and manages IT assets effectively.

What benefits and ROI should users expect from ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlined workflows and processes save time and resources.
Enhanced Communication: Facilitates better interaction within IT departments.
Operational Visibility: Reporting and metrics provide insights into IT operations.
Flexibility: Customization options help tailor the system to specific requirements.
Security Enhancement: Regular updates enhance system security and data protection.

Industries implement ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus to address specific challenges such as IT help desk management and asset tracking. Companies use the platform to log incidents, automate workflows, and ensure compliance with ITIL standards, supporting effective management of daily operations, system auditing, and improved client interaction.

ManageEngine

Sample Customers

Google, Linkedin, Cisco, Juniper Networks, DellEMC, Comcast, Mastercard, Quest Diagnostics

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

Tranter IT Infrastructure Services Limited, Sterlite Technologies, averda, Radiology Associates

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

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