Kayako vs ServiceNow comparison

Kayako and ServiceNow are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. Kayako is ranked #61, while ServiceNow is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Kayako holds a 0.4% mindshare in HDS, compared to ServiceNow’s 12.9% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Kayako users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of ServiceNow users who would recommend it.

Kayako

Read 1 Kayako review

251 Views
241 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

ServiceNow

Read 224 ServiceNow reviews

23,781 Views
7,848 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Kayako

ServiceNow

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Kayako and ServiceNow based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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

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 881,733 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

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)

ServiceNow

Ranking in Help Desk Software

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

224

Ranking in other categories

IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2026, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of Kayako is 0.4%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of ServiceNow is 12.9%, down from 24.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ServiceNow	12.9%
Kayako	0.4%
Other	86.7%

Help Desk Software

Featured Reviews

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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MichaelTang1

Manager of Security Engineering & Architecture at a outsourcing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Seamless data integration and advanced automation improve service delivery efficiency

I think that nothing needs to be improved with the product; you just need the user to commit and spend appropriate time to overcome that learning curve. Once that is done, the product itself is pretty wonderful. I've seen a very nicely built interface with ServiceNow, and I've also seen the ugliest version that feels outdated. ServiceNow does allow that team to exist. They should modernize their fonts and their layout, the UI friendliness. They did introduce AI, chatbots, and AI on the back end, so that's wonderful and extremely useful if you train it. If you don't train it, it's pretty useless. Assessing the impact of ServiceNow's automation on service delivery times is complicated. The engineers who operate on ServiceNow find it isn't straightforward because the data set is accessible by everybody. The problem is that understanding how to manage that data set requires an enormous amount of engineering skill set to run the product. I would not hand the key to the customer; I would highly recommend that ServiceNow take control of that. Instead of offering support for the software, they should offer administrative support for the software. They should provide professional service or some kind of support system that allows us to use their product at a faster pace. I'm sure they offer something, but it's often outrageously expensive, or they rely on another company to resell their product and offer professional service. It makes no sense in my opinion, and they should offer the team at the front to help customize the product to fit each company's needs, as every company has different demands and forms of submitting a request that need adjustment over time.

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

"I prefer ServiceNow to the competition because of its ease of use, installation and configuration."

"One feature of ServiceNow that is important is the workflow engine. From my perspective [as a consultant] the power to be able to structure processes, represent workforce management for organizations, and the visibility provided by the reporting are additional top features."

"If you stick to the out-of-the-box solution, it's an easy setup."

"You can put information in or export it out quickly, which is very useful when you have weekly or monthly reports."

"The Workflow feature is the most valuable."

"ServiceNow is great. You can download the data into Excel and you can basically create reports. It's very flexible."

"The solution has very good automation tools."

"The flow designer for application development is the most valuable. The newest version of flow designer allows us to develop applications quite fast. We can have custom and mobile applications. It has an interface for mobiles, and it also has a good reputation."

More ServiceNow pros

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."

"The challenge with ServiceNow lies in its expansive portfolio of services. It can be complex, and users may find it expensive and challenging to understand. There is a need for a configurator within ServiceNow that guides users on how to utilize the tool effectively. This configurator should provide insights into licensing, team requirements, and the best licensing model based on whether companies prefer ownership or consumption-based models."

"The customer service of the product right now isn't very good. It's an aspect they really need to improve."

"This solution needs to be improved for global use. Currently, it's very oriented to the processes and needs of the US customer base, like their compliance solution or GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance), and not so much for customers from other parts of the world. Some users may like the things that ServiceNow is improving, but those are very oriented to users based in the United States and Europe."

"Very expensive."

"if I consider from the IT operations management side, ServiceNow is pretty premature on some things, especially the discovery, while the other tools like Micro Focus and BMC Remedy, those that have been in the market for quite some time. ServiceNow is evolving itself in the discovery piece of the future."

"It's missing monitoring capabilities."

"Local solutions have lower costs."

"We are struggling with the scheduling part, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a ServiceNow issue. It could be the way we have configured it. We don't have it configured in a way where you can schedule a support call with our end users. We are looking for more automation in the box and the chat feature."

More ServiceNow cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."

"It is very expensive because it is a big organization. You have to pay for additional things."

"Initially, the licensing model ServiceNow came up with was very good. But now, from a licensing perspective, they are changing their model day by day. It is becoming a bit expensive for customers."

"Isn't pricing always too much? We really do chafe at the ITIL licensing. ITOM is also pretty expensive."

"The license model is based on a number of fulfillers (active users who play some role within the ServiceNow functionality). Therefore, you can serve as many end-users as you want, without additional costs."

"The price is okay for us. It's reasonable."

"In Tunisia, the companies find the licensing costs to be expensive."

"I am from Brazil. For Latin American markets, ServiceNow is very expensive as compared to other vendors, such as VMware."

"The licenses are expensive."

More ServiceNow pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	55
Midsize Enterprise	35
Large Enterprise	166

Questions from the Community

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Which solution is better for developing non-ITSM applications: OutSystems or Service Now?

The short answer is that OutSystems is far better for 2 main reasons. Firstly, with Service Now you are locked into that platform for good. The business model is to lock in and then keep pumping th...

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Would you choose ServiceNow over Microsoft PowerApps?

Hi Netanya, I will choose ServiceNow because ServiceNow is a very good tool compared to Microsoft PowerApp. Because ServiceNow has a very strong module (Performance Analysis) reporting which will ...

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What do you like most about ServiceNow?

The solution has a user-friendly interface.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 48% of the time

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Compared 6% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

Zendesk vs ServiceNow

Compared 4% of the time

Pega Platform vs ServiceNow

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

January 2026

Download Kayako product report

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow

January 2026

Download ServiceNow product report

Overview

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

ServiceNow is a cloud-based task-management platform that specializes in IT operations management (ITOM), IT services management (ITSM), and IT business management (ITBM). ServiceNow allows users to manage their teams, projects, and customer interactions using a variety of different plugins and apps with which it easily integrates.

ServiceNow offers prebuilt applications to support any process, as well as a framework and tools that allow you to build your own.

ServiceNow’s service management solutions include change, request, incident, problem, and cost management, as well as HR, IT, field service, and facilities management solutions. They also cover business management solutions such as vendor performance management, financial management, performance analytics and project portfolio suite, as well as governance, risk, and compliance.

“The Smarter Way to Workflow”

ServiceNow’s activities, processes, and tasks are overseen as part of a comprehensive managed workflow that supports such features as real-time collaboration, communication, and resource sharing. ServiceNow’s suite of products allow for operation using serverless computing, and include the categories of Business Apps, Customer Service, HR, IT, and Security.

ServiceNow can be used to support most workflows because of the wide range of tools it offers. These include on-suite ticketing tools, predictive modeling to manage workflows, and benchmarking for the tracking of progress. ServiceNow can assist with artificial intelligence and machine learning processes and can be used to organize the cases of a help/service desk as well as for instance management and problem management. It also smoothly integrates with many legacy systems.

ServiceNow offers service management software for industries including:

Cloud services
Education
Financial services
Government
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Telecommunications

Reviews from Real Users

PeerSpot users prefer ServiceNow to its competitors because of its scalability, stability, and ease of use. It helps everyone in the company to be on the same page by creating a single source of record across all departments. One user stated that “I’ve definitely used over 20 project management solutions, but they can't be compared with ServiceNow.” Another said that “ServiceNow is an industry leader in multiple areas and provides an excellent ROI.”

ServiceNow

Sample Customers

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

AAA, AstraZeneca, Becton, Dickinson and Company, Broadcom, Christus Health, Epicor, Equinix, GE Capital, Intuit, KPMG, Loyola Marymount University, OshKosh, Quantas, RedHat, Royal Bank of Scotland, Swiss Re, U.S. Department of Energy, Safeway, Yale University, and Zillow

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

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