Kayako vs ServiceNow comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Kayako and ServiceNow are both solutions in the Help Desk Software category. Kayako is ranked #48, while ServiceNow is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.6. Additionally, 100% of Kayako users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of ServiceNow users who would recommend it.

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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, Zendesk and others in Help Desk Software.

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

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

October 2026

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Helped 920,769 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

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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Hemanthreddy Vakiti

Data Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Structured workflows have improved SLA compliance and now support prioritized incident handling

I think the licensing and pricing of ServiceNow is quite expensive compared to other tools. For large organizations, it is acceptable, but specifically for small and medium organizations to track incidents or change requests, ServiceNow is quite expensive. Sometimes performance can be slow when workflows and integrations are configured for complex tasks. For advanced customizations or advanced features which we rarely use, the documentation is not up to standard. The documentation needs to be improved for advanced customization features. However, the platform is stable overall and the features are quite good. The user experience and performance concerns I mentioned are areas I want to be improved. When many workflows and interactions are configured, performance is slow. For the features it is providing, it is quite expensive. If these performance features are improved, we can easily pay that price and get the return on investment.

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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

"It is easy to use. It helps to reduce your man-hours and manual effort."

"Automation Anywhere is definitely scalable in several ways; it's easy and accessible, it's designed the best — almost perfect."

"Automation Anywhere has significantly helped us achieve our automation goals, mainly by reducing costs, which alleviates organizational burdens."

"Scalability is good. There is no question about its scalability."

"The IQ Bot is very impressive to us, as we have tried several tools in the industry and we have not been able to automate to the same level as provided by this solution."

"We are able to create robotic tasks in a short time."

"By automating most of our LOB's on the healthcare side and putting it on production, we have saved millions of dollars and were also able to achieve FTE benefits."

"We are getting some phenomenal straight through processing, so we took what would have taken 30 to 35 people and are able to do that a little bit more accurately with about six."

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."

"Very good incident management, chain management and problem management features."

"You can have it installed and up and running within hours if you know what you're doing. Time to market would be one of the main things to consider."

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

"In my experience, the solution is very stable."

"They have thought through it, and not just the whole domain in the platform but now they have connected it to the business side, the business needs and the processes, the work that people do down to the technology."

"The flow designer feature of ServiceNow has had the biggest impact on our productivity because it has helped me reduce manual efforts by creating automation and robotics."

"Improved the globalization of processes and around the clock service delivery to our customers Automated repetitive tasks and shifted left simple tasks to the service desk"

"In 12 years, I've rarely seen a failure of their cloud hosting, if ever."

More ServiceNow pros

Cons

"When comparing the code under version checks, although there is a change done, it doesn't say so because the change is done at the variable level and not in the line of code."

"We have a new feature share in Automation Anywhere, but it does not migrate automatically from the previous version to the new one."

"I would like to have the ability to work on a remote desktop connection, run the recording on it and use all commands."

"The improvements that we could see would be the increased stability of each A2019 releases and reduce the likely impact on existing features. We are also looking to see improvements in the upgrade and bot deployment processes to make them easier and less interaction with back end servers."

"I would like to have a bot as a service platform on AA Cloud. This would minimize the installation process, and we wouldn't need to have all the hardware to support the platform in-house."

"There are occasional technical issues, particularly with cloud operations. Sometimes, the bot struggles to initiate on the cloud, even when everything appears in place."

"From an IT perspective, we had too many issues and headaches."

"There is a dependency issue around the control room. If the control room is not working, the bots will not work."

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."

"There are Virtual Task Boards in the tool in the latest releases. There are many of them in the Scaled Agile Framework. There is some room there for improvement. It's really quite promising but, at the same time, it could be improved and I believe it will be improved soon."

"It's a very new system, and we see bugginess."

"Direct support from ServiceNow is not very good. Most of the support comes from partners, and customers heavily rely on them."

"Discovery is not immediate, and there is a lag."

"ServiceNow is not meeting our expectations. The contract module is quite rudimentary and doesn't support contract line items, which are subdivisions of contracts in VA."

"I don't know where that's going to end because at some point ServiceNow will become a marlock and people will turn away from a 'one solution fits all' and go more into the niches again."

"Their GUI could be updated."

"We still have some issues with some of our ITIL users, like some things aren't as intuitive as they could be."

More ServiceNow cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Automation Anywhere is expensive, making it more suitable for enterprise organizations."

"Automation Anywhere is affordable."

"I really enjoy the pricing options with Automation Anywhere, as they are able to flex their ability to adapt to the needs of the customer really well."

"Initially, they charged a premium, but now the rest of the vendors have increased their overall pricing and Automation Anywhere is not that high at this time. It's pretty viable."

"The enterprise version is expensive for small businesses and individual users."

"There may be room for the product to be more competitively priced to excel in the market."

"Automation Anywhere might have a higher upfront cost than some competitors, but its extensive features and seamless integration with other tools can save organizations money in the long run."

"I have heard that Automation Anywhere is expensive."

More Automation Anywhere pricing and cost advice

"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."

"The price could be a little lower for the solution. Many of my customers have issues with the licensing process, they have to make it easier and straightforward."

"The CapEx version is great."

"The pricing is reasonable and affordable, making it suitable for businesses ranging from small to large scale."

"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."

"We know that ServiceNow is not cheap, it's more expensive than other solutions. But we are trying to increase our ability to handle tickets so that the cost per ticket is less."

"ServiceNow is a leader and its pricing is quite good, quite competitive... Sometimes some plugins are not priced reasonably but, generally, the platform itself, its modules, are priced reasonably."

"Some time ago it was expensive, but large companies have special contracts. It's enterprise prices, and we're talking about millions per year."

"It has a higher cost compared to local/regional solutions."

More ServiceNow pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Outsourcing Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

11%

No data available

Manufacturing Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Outsourcing Company

Construction Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	162
Midsize Enterprise	86
Large Enterprise	565

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	57
Midsize Enterprise	35
Large Enterprise	179

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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Ask a question

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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 t...

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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 ...

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What is the cost of implementation and maintenance of ServiceNow?

Nobody can give you a clean percentage without knowing your license tier, but here’s how I’d budget it, based on what...

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Comparisons

UiPath Platform vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 10% of the time

Blue Prism vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 5% of the time

Microsoft Power Automate vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 4% of the time

AutomationEdge vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 3% of the time

Appian vs Automation Anywhere

Compared 2% of the time

More Automation Anywhere Competitors

JIRA Service Management vs Kayako

Compared 28% of the time

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus vs Kayako

Compared 19% of the time

Hiver vs Kayako

Compared 8% of the time

SCSM vs Kayako

Compared 6% of the time

Clarity SM vs Kayako

Compared 6% of the time

More Kayako Competitors

IBM Maximo Application Suite vs ServiceNow

Compared 7% of the time

BMC Helix ITSM vs ServiceNow

Compared 4% of the time

JIRA Service Management vs ServiceNow

Compared 3% of the time

Zendesk vs ServiceNow

Compared 3% of the time

Airtable vs ServiceNow

Compared 3% of the time

More ServiceNow Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Automation Anywhere

October 2026

Download Automation Anywhere product report

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

October 2026

Download Kayako product report

Buyer's Guide

ServiceNow

October 2026

Download ServiceNow 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

ServiceNow

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

ServiceNow offers customizability and cloud-based integration that sustains operational efficiency. Enabling change and incident management, it accelerates workflow automation and project management without downtime issues, serving deployment needs for IT service and productivity enhancements.

ServiceNow stands out with its adaptable workflows and cloud-native infrastructure, boosting IT service, project, and asset management. Known for its robust incident and change management, the platform addresses business needs through its user-centric design and extensive integration options. By facilitating seamless IT operations and automation, ServiceNow empowers businesses to enhance productivity and efficiency. Regular updates ensure users benefit from the latest features without service interruptions, although pricing and licensing complexities demand attention. Users seek improved reporting tools and a more intuitive design while expressing interest in refined mobile functionality and better documentation.

What are the key features of ServiceNow?

Customizability: Enables tailored workflows to align with business processes.
Cloud-Based Integration: Allows seamless updates and operational sustainability.
Incident and Change Management: Supports efficient handling of IT-related issues.
Automation Capabilities: Automates repetitive tasks, enhancing productivity.
User-Friendly Design: Simplifies navigation and improves user interaction.
Comprehensive Reporting: Provides detailed insights for better decision-making.

What benefits and ROI should users anticipate from ServiceNow?

Improved Efficiency: Streamlines processes and reduces manual efforts.
Enhanced Productivity: Automates tasks, enabling focus on strategic initiatives.
Seamless Operations: Integrates across departments for unified management.
Effective IT Management: Smooth incident, change, and problem resolution.
Cost and Time Savings: Reduces operational costs through efficient workflow management.

ServiceNow finds implementation across industries like IT, HR, asset management, and help desks, addressing ticketing and configuration needs. Businesses use its dashboard for tracking performance metrics, enhancing decision-making in departments like HR service delivery. Its adaptability also makes it suitable for industries requiring robust operational management and process automation, driving efficiency and growth.

ServiceNow

Sample Customers

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

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, Zendesk and others in Help Desk Software. Updated: October 2026.

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