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 8.5. Kayako holds a 0.4% mindshare in HDS, compared to ServiceNow’s 13.1% 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

225 Views
216 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

ServiceNow

Read 224 ServiceNow reviews

22,688 Views
7,260 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Kayako

ServiceNow

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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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: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

December 2025

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Helped 881,082 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 January 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 13.1%, down from 24.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Help Desk Software Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
ServiceNow	13.1%
Kayako	0.4%
Other	86.5%

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.

Read full review

Shafqat Paracha

General Manager at sPerception IT

Adopting flexible workflows with customized automation delivers measurable benefits

There are things that I would like to see improved in ServiceNow, such as the pricing, as it is a very costly solution compared to other tools. Additionally, its presence in the local market is very limited; in Pakistan, for example, I don't see any vendor or distributor of ServiceNow available. They need to increase their sales spectrum globally so people can easily access them and engage them for client meetings and more. From a functionality perspective, the features in ServiceNow are acceptable as, at the moment, the ITSM modules rank highly, being 13 plus Pink Elephant certified, which is a good aspect to have. When providing advice to users, I would suggest they consider making strategic decisions about their per user pricing since it is very high. In our region, people normally start with 5 to 10 users, but the per user price is quite steep. Moreover, ServiceNow does not charge based on data uploaded or downloaded, so they should reconsider their pricing and data policies to align better with the financial capabilities of the region.

Read full review

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."

"ServiceNow provides quite good insights about what is happening in the organization."

"Creating a ticket is much simpler in this tool. That is one big advantage. Also, the simplicity and ease of use are much better. I've used HPSM and it is very complex in comparison to ServiceNow."

"Some of the valuable features I have found the solution to have are it can serve many different types of businesses, it has strong platform capabilities, provides application development, built-in predictive intelligence, and performance analytics reports."

"The solution is stable, scalable and easy to use."

"The solution integrates well with other products."

"The impact of ServiceNow's self-service portal on IT staff dependency levels has shown a dramatic improvement."

"ServiceNow is easy to use."

"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the possibility of the application development cap so that we can digitize workflows."

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 solution should offer better security when it comes to storing data."

"For healthcare, which is a pretty audited environment, there are no concrete solutions for digital signatures, apart from our license with Adobe, so it requires orchestration."

"The solution is lacking in the mobile application area that could be improved."

"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."

"The customization that we are doing for the needs of our organization are difficult to do and could be improved."

"The setup was time-consuming and required a lot of internal resources."

"Before implementing this solution, you should have the ITSM model in place for chain management requests. That is a prerequisite because you cannot perform tasks without it."

"The Express edition does not allow the option for scripting."

More ServiceNow cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Kayako is a highly affordable solution."

"They could be more competitive with their licensing."

"The price of this solution is expensive."

"The first impact for the customer is that it is expensive, but do not forget that it is a solution that includes infrastructure; a single cost, easy to justify."

"The platform offers a free trial, by providing a free developer instance once you sign up."

"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."

"It's sold as a less expensive solution, but it has to be highly modified. That's where you get into the cost."

"The licenses are expensive."

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

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.

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Help Desk Software

December 2025

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: December 2025.

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