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ServiceNow vs Zoho Desk comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

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

ServiceNow
Ranking in Help Desk Software
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
216
Ranking in other categories
IT Asset Management (1st), IT Service Management (ITSM) (1st), Rapid Application Development Software (2nd), No-Code Development Platforms (1st)
Zoho Desk
Ranking in Help Desk Software
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
CRM Customer Engagement Centers (6th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Help Desk Software category, the mindshare of ServiceNow is 24.1%, down from 26.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zoho Desk is 2.7%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Help Desk Software
 

Featured Reviews

Somnath Kand - PeerSpot reviewer
Custom integration and reporting lead to efficient ticket management
There is a need for bug or error tracking in ServiceNow. Although there are child incidents or tickets, tracking primary issues or bugs within enhancements is not present. The reporting features in the new portal could be more user-friendly. While it provides options to minimize chart and image sizes, actual implementation doesn't always reflect these changes.
Babatunde-Olugbode - PeerSpot reviewer
End-to-end solution to manage customer support tickets and consolidate all communication channels into one platform
For me, the valuable features are related to customer engagement because I want to ensure I don't miss any customer inquiries, no matter the channel. For example, I haven't seen any other platform that consolidates all channels into one console. That's a valuable feature to me. Then there's the pricing, which is better than Zendesk. Zendesk charges in USD per user, per month, whereas Zoho let us pay in Naira (Nigerian currency). Zoho can also identify user locations, letting you leverage existing reviews. These are valuable features that many organizations have adopted Zoho Desk for. We can download the mobile app to see requests and respond from anywhere. It is one of the most improved applications and widely integrated systems I've worked with. You can virtually integrate it with almost anything, like Microsoft Teams and other data applications. The marketplace lets you find native integrations. For example, we have an organization that uses multiple systems and wants to ensure agents don't log in to multiple platforms to see emails. They have a native integration system that takes care of that and works seamlessly.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Great that it's knowledge-based and you can use the flows in ServiceNow."
"I don't have to look through a whole bunch of other incidents that aren't relevant to me. It's very useful in that sense."
"It is user-friendly and simple to use."
"Very good incident management, chain management and problem management features."
"It provides internal clients with greater transparency about their projects and deliverables."
"It's a straightforward and effective approach that minimizes the need for extensive explanations."
"I like the incident module, which is useful for tracking your incidents and other things. It is a reliable solution."
"Within our organization, we're not finding really any major issues with scalability and things of that nature."
"The product is quite stable."
"It is a scalable platform."
"The tool has made support very flexible and strong. We can use chat boxes and auto-responses. If someone creates a ticket, it will be created in Zoho Desk's ticket module. We can get emails and respond to them within the product. We don't need a support email product to manage emails. We can easily manage it within Zoho Desk. The tool's interface is good since it updated the layout three months ago and the current interface is more effective."
"The solution doesn't have any bugs."
"The most valuable features of Zoho Desk are the user interface, pricing, and how they customize the solution for us."
"The most valuable feature of generating the ticket through the web form and for the e-mailers. So, if you are facing any issues, by the ticket, you can generate the issue in Google Test."
"The deployment process is swift, typically taking just one day, and includes customization and automation setup."
"Zoho Desk is very flexible, just like the other applications of Zoho."
 

Cons

"It should have more artificial intelligence for business and work capabilities. The community is not so active. There must be initiatives to make the community talk more and share more information."
"The biggest complaint I have is that the ServiceNow search engine is not very robust."
"The standard UI is very restricted. It doesn't look as good, compared to Remedy. Building your own UI requires some additional coding..."
"Like all other IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS subscription cloud providers, ServiceNow is constantly improving by building new capabilities to expand the breadth and depth of its offerings while increasing its activities with partners to build more capabilities."
"There's always a room for improvement in terms of the ServiceNow UI. For customers, the UI is something that is a continuous improvement."
"I find the way you need to attach things like screenshots and stuff is a bit gimmicky. I'm a casual user. I'll use it once every two months and only when I have an incident that I need to report. You don't get a lot of experience with it when you're just using it once in a while like that. Therefore, it needs to be more intuitive so that you don't have to re-learn how to do simple tasks as the way to do certain things just isn't obvious."
"When it comes to changing some of the features, I would like a little more leeway."
"The solution's user experience could be improved concerning its UI and portals."
"The solution needs to have more customization on alerts and notifications."
"Zoho Desk needs to be enhanced to support IT service management policies."
"I would like to have integrated support, and integration between the ticketing tool and the project management tool."
"As per customer requirements, it may have some limitations."
"There is room for improvement in terms of integration."
"They could enhance the product’s features to customize the automated email responses."
"The solution could improve its stability and scalability."
"The solution should provide an option to autofill some values while creating tickets."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing expenses are excessively high."
"I would say it is moderately expensive, ranging from six to seven on a scale of ten."
"The licenses are expensive."
"The platform offers a free trial, by providing a free developer instance once you sign up."
"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."
"ServiceNow is an expensive solution."
"For the modules we use, we found it competitive. I can't think of any costs in addition to the licensing fees."
"ServiceNow tends to be a little bit more expensive as compared to BMC Helix ITSM."
"Regarding pricing, it's 35 USD per user a year and 45 USD per user a month. Under the price, I have access to all Zoho products since it all falls under Zoho One's package."
"The pricing is better than Zendesk. Zendesk charges in USD per user per month, whereas Zoho let us pay in Naira (Nigerian currency)."
"The solution is relatively cheap. However, there are additional licensing fees involved."
"Zoho Desk's cost is pretty much okay."
"Price-wise, Zoho Desk is about 35 USD a month per user."
"For what it does, it's quite cheap."
"Zoho Desk's pricing is more flexible."
"Zoho Desk is a cost-effective solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
28%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Educational Organization
59%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Media Company
3%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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 ...
What do you like most about ServiceNow?
The solution has a user-friendly interface.
What do you like most about Zoho Desk?
The most valuable features of Zoho Desk are archiving queries and analytics.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zoho Desk?
The price point is a concern. The licensing model is quite easy, however, the pricing issue remains the main concern.
What needs improvement with Zoho Desk?
The main concern is the pricing of Zoho Desk, as I consider it to be on the expensive side.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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    
Intel, Sears, Daimler, Essilor, Aon Hewitt, Shop Your Way, CoffeeRocket
Find out what your peers are saying about ServiceNow vs. Zoho Desk and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.