BrightGauge vs. Zendesk Explore

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
BrightGauge
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
BrightGauge is a BI tool from ConnectWise that puts essential information in one place, providing visibility for more informed decisions. The user can customize BrightGauge dashboards and sync other business tools in its BI dashboard software for ultimate visibility. Users can also display data with embeddable gauges on public sites.
$325
per month
Zendesk Explore
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Zendesk offers Explore, a business intelligence and customer analytics tool which integrates with the Zendesk suite featuring ticket analytics, custom fields, dashboards, and other features. Zendesk is migrating customers of the BIME analytics product, which is approaching end of support, to Zendesk Explore in 2019.N/A
Pricing
BrightGaugeZendesk Explore
Editions & Modules
Standard
$325
per month
Enterprise
$449
per month
Enterprise+
$635
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
BrightGaugeZendesk Explore
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup Fee$499 one-time feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSet up fee is waived for Enterprise+ customers. A discount is offered for annual billing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
BrightGaugeZendesk Explore
Features
BrightGaugeZendesk Explore
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
8.1
14 Ratings
1% below category average
Zendesk Explore
9.0
9 Ratings
10% above category average
Pixel Perfect reports8.210 Ratings7.15 Ratings
Customizable dashboards8.814 Ratings10.09 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates7.213 Ratings9.97 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
7.7
14 Ratings
4% below category average
Zendesk Explore
8.3
9 Ratings
3% above category average
Drill-down analysis8.414 Ratings9.59 Ratings
Formatting capabilities8.513 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages4.77 Ratings4.85 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration9.213 Ratings10.09 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
7.9
14 Ratings
5% below category average
Zendesk Explore
8.4
9 Ratings
1% above category average
Publish to Web9.410 Ratings6.96 Ratings
Publish to PDF7.414 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Report Versioning5.07 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling9.214 Ratings8.97 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers8.54 Ratings8.14 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
5.9
12 Ratings
30% below category average
Zendesk Explore
7.2
7 Ratings
10% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)8.012 Ratings6.66 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization7.16 Ratings7.16 Ratings
Predictive Analytics6.06 Ratings5.55 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining2.52 Ratings9.43 Ratings
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
8.7
14 Ratings
3% above category average
Zendesk Explore
9.1
9 Ratings
7% above category average
Multi-User Support (named login)9.614 Ratings9.58 Ratings
Role-Based Security Model9.213 Ratings9.59 Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.213 Ratings8.07 Ratings
Report-Level Access Control8.34 Ratings8.64 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)8.35 Ratings10.07 Ratings
Mobile Capabilities
Comparison of Mobile Capabilities features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
6.8
7 Ratings
15% below category average
Zendesk Explore
7.8
7 Ratings
1% below category average
Responsive Design for Web Access8.56 Ratings6.15 Ratings
Mobile Application6.01 Ratings8.32 Ratings
Dashboard / Report / Visualization Interactivity on Mobile5.96 Ratings9.06 Ratings
Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding
Comparison of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) / Embedding features of Product A and Product B
BrightGauge
7.4
8 Ratings
5% below category average
Zendesk Explore
5.9
4 Ratings
28% below category average
REST API8.36 Ratings5.44 Ratings
Javascript API9.62 Ratings5.93 Ratings
iFrames10.02 Ratings5.53 Ratings
Java API6.01 Ratings5.63 Ratings
Themeable User Interface (UI)3.53 Ratings6.23 Ratings
Customizable Platform (Open Source)7.03 Ratings7.02 Ratings
Best Alternatives
BrightGaugeZendesk Explore
Small Businesses
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Score 8.0 out of 10
BrightGauge
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
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Score 10.0 out of 10
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Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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Score 9.8 out of 10
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User Ratings
BrightGaugeZendesk Explore
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(14 ratings)
9.5
(9 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(7 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
BrightGaugeZendesk Explore
Likelihood to Recommend
ConnectWise
BrightGauge lets us know when we have critical issues that need solving. A massive influx of tickets all at the same time triggers an investigation. Usually, it is tied to a server going down, which we can address. It would not be helpful for a small MSP or IT department with just a few daily tickets. The stats are better used to track a large amount of clients.
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Zendesk
Zendesk Explore is well suited for tracking ticket flow, agent performance, and customer satisfaction providing valuable insights into response and resolution time, workload and support quality. Particularly useful for monitoring ticket handling for different teams. Helps ensure accountability by tracking how long tickets remain assigned before being reassigned to another group. Drill down capability helps identify support bottlenecks. However, it is less appropriate for real time monitoring as it lacks real time data updates making it unsuitable for instant decision making.
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Pros
ConnectWise
  • SQL queries can be presented in many different ways to illustrate the data. They can be used in lists, graphs, meter, etc.
  • The datasets frequency of updates can be customized to from 5 minutes to annually. It's very granular in this respect.
  • It allows dashboards to be shared outside your organization with clients, partners, and vendors to maximize collaboration and reporting.
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Zendesk
  • Zendesk Explore is easy to use.
  • Zendesk Explore allows users to create custom metrics.
  • Zendesk Explore allows users to create custom attributes.
  • Zendesk Explore is easy to learn.
  • Compared to other analytics function of other Ticket Management System, Zendesk Explore is probably the best as of now.
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Cons
ConnectWise
  • Annual or more than annualized data is desperately needed for MSPs to show trends, current limitation is previous 240 days for ConnectWise tickets
  • Alerts when datasets do not sync properly, I have to rely on my team to notice vs get an automated alert from BrightGauge
  • Small thing, but it would be nice to have more options on the report scheduler to enable a start date. If you wish to do it quarterly, you have to start the schedule exactly 3 months from the next run.
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Zendesk
  • Some aspects of Zendesk, in general, are not super intuitive. The same goes for Zendesk Explore. And, while you can google answers and hope you find something helpful, there isn't a great way to learn to get the full potential out of the product unless you want to pay for someone from your team to take a class (which costs several hundred dollars).
  • To piggyback off the last point, if you would prefer to get help from a Zendesk expert, you'll find that there is almost no customer support available to you. For a company that aims to help other companies help their customers, this has always struck me as odd. Again, Google is your friend and beyond that, you're mostly out of luck.
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Usability
ConnectWise
Usability is BrightGauge's strength. Granting the ability of virtually any user to be able to create a dashboard is incredibly valuable. If an organization very simple and straight forward reporting needs then BrightGauge is a perfect fit for them. Connecting to the dataset we used was very quick and easy and I imagine it would be the same for any major data source you would like to pull from.
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Zendesk
I rate Zendesk Explore 8 out of 10 for it's overall usability because it offers powerful reporting and analytics with an easy to navigate interface and intuitive dashboards. It helps improve customer satisfaction by providing valuable insights into ticket handling, agent performance and customer satisfaction. Though the complex query builder can be challenging for non technical users.
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Support Rating
ConnectWise
Anytime I have reached out to the BrightGauge support team they have been quick, responsive, and solved my issue. They go out of their way to be helpful!
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Zendesk
Support for all of Zendesk has exceeding my expectations. This company will always get a 10 out of 10 in my book. Any question you have they make sure you have the answer plus a step-by-step guide on how to do each step so you are set up for success!
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Alternatives Considered
ConnectWise
I'm not aware of any other competitors to Bright Gauge that we selected. They seem to be very close to managed IT service providers and have been great at tailoring their support to the PSAs like ConnectWise, AutoTask, etc. I can see Bright Gauge getting more and more popular as time goes by
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Zendesk
I selected Zendesk Explore only to provide an easy and quick access for my managers and supervisors regading metrics and volume trends. Is not the most flexible nor complete data visualization tool, but works well for day-to-day follow ups. You need to use another tool if you want to see long-term patterns (e.g. month over month volume trends) and you need another platform if you want your interaction metrics to interact with other important factors of the business
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Return on Investment
ConnectWise
  • We were purchased by a large PE firm because we could easily show CSAT ratings.
  • The easily trackable stats are suitable for the C-Suite to see which division is the most profitable.
  • We won 60,000 MRR by displaying to potential customers how we track important issues with the gauges.
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Zendesk
  • Money saved due to proper staffing.
  • Happier Staff- proper staffing ensures no one is overworked.
  • Ability to quickly pinpoint where issues are and why.
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ScreenShots