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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    SolarWinds Service Desk

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/ASolarWinds Service Desk (formerly Samanage) is a cloud-based, multi-tenant IT service desk and asset management software for IT and enterprise service management. Samanage is on a single, always new instance of software. The service desk includes a self-service portal, service catalog, knowledge base, and SLA management tool. The integrated agent-based asset management solution collects contracts and licensing data from Windows, Mac, Linux, and Unix systems.N/A

    Zendesk Suite

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AZendesk is a customer support solution with built-in ticketing, conversational messaging, and live chat, designed to help businesses of all sizes and industries deliver personalized service at scale. Zendesk's AI agents are trained in CX to help Service teams resolve customer issues faster and more accurately while still providing a human-centered experience. Zendesk ultimately aims to help businesses improve time to value, reduce effort per ticket, and keep costs low.

    $69

    per month per agent

    Pricing
    SolarWinds Service DeskZendesk Suite
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Suite Team
    $69
    per month per agent
    Suite Growth
    $115
    per month per agent
    Suite Professional
    $149
    per month per agent
    Suite Enterprise
    Contact Sales
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    SolarWinds Service DeskZendesk Suite
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoYes
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
    Additional Details—20% discount available with annual pricing.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    SolarWinds Service DeskZendesk Suite
    Considered Both Products
    SolarWinds
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    This is a great system for the price. It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of dinner off the bigger systems out there. But the core components are built well. This would allow a team to really embed good foundational practices in managing IT operations on a daily basis.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Solarwinds was HIPAA compliant out of the box. That was very helpful for us.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    We have used Zendesk, ServiceNow, Spiceworks, and TeamDynamix. Zendesk lacked features like vendor and contract management but offered a competitive price. ServiceNow and TeamDynamix are more full-featured ITSM tools with more features but not cost-effective for our …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    This tool was selected prior to my coming to work for Injured Workers Pharmacy. The key reasons for its selection were to quickly be able to separate traditional IT incidents from IT developer incidents as well as which incidents were actually requests for new functionality …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Solarwinds Service Desk seems to offer more features and a more intuitive interface for our internal customers. While Zendesk may provide some slightly better usability features, Service Desk gives us great reporting and contains an inventory management tool where information …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Zendesk was very limited in functionality, had no asset tracking. Solarwinds wins hands down.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    When we transitioned to Solarwinds Service Desk, it was the only hosted service that was HIPAA compliant. Having a HIPAA-compliant solution was a requirement to allow us to support our health care clinics.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    I didn't use Zendesk much but when I used it at a previous company it was years ago and I felt it was very lackluster and didn't have a lot to give. Samanage at the time I was introduced and now has continued to grow and build out its systems making it feel very powerful and …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Zoho has a multitude of products that may be great for some companies, but I found the product didn't feel like it was polished or done well. More of a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
    Freshdesk and Zendesk had a lot of modern features but lacked the ability to host multiple …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Zendesk required more setup time and was more expensive.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Samanage offered the same options, for a much better cost. SolarWinds might be up there with Zendesk now.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    We first used Freshdesk several years ago and moved to Zendesk because the features were not where we needed them to be. Moved from Zendesk to Desk.com because we wanted to integrate with Salesforce and Desk was included in our contract. Desk.com was discontinued and we …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    I like Solarwinds Service Desk because of the ease of use and the response time from the support staff.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Solarwinds Service Desk is a far superior product to my experience with Connectwise. Connectwise, at the time, did not have ITIL inventory management or very good time management built in. You had to purchase add-ons. Furthermore, it was very buggy and crashed repeatedly. …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Currently evaluating LogMeIn Central as a replacement for multiple services including Samanage. Central is a complete remote management tool with inventory capabilities optional. If I only needed inventory tracking I'd stick with Samanage alone.

    We are also using Intune for …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    We used Spiceworks for approximately 9 years before moving to Samanage. While reviewing many systems available, we decided on Solarwinds Service Desk for the following primary reasons:
    • Cloud-hosted and easily accessible from anywhere
    • Workflow customization
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Solarwinds Service Desk is a larger solution than just a ticketing system. I think it stacks up quite well and surpasses some of the other solutions by providing asset inventory capability, change management, vendor management, contract management options. Many other …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Like I stated at the beginning we ended up moving away from Samanage but did really enjoy the asset management portion of the software. We tested the Help Desk portion but it just did not do what we wanted or have the features we were using with Zendesk. Lansweeper is an asset …
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    Samanage was light years ahead of Spiceworks and at a fraction of the cost of many competitors.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    No asset management available for the other products at the time, which is why we went with Samanage.
    Incentivized
    Chose SolarWinds Service Desk
    N/A
    Incentivized
    Zendesk
    Chose Zendesk Suite
    Samanage
    Spiceworks
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    86 Answers
    84%
    Would buy again
    98 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    85 Answers
    82%
    Delivers good value for the price
    84 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    92%
    Happy with the feature set
    86 Answers
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    105 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    93%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    78 Answers
    82%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    63 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    97%
    Implementation went as expected
    84 Answers
    84%
    Implementation went as expected
    76 Answers
    Features
    SolarWinds Service DeskZendesk Suite
    Incident and problem management
    Comparison of Incident and problem management features of SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
    7.0
    97 Ratings
    15% below category average
    Zendesk Suite
    8.8
    154 Ratings
    9% above category average
    Organize and prioritize service tickets8.096 Ratings9.1153 Ratings
    Expert directory6.057 Ratings8.3102 Ratings
    Service restoration6.058 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self-service tools7.086 Ratings00 Ratings
    Subscription-based notifications8.967 Ratings8.6106 Ratings
    ITSM collaboration and documentation6.077 Ratings8.5104 Ratings
    ITSM reports and dashboards7.087 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ticket creation and submission00 Ratings9.3153 Ratings
    Ticket response00 Ratings9.3152 Ratings
    ITSM asset management
    Comparison of ITSM asset management features of SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
    7.3
    82 Ratings
    12% below category average
    Zendesk Suite
    -
    Ratings
    Configuration mangement8.074 Ratings00 Ratings
    Asset management dashboard6.980 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy and contract enforcement7.064 Ratings00 Ratings
    Change management
    Comparison of Change management features of SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
    7.0
    80 Ratings
    18% below category average
    Zendesk Suite
    -
    Ratings
    Change requests repository7.064 Ratings00 Ratings
    Change calendar7.044 Ratings00 Ratings
    Service-level management7.072 Ratings00 Ratings
    Self Help Community
    Comparison of Self Help Community features of SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    8.5
    139 Ratings
    8% above category average
    External knowledge base00 Ratings8.5133 Ratings
    Internal knowledge base00 Ratings8.5127 Ratings
    Multi-Channel Help
    Comparison of Multi-Channel Help features of SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD) and Zendesk Suite
    Feature
    SolarWinds Service Desk (SSD)
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Suite
    9.0
    150 Ratings
    15% above category average
    Customer portal00 Ratings9.2121 Ratings
    IVR00 Ratings8.659 Ratings
    Social integration00 Ratings8.597 Ratings
    Email support00 Ratings9.4147 Ratings
    Help Desk CRM integration00 Ratings9.2112 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    SolarWinds Service DeskZendesk Suite
    Small Businesses
    Agiloft Service Desk (discontinued)
    Score9 out of 10
    Help Scout
    Score7.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
    Score9.2 out of 10
    LiveAgent
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Ivanti Neurons for ITSM
    Score4.5 out of 10
    Front
    Score7.1 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    SolarWinds Service DeskZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (119 ratings)
    9.0
    (192 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    6.5
    (8 ratings)
    10.0
    (43 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (8 ratings)
    8.9
    (65 ratings)
    Availability
    8.7
    (7 ratings)
    8.6
    (13 ratings)
    Performance
    8.9
    (4 ratings)
    8.0
    (10 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.0
    (92 ratings)
    5.5
    (31 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    7.9
    (9 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.9
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (18 ratings)
    Configurability
    7.3
    (1 ratings)
    9.3
    (3 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    4.5
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    8.9
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    8.2
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    7.7
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    SolarWinds Service DeskZendesk Suite
    Likelihood to Recommend
    SolarWinds
    If you are looking for a way to support a company and bill based on the outcome this software works really well. If it's a quick password change there was no charge, but if it's troubleshooting things you click the box to charge. It works really well for this. Also bringing all your assets into this and associating them to a client works well. I can't think of anything that this software would not be less appropriate for. It works well for what we use it for.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Being a customer support agent, I found it very good when it comes to send an email or call or chat- with the user. I can do all that from the one single platform which is so easy and time saving for you. It does not take much time to use this, We can chat- with the user and at the same time we can send an email to them as well.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    SolarWinds
    • Approval flows: You can have multiple layers of approval required for the tickets and service requests you design. This helps us show auditors that access to privileged systems and data was formerly reviewed and approved by the appropriate managers.
    • Easy to design forms: You don't need to spend hours reading the documentation to figure out how to create forms. It's simple enough that you can just jump right in and start creating them with minimal training.
    • Lots of options and features are available for you to include in your forms.
    • Integrates well with SAML-based SSO and has capabilities for MFA.
    • Easy and useful search function. Need to find that ticket from last year that you worked for a particular user or issue? Just search by keyword or username, and it'll quickly find the ticket.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • UI/UX; mature macros and automations, slick and well thought out UI.
    • Reporting, reporting, reporting. With user, org, and ticket level tags, we can track every aspect of our ticket flow.
    • Extensibility; the app marketplace is a great resource for expanding functionality from the baseline offering.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    SolarWinds
    • There is potential to greatly improve the capacity for cascading attributes. Currently, categories are limited to a top-level category and one subcategory. This leaves a fairly shallow decision tree.
    • Greater flexibility to modify the layout of incident request forms.
    • More integration options for cloud file-sharing platforms. Solarwinds Service Desk has tie-ins to Dropbox but not other vendors.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Is there a way for AEs and CSMs to be informed in a weekly summary of all their accounts and any tickets? Example: Disney submitted a ticket on XYZ. Google has an urgent issue on X still unresolved.
    • Is there a way for CSMs or AEs to have a Dashboard that's specific to their accounts instead of seeing all the tickets in the queue that are not relevant to them?
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    SolarWinds
    My renewal is soon coming up, it is fairly likely I will renew again for the 5th year. I may consider evaluating what else is out there, It was requested by my staff to not make a change. They feel that SSD fits our needs, is easy to use and should keep it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk is an amazing tool for communicating with your customers easily. The communication tickets from sellers to us or from us to sellers are stored, and there are statuses used to make communication easy. We have internal conversations between departments, linked with useful software such as Zingtree, Talkdesk, and Webs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    SolarWinds
    Solarwinds Service Desk has a very "user friendly" interface. Everything looks nice and neat. And, learning how to use the system is very easy. It provides multiple services that are easy for most people to grasp, and allows for great organization of incidents and assets. Support for Solarwinds Service Desk has a good response and resolution time and are easy to work with.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Pros: The agent interface is sleek, contemporary, and relatively easy to learn compared to many other enterprise tools. For common tasks, admins are given point-and-click options- adding fields, modifying workflows, constructing macros. The knowledge base (Guide) editor is easy to use for non-developers. Drawbacks: Once you move past the initial things - complex automations, reporting/analytics in Explore, and/or customizations integrating the API, it requires much more advanced training to use successfully. Navigating between the different modules (Support, Explore, Chat, Guide) can feel very disconnected; often you are reminded that it really is a "suite" of products brought together -not really one unified platform. If you're using multiple brands managing simultaneous support tickets, or heavily customizing workflows to meet your brand, you may run into a bit of struggle with usability. So: it's a lot more user friendly than the palaces (Salesforce Service Cloud, ServiceNow), but is not used as quickly or with as much streamlined flow as a product made for a small shop. So if you are looking for a great balance, this is a good option if you are a net new organization or an organization on their way to scaling from 15 - 50 employee. Expect some elbow grease from the admin team once learning, adapting, and working efficiently once you move past the basics with your support tickets and initial customizations.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    SolarWinds
    Because the data is stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) there are very rarely any outages. There have been some times when the product has been slow to load, but because the interface is web based it could be anything between my computer and AWS that was causing the issue. But also, because the application is web based it can be access from anywhere which makes it very convenient
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    In the past year, I'd say I have only noticed maybe two hours total of downtime in my own usage. Very minimal.
    Read full review
    Performance
    SolarWinds
    When the system is working, the pages load very quickly. We run reports all the time in the system. The reporting can be extremely complex or very simple. Either way, we have not had any issues with the reports. We do not currently integrate Solarwinds Service Desk with any other software.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    There has been minor performance degradation on a very few days out of the two years I have been using the product.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    SolarWinds
    SolarWinds support department will respond to you quickly from the time of purchase to after-purchase instructions & supporting, and the company is great in customers support. In buying a software, our organization always has a priority for the seller and support and accountability is very important to us, and the manufacturer or seller must be responsible and supportive.
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    We rarely need to contact their support team, but when we do they are responsive. However there have been notable times when communication between myself and the support rep was challenging despite me providing clear explanation of the issue, screenshots, and a thorough explanation of the goal we hope to achieve. It took several back and forth attempt, on a few occasions, to get resolution on an otherwise simple request
    Read full review
    Online Training
    SolarWinds
    When we first purchased Samanage (now Solarwinds) they provided us with an informational training session to show us all of the basics on how the service works and showed us everything we were interested in using. There are still some areas of Solarwinds that we do not yet utilize but I know if we choose to use them in the future we would be able to schedule another session with our representative to have them show us what we need to know.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk has tons of available material for training - videos, webinars, articles, etc. The only reason this is not a 10 is because it can be hard to figure out how to navigate to these things and find what you are looking for.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    SolarWinds
    The implementation process for our organization was fairly simple. We set up an email address to receive the emails from the system (for incident creation), and we allowed the system to spoof our IT email to respond to requests. Solarwinds helped us with the rest of the implementation, and it took less than a week to get the system fully operational.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    I was very satisfied. They have a free trial for 30 days and I recommend you do that and use it. It is very easy to get started with the basics and the build on over time.

    The only thing technically complex was single sign-on and integration to Salesforce.com required some tweaks – otherwise setting up system was very easy
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    SolarWinds
    We chose SolarWinds Service Desk for its user friendly platform compared to what we had. Its was easier for requestors to submit tickets, provide feedback, merge tickets, build a suitable approval process. Our organization had a hard time going back and forth with the end user on providing a status on their request or issue, where most users just didn't follow through or lost interest in their issue. We would have to send multiple emails to get any type of feedback and that's something we did not want to keep on doing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    The customisable reporting every time. Our leadership reply on me to run my team and want to know what customers are telling us so they can elevate our products. We have extensive custom reports that tie up all aspects of our product and customer journeys. I've not found another product that allows me as much freedom as Zendesk Suite explore does, so far.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    SolarWinds
    We have over 500 computers and tablets across our organization and this has helped us greatly in keeping track of where computers are and who is currently using it. I can see this product being useful to groups both larger and smaller than us and I really appreciate this product.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    WHY we will use Zendesk in HR and PD internally
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    SolarWinds
    • We are more easily able to quantify user satisfaction with support.
    • We are able to develop SLAs that quantify and define the obligation of our support teams.
    • The actual cost of Solarwinds Service Desk per agent user is high in our estimation. The more you implement this platform across your organization, the more tightly tethered you are to this solution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Integrating other AI solutions for an organization with high volumes can cost about USD5000 monthly. With Zendesk AI and by building onto the same with AI powered apps built for Zendesk Suite we save a projected USD4000 monthly.
    • Robust Zendesk APIs have enabled us to integrate our internal system with a customized app saving us hundreds of hours every quarter spent loading customer profiles that are not loaded instantly from the app.
    • Plug and play apps like Round robin save us weeks of sprint delay timelines as they do not require additional coding or developer support to install and start using.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    SolarWinds Service Desk Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot

    Zendesk Suite Screenshots

    Screenshot of the Zendesk Agent WorkspaceScreenshot of Omnichannel MessagingScreenshot of Zendesk TicketingScreenshot of Bots powered by Zendesk AIScreenshot of Tone shift with Zendesk AIScreenshot of Zendesk ticketing side conversations