15 best Freshdesk alternatives for 2025 (free & paid options)

So, you’re using Freshdesk, and it’s starting to feel… less than perfect. Maybe the interface has gotten clunky, the features you actually need are locked away in a pricey enterprise plan, or its automation just isn’t keeping up with your team’s needs. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Plenty of businesses hit a wall with their current tools and start looking around. This guide will walk you through 15 of the best Freshdesk alternatives for 2025, covering everything from massive platforms to more specialized tools. But here’s something to chew on as you read: what if the best move isn’t to tear everything out and start from scratch? What if you could just make your current help desk a whole lot smarter?

What is help desk software anyway?

Let’s quickly get on the same page. At its heart, help desk software is a central spot to manage all your customer conversations. It grabs every question coming from email, live chat, the phone, or social media and neatly organizes them into tickets. This system helps your support team track, prioritize, and solve problems without anything falling through the cracks.

Why look for Freshdesk alternatives?

If you’re thinking about moving on from Freshdesk, you probably have some good reasons. After digging through user reviews and feedback, we’ve noticed a few common pain points that pop up over and over.

• The best features have a high price tag. Let’s be honest, Freshdesk’s most powerful AI and automation tools are often gated behind their most expensive plans. For a lot of growing businesses, that’s a dealbreaker.

• A clunky user interface. Your agents spend their entire day inside this tool. When the platform is slow, with frustrating load times and a confusing layout, it’s a direct hit to their productivity and happiness.

• Integrations that don’t quite connect. You need your help desk to work seamlessly with your other tools. Some users find that Freshdesk’s integrations can be unreliable or just don’t offer the deep connection needed for smooth workflows.

• Automation feels a bit basic. The built-in rules can feel too simple for teams that want to do more, like intelligently routing tickets or automating triage to scale support without just hiring more people.

• Support for the support tool is lacking. It’s a classic irony: a customer support company whose own support can be slow or unhelpful. When you run into a problem, you need answers fast, and some users feel left hanging.

Our criteria for picking the best Freshdesk alternatives

We didn’t just throw a bunch of names on a list. To find the best Freshdesk alternatives, we focused on what really matters to modern support teams:

• The right features: Does it have solid ticketing, plus advanced AI and automation that actually helps?

• Easy to use: Is the interface intuitive? Can your agents get going without needing weeks of training?

• Plays well with others: How well does it connect to your CRM, e-commerce platform, or internal chat?

• Scalability and price: Does it offer good value for your money, with plans that can grow alongside your business?

A quick comparison of the top 15 Freshdesk alternatives

Here’s a bird’s-eye view of our top picks. This table should give you a quick way to scan and compare before we get into the nitty-gritty of each platform.

Tool	Best For	Starting Price (per agent/mo)	Free Plan/Trial	Key AI Feature
eesel AI	Enhancing any help desk with AI without migrating	$239/mo (up to 3 bots, 1k interactions)	14-day Trial	AI Agents that autonomously resolve tickets
Zendesk	Enterprise-level omnichannel support	$19	14-day Trial	AI pre-trained on billions of interactions
Kustomer	A unified 360-degree customer view	$89	No Free Trial	AI-powered sentiment analysis
Zoho Desk	Teams already in the Zoho ecosystem	$7	Free Plan & 15-day Trial	"Zia" AI assistant for ticket classification
HubSpot Service Hub	Inbound marketing & sales alignment	$15	Free Plan & No Trial	Conversation intelligence & email scheduling
Help Scout	Simple, human-centric support	$22	15-day Trial	AI-powered summaries and custom reports
Intercom	Proactive, conversational engagement	$29	14-day Trial	"Fin AI" chatbot for automated answers
Jira Service Management	IT service management (ITSM) & dev teams	$20	Free Plan & Trial	Advanced incident & problem management
Front	Collaborative team inboxes	$19	7-day Trial	Automated workflow rules
LiveAgent	Live chat and real-time support	$9	Free Plan & 14/30-day Trial	Hybrid ticketing system with gamification
HappyFox	Project management & task-oriented teams	$9	Free Trial	Smart rules for complex automation
Gorgias	E-commerce stores (Shopify, BigCommerce)	$60/mo (includes 50 tickets)	No Free Trial	Deep e-commerce platform integrations
Kayako	Unified customer journey tracking	$39	Free Trial	Continuous conversation threads
TeamSupport	B2B customer support	$39	No Free Trial	Customer Distress Index (CDI)
Spiceworks	IT teams with limited budgets	Free	N/A	IT asset management & network monitoring

The 15 best Freshdesk alternatives in 2025

1. eesel AI: a smart choice among Freshdesk alternatives

Before you start mapping out a massive data migration, hold on. What if you didn’t have to switch your help desk at all? eesel AI offers a different path ,one that avoids the whole rip-and-replace headache. It’s a powerful AI layer that plugs right into your existing tools (like Freshdesk, Zendesk, etc.) to fix the very issues making you look for an alternative: weak automation, agent burnout, and disconnected knowledge.

Here’s how it works: eesel AI puts an autonomous AI Agent inside your help desk. This agent learns from your past tickets, macros, and knowledge sources to resolve up to 70% of common tickets all by itself. For questions that still need a human, the AI Copilot drafts accurate, on-brand replies for your agents, which helps them work through queues much faster.

The setup is surprisingly simple. You can connect it to your help desk, chat tools like Slack or Microsoft Teams, and knowledge bases like Confluence and Google Docs in just a few clicks. You don’t have to just hope it works, either. You can run simulations on your old tickets in a safe sandbox to see exactly how the AI will perform and calculate your ROI before you ever go live. It gives you full control to tweak its tone, define when to escalate to a human, and even set up custom actions using plain English.

Pros:

• You get to skip the cost, risk, and general nightmare of a full help desk migration.

• It trains on your company’s actual, private data, so the answers are accurate and specific to you.

• It connects to your whole tech stack, not just one siloed tool.

• The pricing is transparent and based on interactions, so it grows with you.

Cons:

• It’s an AI platform, not a standalone help desk. It needs an existing system like Freshdesk or Zendesk to do its thing.

Pricing: Plans start at $239/month (billed annually) for the Team plan, which covers up to 3 bots and 1,000 AI interactions.

2. Zendesk: A popular enterprise Freshdesk alternative

As one of the biggest names in the game, Zendesk is a common Freshdesk alternative. It’s known for being a powerful, scalable platform built for enterprise-level customer service. Its native AI is impressive because it’s trained on a huge dataset, but that can also be a downside ,it’s a bit of a "black box" and might not get the specific details of your business right.

Pros: Pulls all your channels into one workspace, offers powerful reporting, and has a massive marketplace with over 1,500 apps.

Cons: Can be complicated and expensive, especially for smaller teams. Getting it set up takes more work than simpler tools.

Pricing: Starts at $19 per agent/month (billed annually).

3. Kustomer: A Freshdesk alternative with a 360-degree customer view

Kustomer is built around the idea of a complete, 360-degree view of the customer, not just isolated tickets. It organizes every interaction into a single, ongoing timeline, which is fantastic for delivering personalized service.

Pros: Great for personalization, offers a true omnichannel experience, and keeps conversations in context.

Cons: The starting price of $89 per user/month is steep for many small businesses, and there’s no free trial to test it out.

Pricing: Starts at $89 per user/month (billed annually).

4. Zoho Desk: A great Freshdesk alternative for Zoho users

If your company is already using other Zoho products, Zoho Desk is a really strong contender. It offers context-aware support with its AI assistant, "Zia," which helps with things like ticket classification and routing.

Pros: Integrates seamlessly with Zoho CRM and other Zoho apps, has affordable pricing, and offers a generous free plan.

Cons: The interface can be a bit much for newcomers, and getting it to work well with non-Zoho tools can be tricky.

Pricing: Starts at $7 per user/month (billed annually). A free plan is available.

5. HubSpot Service Hub: A top Freshdesk alternative for inbound teams

Part of the bigger HubSpot world, HubSpot Service Hub is designed for teams that want to keep their customer service, marketing, and sales efforts tightly connected. It’s great for seeing the entire customer journey, from first click to happy customer.

Pros: Deep integration with the free HubSpot CRM and a solid set of free tools to get you started.

Cons: Many of the must-have features are locked behind pricey plans, and the reporting on the basic tier is pretty thin.

Pricing: Paid plans start at $15 per seat/month (billed annually). A free plan is available.

6. Help Scout: A human-centric Freshdesk alternative

Help Scout is a clean, user-friendly platform for teams who prioritize a personal, human touch. It does away with a lot of the complexity of other help desks and feels more like a shared inbox.

Pros: Simple, intuitive interface that’s easy to learn. Great for team collaboration.

Cons: Its reporting tools and knowledge base customization are less powerful than many other Freshdesk alternatives.

Pricing: Starts at $22 per user/month (billed annually).

7. Intercom: A proactive Freshdesk alternative for engagement

Intercom is all about proactive engagement. It’s built around a powerful live chat messenger and its AI chatbot, "Fin," which is designed to automate answers and help generate leads.

Pros: Fantastic for proactive chat and lead gen, a highly customizable messenger, and a strong AI bot.

Cons: The price can climb very quickly. Its complex pricing model can be a major hurdle for teams as they grow.

Pricing: Starts at $29 per seat/month.

8. Jira Service Management: The go-to Freshdesk alternative for IT teams

Jira Service Management is the go-to Freshdesk alternative for IT, DevOps, and technical support teams. Built on the powerful Jira platform, it brings ITIL-certified processes right into your support workflow.

Pros: Perfect for managing incidents, problems, and changes. It integrates deeply with Jira Software and the rest of the Atlassian tools.

Cons: It’s often too complicated and rigid for customer-facing teams. It requires a lot of setup and customization to get right.

Pricing: Starts at $20 per agent/month. A free plan is available for up to 3 agents.

9. Front: A collaborative inbox Freshdesk alternative

Front turns your team’s inbox into a collaborative command center. It brings email, SMS, chat, and social media into one place so your team can work together on replies without stepping on each other’s toes.

Pros: Amazing for internal collaboration on external messages, a clean UI, and solid workflow automation.

Cons: Contract terms can be rigid, and it feels less like a traditional help desk and more like a shared inbox on steroids.

Pricing: Starts at $19 per seat/month (billed annually).

10. LiveAgent: An all-in-one Freshdesk alternative

LiveAgent is an all-in-one solution that really shines in real-time support. It’s known for having one of the fastest live chat widgets out there and even includes built-in call center features.

11. HappyFox: A flexible Freshdesk alternative with project management

HappyFox is a flexible help desk that includes strong project management features. This makes it a great pick for teams that handle complex, multi-step issues that require coordination between different departments.

12. Gorgias: The best of the Freshdesk alternatives for e-commerce

Gorgias is a customer service platform made specifically for e-commerce stores. It has incredibly deep integrations with platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento.

Pros: Unmatched e-commerce integration lets agents view and edit orders without leaving the help desk. Great automation for common retail questions.

Cons: Pricing is based on ticket volume, which can get expensive for busy stores. It’s not a great fit for businesses outside of e-commerce.

Pricing: Starts at $60/month, which includes 50 tickets.

13. Kayako: A unified journey Freshdesk alternative

Kayako is a unified platform focused on mapping the entire customer journey into one continuous conversation, no matter how the customer reaches out.

14. TeamSupport: A B2B-focused Freshdesk alternative

TeamSupport is a B2B customer support tool. Its features are built for managing complex client relationships and helping support, success, and product teams work together.

15. Spiceworks: A free Freshdesk alternative for IT

For the team with zero budget, Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk is a completely free, ad-supported tool aimed at IT professionals and internal help desks.

How to choose the right Freshdesk alternatives

Feeling a little overwhelmed by all the choices? That’s totally normal. Before you pick a new tool, take a breath and think about your strategy.

• Pinpoint your real problem. Why are you really switching? Is it the price? A missing feature? The clunky UI? Get specific. Often, the issue isn’t the help desk itself, but the lack of smarts and automation inside it.

• Calculate the real cost of moving. A new subscription fee is just the start. You also have to think about the cost of implementation, the risk of losing data during migration, the time spent retraining your entire team, and the productivity dip while everyone gets used to the new system. It adds up.

• Check integrations first. Make a list of your non-negotiable tools (your CRM, e-commerce platform, your chat app). Any new platform has to integrate with them reliably. Bad integrations just create more manual work.

• Think about the agent experience. Your agents will be living in this tool all day, every day. A slow, confusing interface will crush their morale and productivity. Let them test drive the options and give you their honest feedback.

Pro Tip: Before you commit to the pain of a full migration, think about upgrading your current help desk instead. An AI platform like eesel AI can layer on top of Freshdesk (or any other tool) to fix your automation and efficiency gaps for a fraction of the cost, time, and risk of a complete switch.

Supercharge your support without switching to Freshdesk alternatives

While there are plenty of great Freshdesk alternatives out there, switching your entire help desk is a huge project. It’s expensive, risky, and guaranteed to eat up months of your team’s time and energy.

The truth is, the core problems pushing you to switch ,inefficiency, weak automation, and slow responses ,can often be solved more easily with a dedicated AI layer. Why tear down your house when you can just install a state-of-the-art smart home system?

eesel AI gives you the power of a next-generation, AI-first support platform without forcing you to abandon the tools your team already knows. It enhances what you already have, fixing the gaps and freeing up your team to deliver amazing service.

Ready to fix your support workflows without the migration nightmare? Start your free eesel AI trial today or book a demo to see it in action.