The 5 best Knots.io alternatives for Zendesk automation in 2025

Let’s be honest, Knots.io has a pretty useful set of apps for handling small, predictable tasks in Zendesk. It’s a solid starting point. But then your team grows, customers expect faster answers, and you start seeing the cracks. Manual triage, answering the same questions over and over, and clunky workflows are still eating up your agents’ time, even with a few automations in place. You get that feeling that you need something smarter than simple, rule-based tools.

If this all sounds a bit too familiar, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll walk through the best Knots.io alternatives we found, from simple tools that patch a single gap to full-on AI platforms ready to handle your frontline support.

What is Knots.io and why look for Knots.io alternatives?

So what exactly is Knots.io? It’s a bundle of individual apps that live right inside Zendesk, each built to automate one specific thing. Need to pull text from a PDF attachment? There’s an app for that. Need to grab an order number from an email and pop it into a ticket field? There’s an app for that, too.

Its biggest plus is that it’s built right into Zendesk, so the apps feel like they belong there and solve very particular problems.

But that’s also its biggest weakness. We found ourselves looking for Knots.io alternatives for a few key reasons:

• It’s a collection of tools, not one smart system. Knots.io gives you a bunch of separate apps, not a single AI that learns from your support history. You can’t train it on past tickets to figure out context and solve issues by itself. It’s a toolkit, not an AI agent.

• It only follows simple "if this, then that" rules. The apps work well for basic triggers. But they can’t handle the messiness of a real customer conversation. They don’t get intent, sarcasm, or urgency, and they definitely can’t write a human-sounding reply based on the full story.

• It gets complicated and pricey, fast. To build out a decent automation setup, you have to duct-tape a bunch of different apps together. This can get messy to manage, and the costs add up as you add more apps and more agents. You’re left with a patchwork fix instead of a streamlined system.

How we chose the best Knots.io alternatives

We dug through a ton of tools to find real upgrades, not just more of the same. Here’s the simple checklist we used to sort the good from the "not-for-us":

• Can we set it up ourselves? We looked for tools you could actually get running without sitting through a mandatory sales demo. One-click integrations and self-serve onboarding were a must.

• Is it actually smart? Does the tool do more than follow basic rules? The best options use AI to understand what customers want, learn from your data, and write accurate replies that make sense.

• Can we control what it automates? You need to be in the driver’s seat. We wanted tools that let you decide exactly which tickets the AI touches and what it does with them.

• Does it play well with our other tools? A great tool plugs into Zendesk, obviously, but it also needs to connect to where your other knowledge lives, like Confluence, Google Docs, or Shopify.

• Is the pricing straightforward? We focused on tools with clear pricing that doesn’t shoot up unexpectedly just because you’re successfully resolving more tickets.

Quick comparison: Top Knots.io alternatives at a glance

If you’re short on time, here’s the quick and dirty breakdown of our top picks.

Feature	eesel AI	Zapier	SweetHawk	Myndbend	Linkets
Primary Use Case	AI-powered support automation	Cross-app workflow integration	Task-specific Zendesk apps	Advanced approval workflows	Ticket relationship mapping
Learns from Past Tickets?	Yes	No	No	No	No
Self-Serve Setup?	Yes, in minutes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
AI Copilot for Agents?	Yes	No	No	No	No
Simulation Mode?	Yes	No	No	No	No
Pricing Model	Per interactions (no per-resolution fee)	Per tasks	Per agent, per app	Per agent	Per agent

The 5 best Knots.io alternatives in 2025

The right tool for you really depends on what you’re trying to fix. This list covers everything from direct competitors that offer similar modular apps to broader platforms that can completely transform your Zendesk setup.

1. eesel AI: The best AI-powered of the Knots.io alternatives

Think of eesel AI as an actual AI teammate that works right inside your helpdesk. It goes miles beyond the simple, rule-based apps from Knots.io. Instead of just handling one tiny step in a process, eesel AI learns from all your past tickets, help articles, and other knowledge sources to solve customer problems from start to finish.

It’s designed for teams who are done with basic automations and want intelligent ticket resolution. eesel AI can handle the whole ticket lifecycle: answering tricky customer questions, triaging and tagging tickets, passing issues to the right person, and even doing custom tasks like looking up order information on the fly.

Pros:

• You can be live in minutes. This is a true self-serve platform. Connect your helpdesk, let the AI train on your knowledge, and launch an agent without ever needing to talk to a salesperson.

• It connects all your knowledge. It plugs into everything, past tickets, Confluence, Google Docs, Notion, Shopify, and more. This gives the AI a full picture of your business.

• You can test it safely. A powerful simulation mode lets you see how your AI would have handled thousands of your past tickets. You get to see its resolution rate and your potential ROI before you turn it on for live customers.

• You’re in complete control. You set the rules for which tickets the AI handles. You can tweak its personality, tone of voice, and the specific actions it’s allowed to take with a simple prompt editor.

Cons:

• It’s a complete AI platform, which might be more than you need if you’re just trying to solve one tiny problem, like merging duplicate tickets.

Pricing:

Pricing starts at $239/month for the annual plan. The cost is based on AI interactions, not a fee for every ticket it resolves, so your bill stays predictable.

2. Zapier: Best of the Knots.io alternatives for cross-app integrations

Zapier is the master connector for web apps. It lets you build little automated workflows (called "Zaps") that trigger actions between Zendesk and thousands of other tools. For instance, you could set up a Zap that adds a new row to a Google Sheet for every new ticket or sends a notification to Slack when an urgent ticket comes in.

If your main headache is just getting information from Zendesk into another system (or vice versa), Zapier is a flexible and powerful way to do it. It can replace some of the data-syncing apps from Knots.io, but on a much larger scale.

Pros:

• A massive library of over 5,000 app integrations.

• A simple, visual workflow builder that almost anyone can figure out.

Cons:

• It’s a general tool, not one built specifically for customer support. It has no idea what’s inside a ticket, it can’t understand sentiment or intent.

• It can’t write replies or solve customer issues inside the helpdesk.

• The pricing is based on how many "tasks" you run, which can get expensive if you have a high volume of tickets.

Pricing:

Zapier has a free plan for basic use. Paid plans start at $19.99/month.

3. SweetHawk: Best of the Knots.io alternatives for task-specific Zendesk apps

SweetHawk is another company that, a lot like Knots.io, sells a collection of individual apps for Zendesk. Their apps are made to add specific features that Zendesk is missing, like creating to-do lists on tickets (Tasks), managing approvals, or scheduling meetings directly from a ticket.

If you like the app-by-app approach of Knots.io and just want to fix a specific process inside your helpdesk, SweetHawk is a very similar alternative.

Pros:

• The apps are built to feel like a natural part of the Zendesk interface.

• Each app does one thing and generally does it well.

Cons:

• Like Knots.io, it’s a fragmented approach. You often have to buy and manage several apps to get the workflow you want.

• There’s no AI here. It’s all about helping agents with manual processes, not automating the work itself.

• The per-agent, per-app pricing can get expensive for bigger teams who need several of their tools.

Pricing:

Apps are sold separately, typically between $2 to $5 per agent, per month for each one.

4. Myndbend Process Manager: Best of the Knots.io alternatives for complex approval workflows

Myndbend is a very specialized Zendesk app built to do one thing: manage complicated, multi-step processes that need official sign-offs. It’s perfect for IT change requests, new employee onboarding, or any workflow where different people need to give their approval at different stages. It lets you create parent-child ticket relationships to build out these sequential flows.

For teams using Zendesk for ITSM or handling internal requests, Myndbend offers a level of control that’s way beyond what Knots.io can do.

Pros:

• Great for building structured workflows with multiple approvers.

• It can handle conditional logic for different scenarios.

Cons:

• It’s a niche tool and not really meant for general customer support.

• The setup can get pretty complicated, and there’s no AI to help out.

Pricing:

Starts at $4 per agent, per month.

5. Linkets: Best of the Knots.io alternatives for simple ticket linking

Linkets is a straightforward and popular Zendesk app that simply lets you link related tickets together. This is super helpful for tracking widespread issues, managing bug reports, or just grouping multiple chats from the same person about the same problem.

It’s a great example of a lightweight tool that solves one common headache well, making it a solid replacement for one of Knots.io’s single-purpose apps.

Pros:

• It’s simple, easy to use, and does exactly what it promises.

Cons:

• Its scope is very narrow. It just links tickets, nothing else.

• There are no automation or AI features at all.

Pricing:

Starts at just $1 per agent, per month.

How to choose the right Knots.io alternatives for your team

So, how do you pick the right one? It all comes down to what you’re trying to fix. Here’s a simple breakdown:

• If you just need to connect Zendesk to another app, go with Zapier.

• If you need to fix a specific manual process inside Zendesk, check out a modular suite like SweetHawk.

• If you want to actually reduce agent workload and resolve tickets with AI, you need a real AI platform like eesel AI. It’s the only option on this list that can understand context, learn from your data, and act on its own.

Pro Tip: A little advice: think about where you’ll be in six months, not just the problem you have today. A platform like eesel AI is built to grow with you. You can start small, maybe by just using the AI Copilot to help agents write replies faster. As you get comfortable, you can roll out the fully autonomous AI Agent to handle more of your frontline tickets, all without needing to switch tools.

Supercharge your Zendesk automation with eesel AI: The best of the Knots.io alternatives

Tired of simple rules and fragmented apps? With eesel AI, you get one platform that connects all your knowledge, gives you full control over automation, and lets you test everything risk-free before going live. It’s the natural next step when you outgrow a basic toolkit.

Knots.io alternatives

Look, tools like Knots.io and its direct alternatives are fine for patching small holes and automating simple, predictable tasks. But if you really want to scale your support, you need something that does more than just follow a script. The real shift is happening with tools that can think, learn, and solve problems on their own.

The right choice depends on your team, but if you’re serious about cutting down ticket volume and freeing up your agents, an AI-powered platform is the way to go.

Ready to see how AI can transform your Zendesk workflows? Sign up for eesel AI for free and launch your first AI agent in minutes.