SolarWinds Service Desk vs Zendesk
Which one do AI engines recommend, and how do they differ on price, fit and features?
The short answer
Zendesk is the stronger AI pick in Help Desk: it has a visibility score of 60.4 versus 0.9 for SolarWinds Service Desk, and ranks ahead in 100% of the answers that name both.
Choose SolarWinds Service Desk if…
- You need ISO 27001 or PCI DSS Level 1 or FISMA Moderate or FedRAMP or HIPAA or SOC 1 or SOC 2 coverage
- robust incident and asset tracking
- ITIL-certified service desk
Choose Zendesk if…
- You want the brand AI engines rank higher (60.4 vs 0.9)
- You need SOC 2 Type II or ISO 27001:2022 or ISO 27018:2019 or ISO 27701:2019 or ISO 27017:2015 or ISO 42001:2023 or FedRAMP LI-SaaS or Cyber Essentials Plus coverage
- You prefer a larger, established vendor (5,000+ employees)
- Industry leader in omnichannel customer support
AI visibility side by side
Latest weekly run · Nov 3
| Metric | SolarWinds Service Desk | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility score | 0.9% | 60.4% |
| Change vs last week | New | up+5.7% |
| Rank in Help Desk | #29 | #2 |
| Share of voice | 0.6% | 11.6% |
| Mentions this run | 3 | 58 |
| Positive in AI answers | — | 34% |
The stronger value in each row is marked with a ✓.
Visibility score trend
Weekly runs over the last 60 days
SolarWinds Service Desk +0.9pp · Zendesk +5.699999999999996pp over 1 weekly runs.
Engine by engine
Zendesk leads on 3 of 3 engines
Head to head in AI answers
3 engine answers name both brands
| Prompt | Engine | SolarWinds Service Desk | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official website of the top help desk platform vendors | ChatGPT | #16 | #1 |
| Official website of the top help desk platform vendors | AI Mode | #12 | #1 |
| Official website of the top help desk platform vendors | Perplexity | #11 | #1 |
Features, pricing & fit
| Dimension | SolarWinds Service Desk | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | — | Per seat |
| Entry price | — | $19 per seat / mo |
| Free plan | — | No |
| Deployment | Cloud-based, with servers hosted on AWS in the USA, the EU and Australia. | Cloud (SaaS) |
| Integrations | — | 1800+ |
| Compliance | ISO 27001, PCI DSS Level 1, FISMA Moderate, FedRAMP, HIPAA, SOC 1, SOC 2 | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022, ISO 27018:2019, ISO 27701:2019, ISO 27017:2015, ISO 42001:2023, FedRAMP LI-SaaS, Cyber Essentials Plus |
| Support | — | Help Center, Community, Partners |
| Founded | — | 2007 |
| Headquarters | Austin, Texas (parent SolarWinds) | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Employees | 1,001–5,000 | 5,000+ |
| Funding | $30M Series D led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital | Take-private (Hellman & Friedman, Permira) |
| Best for | Small teams seeking lightweight, good-value ITSM | Support teams from startups to enterprises that need omnichannel ticketing with AI automation |
Plans side by side
SolarWinds Service Desk
Pricing not available.
Zendesk
Pros and cons
Themes from the AI answers that mention each brand
SolarWinds Service Desk
- robust incident and asset tracking
- ITIL-certified service desk
Zendesk
- Industry leader in omnichannel customer support
- Scalable platform for large enterprise teams
- Mature ticketing operations and SLA management
- Extensive marketplace and broad integrations
- Free trial available for 14 days
- Heavy, slow deployment compared with lighter tools
- High per-agent costs
- AI add-ons billed separately on top of base fee
Data collected ·ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode·coverage 98.8%·next run
Cite as: SlateIndex, “SolarWinds Service Desk vs Zendesk”, https://slateindex.ai/compare/solarwinds-service-desk-vs-zendesk, data of Nov 3, 2026. Licence: CC BY 4.0.