Who each engine recommends
Position of every brand named in the latest run.
| Brand | ChatGPT | Perplexity | AI Mode | Mention rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZohoTop pick | #1 | #1 | #2 | |
| Help Scout | #2 | #2 | #7 | |
| Jira Service Management | #4 | #3 | #4 | |
| Freshworks | — | #10 | #1 | |
| HubSpot | #3 | — | #3 | |
| Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk | — | #4 | #5 | |
| ProProfs Help Desk | — | #5 | — | |
| FreeScout | — | — | #6 | |
| HelpDesk | — | #6 | — | |
| Tidio | — | #7 | — | |
| Hiver | — | #8 | — | |
| HelpSpot | — | #9 | — |
Mention rate over time
Share of engines naming each brand, weekly over the last 60 days (up to 8 brands).
Zoho is named by 100% of engines today.
Responses
What each engine answered, and how the shortlist moved.
Yes! There are several free help desk platforms for small teams in 2026. Some offer permanent free plans with ticket management, shared inboxes, customer support portals, and automation. Here are the ones I'd recommend looking at first. Best free help desk platforms Zoho Desk (Best overall for ticketing) Free for up to 3 agents. Email ticket management. Customer support portal. Good for small businesses. Best if you want a traditional help desk without paying. Zoho Desk website --- Help Scout…
- Zoho — For a small customer service team: Zoho Desk.
- Help Scout — For a team sharing customer emails: Help Scout.
- HubSpot
- Jira Service Management — For internal employee IT requests: Jira Service Management.
Dropped from this engine’s shortlist this week: osTicket
Yes. Good free options for small teams include:
- Zoho — Zoho Desk — free for up to 3 agents, with email ticketing, a knowledge base, and basic SLA support.
- Help Scout — Help Scout — free for up to 5 users, with one shared inbox and one Docs knowledge-base site; limited to 100 customer contacts per month.
- Jira Service Management — Jira Service Management — free for up to 3 agents, with ticketing, SLAs, on-call schedules, and escalation policies; particularly suited to internal IT support.
- Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk — Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk — free and ad-supported, with unlimited tickets; best for internal IT teams.
- ProProfs Help Desk — ProProfs Help Desk — free for one user with unlimited tickets, suitable for a solo support operator. New this week
Dropped from this engine’s shortlist this week: Freshworks
Yes, several reliable help desk platforms offer forever-free tiers or plans specifically structured for small teams . The best choice depends on whether you are doing customer support or internal IT/operations. Top Free Help Desk Platforms Freshdesk (Freshworks) Free Tier Limits: Free forever for up to 10 agents. Best For: Small customer support teams needing a classic, feature-rich ticketing system. Key Features: Email and social ticketing, basic automation rules, ticket dispatch, and a…
- Freshworks
- Zoho
- HubSpot
- Jira Service Management
- Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk — Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk.
- FreeScout New this week
- Help Scout — Best For: Teams that want complete data ownership and a clean, Help Scout-style interface. ↓ 1 vs last week
Citations
Sources the engines cited for this prompt.
| Source | Type | Citations | Cited by |
|---|---|---|---|
| helpdesk.com | Brand site · HelpDesk | 2 | Perplexity |
| helpscout.com | Brand site · Help Scout | 2 | ChatGPT, Perplexity |
| atlassian.com | Brand site · Jira Service Management | 1 | ChatGPT |
| dragapp.com | Web | 1 | Perplexity |
| dupple.com | Web | 1 | ChatGPT |
| freshworks.com | Brand site · Freshworks | 1 | Perplexity |
| getmacha.com | Web | 1 | ChatGPT |
| helpspot.com | Brand site · HelpSpot | 1 | Perplexity |
| hiverhq.com | Brand site · Hiver | 1 | Perplexity |
| hubspot.com | Brand site · HubSpot | 1 | ChatGPT |
| rankite.com | Web | 1 | ChatGPT |
| reddit.com | Forum | 1 | Google AI Mode |
| rework.com | Web | 1 | Perplexity |
| tawk.to | Web | 1 | ChatGPT |
| tidio.com | Brand site · Tidio | 1 | Perplexity |
| toolradar.com | Web | 1 | Perplexity |
| zoho.com | Brand site · Zoho | 1 | ChatGPT |