Groove vs LiveAgent vs Jitbit

Groove

Groove is an email-first support tool with a limited channel footprint. Beyond email, there's a basic live chat widget, and that's largely where the channel story ends. There's no native social media support, no phone/call center integration, no community forums, and no on-premise option. The integration catalog has around 20 popular apps, which covers the basics but doesn't give you much room to build a custom stack. Automation is minimal — enough to handle simple routing or tagging, but not enough to build complex workflows.

For small customer support teams where "support" means "email," that's fine. The tool is clean, fast to set up, and doesn't get in the way. The pricing is around $5,220 per year for 5 agents, which is modest for what you get. But if your support operation involves multiple channels — phone, chat, social — or if you need features like community forums, real-time ITIL compliance, or an on-premise deployment option, Groove doesn't have those things. The feature count sits around 9, compared to LiveAgent's 26. That's a gap that becomes visible quickly once your support needs expand beyond basic email handling.

LiveAgent

LiveAgent started as a live chat product and built a full ticketing platform around that core — which means the chat capabilities are unusually mature for a tool at this price point. Real-time visitor monitoring, chat routing, proactive invitations, and a well-designed agent chat interface are all present and actually work well. But it's not just chat: LiveAgent covers email, phone, social media, and community forums in a single product, without requiring you to subscribe to separate sub-products for each channel. The feature count sits around 26.

On the ITSM side, LiveAgent has ITIL compliance built in — something Groove doesn't touch at all. It also offers an on-premise version for teams with data residency or self-hosting requirements, which is increasingly rare in this market. Community forums are included, and internationalization support allows custom language additions if you're operating in multiple markets.

Pricing runs around $5,220 per year for 5 agents on a comparable plan — essentially the same as Groove. That makes the feature gap all the more striking: at the same price, LiveAgent offers significantly more breadth. The trade-off is that LiveAgent's UI can feel somewhat dated compared to Groove's cleaner design, and the setup is more involved. But for any team that needs real multichannel support rather than just a better email inbox, LiveAgent is the more capable platform at this price point.

Detailed feature comparison

	Groove	LiveAgent	Jitbit
	A simple app to replace your shared mailbox	Powerful support suite with ticketing and chat	Help Desk Software built for email. Trusted by thousands of companies across 50+ countries.
Pricing: 3 years / 5 agents	$5220	$5220	$3897
Pricing: 3 years / 10 agents	$10440	$10440	$8367
Active Directory	❌	✅ AD catalog integration, but no Windows-integrated authentication	✅ Integration via a script for your server or ADFS and SAML
Activity Dashboard	❌	✅ There's a dashboard report, but it's not live-updated	✅ Live overview dashboard
Asset Management	❌	❌	✅ A complete asset management module tightly integrated into the rest of the app
Canned Responses	✅ Has standard canned replies features	✅ 'Canned answers' are available on the $15/mo/user plan	✅ You can also assign canned responses to specific ticket categories if you need to
Community Forums	❌	✅ Customer forum is included with all plans	✅ Ideas Forum comes out of the box
Custom Fields	❌	✅ Multiple custom field types available	✅ Many custom field types, including dependant fields. Various privacy options.
Custom Statuses	❌	✅ Custom statuses are available, but no permission control	✅ Add custom statuses, customize how your customers see them and assign different colors to them
Customer satisfaction survey	❌	✅ For chats only	✅ Optional CSATs in email notifications and a report
Design Customization	✅ Can only customize the web widget	✅ You can customize customer portal and knowledge base but not the ticketing system	✅ Unlimited customization options. Change colors with a live preview, add custom CSS and JS
Email Notification Templates	❌	✅ Editing email templates available on paid plans only	✅ You are able to completely change a template for any notification type
Escalation	❌	✅ Escalating manually or via routing rules	✅ Possible to set up various escalation scenarios via automation
Exchange Integration	❌	✅ IMAP only	✅ Native EWS support instead of IMAP. oAuth support for Office 365
Import and Export	✅ Only via API	✅ Tickets CSV export, users CSV import	✅ Import and Export tickets via CSV files
Internationalization	❌	✅ Yes, with the ability to add custom languages	✅ Available in 16 different languages
ITIL Compliance	❌	✅ Yes	✅ Support for most ITIL processes
Knowledge Base	✅ Good Knowledge Base with basic customization	✅ Knowledge Base and customer portal	✅ Customizable Knowledge Base optimized for search engines
Live Chat	✅ Live chat via the widget	✅ Live chat button is included	✅ A free live chat component in the web widget
Mobile Apps	❌	✅ Both iOS and Android	✅ iOS and Android
Multi-channel support	❌	✅ Email, chat, social networks	✅ Possible to add unlimited channels via integrations and API
On-premise Version	❌	✅ Downloadable license available	✅ A full on-premises version that runs on Windows Server
Reports and Analytics	✅ Some basic reports on tickets and KB	✅ Multiple reports and analytics included	✅ 13 reports with an ability to build your own and to export everything to Excel
REST API	✅ You are able to access most features via API	✅ API covers all the app features	✅ API covers all the app features
Single-Sign-On	❌	✅ Custom-built PHP solution	✅ SAML, Google login, Windows-integrated etc.
SLA Management	❌	✅ Full SLA management	✅ Full SLA automation via actions/triggers
Support Widget	✅ Web widget with live chat	✅ Chat widget for websites	✅ Two different versions of a web widget
Third-party Integrations	✅ Around 20 integrations with the most popular apps	✅ API and Integrations on $15/mo/user plan and higher	✅ 30 native integrations and 500 more via Zapier
Ticket Collaboration	❌	✅ Reply-history, CC	✅ See when other techs are viewing tickets in real-time, assign multiple people to a ticket
Workflow Automation	❌	❌	✅ Automation Rules are very powerful and can go beyond simple if-this-then-that logic

Looking for help desk software? Check out Jitbit. We offer a fully-featured app at a very affordable price. It comes with all the must have features like knowledge base, two-way email integration (including native Exchange and Office 365 support), automation, hundreds of integrations with third-party apps and much more. Available both as a hosted "SaaS" version and an on-premises version you can install on your own server.