HappyFox vs Kayako vs Jitbit

HappyFox

HappyFox is a conventional, well-rounded help desk with one feature Kayako doesn't have: built-in IT asset management. Hardware and software assets live next to tickets, so an IT team can see which laptop a request is about without a separate tool. Smart Rules handle automation, canned actions can update dozens of tickets at once, and SLA escalation paths are configurable in detail. At about $5,400 over 3 years for 5 agents it also costs well under half of what Kayako does.

The catches are in the tiers: CSAT surveys and collision detection need the Enterprise plan, and live chat is a separate product. Still, for internal IT support or mixed IT and customer service teams, HappyFox is the more practical fit.

Kayako

Kayako is aimed at customer-facing support rather than IT. Its strengths are Kayako Messenger (live chat and help center search in one widget, included in the plan), a unified timeline of every conversation a customer has had with you, and Kay, an AI agent that resolves tickets on its own for $1 per resolution. CSAT ratings and collision detection are part of the single Kayako One plan, so there is no tier to upgrade to.

What you give up compared to HappyFox: asset management, SAML-based SSO (Kayako supports JWT only), and transparent pricing. Kayako One is quote-only; at the reported $79 per agent per month a 5-agent team pays around $14,200 over 3 years, plus AI usage. If you're a B2C support team that wants chat and AI built in, Kayako makes sense. If you support employees and their equipment, HappyFox is the better choice.

Detailed feature comparison

	HappyFox	Kayako	Jitbit
	Popular cloud based support app	Veteran help desk rebuilt around an AI agent	Help Desk Software built for email. Trusted by thousands of companies across 50+ countries.
Pricing: 3 years / 5 agents	$5400	$14220	$3897
Pricing: 3 years / 10 agents	$10800	$28440	$8367
Active Directory	✅ Only via ADFS/SAML	❌	✅ Integration via a script for your server or ADFS and SAML
Activity Dashboard	✅ Realtime dashboards	✅ Real-time dashboards for team workload and SLA status	✅ Live overview dashboard
Asset Management	✅ Yes, software and hardware assets	❌	✅ A complete asset management module tightly integrated into the rest of the app
Canned Responses	✅ Canned actions for frequent replies	✅ Macros that insert replies and update ticket properties	✅ You can also assign canned responses to specific ticket categories if you need to
Community Forums	✅ Forum included with higher plans	❌	✅ Ideas Forum comes out of the box
Custom Fields	✅ Custom ticket text-fields for managing additional data	✅ Custom fields for conversations, users and organizations	✅ Many custom field types, including dependant fields. Various privacy options.
Custom Statuses	✅ Additional ticket statuses	❌	✅ Add custom statuses, customize how your customers see them and assign different colors to them
Customer satisfaction survey	✅ Rating survey only on 'Enterprise' plan and higher	✅ Built-in satisfaction ratings after conversations are completed	✅ Optional CSATs in email notifications and a report
Design Customization	✅ Customizable customer-facing support portal only	✅ Help center and Messenger branding; the agent interface is not customizable	✅ Unlimited customization options. Change colors with a live preview, add custom CSS and JS
Email Notification Templates	✅ Customizable templates on all plans	✅ Customizable email templates	✅ You are able to completely change a template for any notification type
Escalation	✅ Yes, manual and automatic	✅ Escalation via SLA breach triggers and monitors	✅ Possible to set up various escalation scenarios via automation
Exchange Integration	❌	❌	✅ Native EWS support instead of IMAP. oAuth support for Office 365
Import and Export	✅ Export tickets only, import users only	✅ Migration from other help desks via the API or Kayako's onboarding team; no self-service CSV export	✅ Import and Export tickets via CSV files
Internationalization	✅ Multilingual	✅ Multilingual help center and localized customer-facing content	✅ Available in 16 different languages
ITIL Compliance	❌	❌	✅ Support for most ITIL processes
Knowledge Base	✅ Full self-service portal with FAQ	✅ Public and private help centers	✅ Customizable Knowledge Base optimized for search engines
Live Chat	✅ Separate sub-product	✅ Included in Kayako Messenger	✅ A free live chat component in the web widget
Mobile Apps	✅ iOS and Android	❌	✅ iOS and Android
Multi-channel support	✅ Email, chat, social media + API	✅ Email, live chat, Facebook and X (Twitter) in one shared inbox	✅ Possible to add unlimited channels via integrations and API
On-premise Version	❌	❌	✅ A full on-premises version that runs on Windows Server
Reports and Analytics	✅ Yes, reports and exports	✅ Pre-built and custom reports; some users find custom reports hard to build	✅ 13 reports with an ability to build your own and to export everything to Excel
REST API	✅ Present	✅ REST API covering conversations, users and organizations	✅ API covers all the app features
Single-Sign-On	✅ SAML	✅ JWT-based SSO only. No SAML or Active Directory support in the current version	✅ SAML, Google login, Windows-integrated etc.
SLA Management	✅ SLA groups and evaluation	✅ SLA policies with targets per priority and automated breach triggers	✅ Full SLA automation via actions/triggers
Support Widget	✅ Ticket creation forms for websites	✅ Kayako Messenger widget with chat and help center search	✅ Two different versions of a web widget
Third-party Integrations	✅ Impressive catalog of apps supported	✅ Salesforce, Shopify, Slack, Stripe and others; no large app marketplace	✅ 30 native integrations and 500 more via Zapier
Ticket Collaboration	✅ Real-time agent collision detection (on 'Enterprise' plan and higher)	✅ Private notes, @mentions and collision detection	✅ See when other techs are viewing tickets in real-time, assign multiple people to a ticket
Workflow Automation	✅ Smart rules for workflow automation	✅ Triggers, monitors and macros, plus AI actions via the Kay agent	✅ 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.