Helpscout vs Zoho Desk vs Jitbit

Helpscout

You know how it goes when you’re juggling a dozen tickets and a dozen different apps: you want something that cleanly pulls it all together without making you jump through hoops. Helpscout sits in that space as a help desk tool that focuses on the day-to-day flow—tickets, conversations, and a straightforward way to see what’s actually moving. It isn’t about hype; it’s about making the queue feel a little more manageable, with a workspace that stays out of your way when you’re trying to triage or follow up.

What helps a lot is the way it surfaces Reports and Analytics. You can pull quick views of ticket volume, response times, and agent activity, which helps you spot bottlenecks without wrestling with heavy dashboards. Third-party Integrations matter too, so you can connect common tools you already use rather than switching contexts. The Active Directory option makes user management feel a bit less clunky, and Custom Fields let you tailor ticket data to fit your team’s actual needs. It’s not flashy, but it’s the kind of setup that feels like it’s built for real, everyday support work.

Zoho Desk

You know that moment when you finally track down a problem’s history in a single place? Zoho Desk feels a lot like that, just with a smoother pathway to the answers you actually need. It’s built around the idea of staying in the loop — tickets flow in, updates roll through, and you can keep tabs on what’s been touched and by whom via the Activity Dashboard. It’s not just about new requests; it’s about seeing the context, the notes, and the handoffs that happen as issues get resolved.

Where it shines is in how you hook things up without burning cycles. Import and Export options make moving data in or out painless, so you’re not stuck juggling spreadsheets. Third-party Integrations plug into the tools you already use, from chat apps to project boards, so you’re not reinventing the wheel every time a ticket comes through. And with Workflow Automation, repetitive steps quietly handle themselves, freeing you to focus on the subtleties of customer conversations. It’s approachable, pragmatic, and the kind of thing that fits into real-world support rhythms without asking you to rethink your whole process.

	Helpscout	Zoho Desk	Jitbit
	A simple help desk focused on email.	Good helpdesk app that tightly integrates with Zoho ecosystem	Help Desk Software built for email. Trusted by thousands of companies across 50 + countries.
Pricing: 3 years / 5 agents	$6300	$1200	$3897
Pricing: 3 years / 10 agents	$12600	$2400	$8367
Active Directory	✅ Only Azure AD is supported	❌	✅ Integration via a script for your server or ADFS and SAML
Activity Dashboard	❌	✅ Displays some performance metrics. Not customizable.	✅ Live overview dashboard
Asset Management	❌	❌	✅ A complete asset management module tightly integrated into the rest of the app
Canned Responses	✅ They are called Saved Replies. You can insert them in ticket replies	✅ It is called Macros and works the same way as canned responses.	✅ You can also assign canned responses to specific ticket categories if you need to
Community Forums	❌	❌	✅ Ideas Forum comes out of the box
Custom Fields	✅ Up to ten custom fields per mailbox	❌	✅ Many custom field types, including dependant fields. Various privacy options.
Custom Statuses	❌	❌	✅ Add custom statuses, customize how your customers see them and assign different colors to them
Customer satisfaction survey	✅ Comes with CSATs and a Happiness report	❌	✅ Optional CSATs in email notifications and a report
Design Customization	✅ Customize Knowledge Base with externally hosted CSS files	✅ Allows you to use custom colors and logos	✅ Unlimited customization options. Change colors with a live preview, add custom CSS and JS
Email Notification Templates	❌	✅ YYou can customize the email content of each event	✅ You are able to completely change a template for any notification type
Escalation	❌	✅ Includes an ability to create automated SLAs and escalation	✅ 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	✅ Can be done via API	✅ Only export to CSV files	✅ Import and Export tickets via CSV files
Internationalization	✅ You can manually translate some parts of the app	❌	✅ Available in 16 different languages
ITIL Compliance	❌	✅ Comes with ITIL workflows	✅ Support for most ITIL processes
Knowledge Base	✅ It's called Docs and it is highly customizable	✅ Multi-brand customizable knowledge base	✅ Customizable Knowledge Base optimized for search engines
Live Chat	❌	❌	✅ A free live chat component in the web widget
Mobile Apps	✅ iOS and Android	✅ Offers apps for iOS and Android	✅ iOS and Android
Multi-channel support	❌	✅ Includes email, social media, live chat, etc.	✅ 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	✅ Most must-have reports are included	✅ Allows creation of custom reports	✅ 13 reports with an ability to build your own and to export everything to Excel
REST API	✅ Sparate APIs for KB and tickets	✅ Fully featured API on all plans	✅ API covers all the app features
Single-Sign-On	✅ Separate add-on for $5 per user per month	✅ Most standard SSO options are available	✅ SAML, Google login, Windows-integrated etc.
SLA Management	❌	✅ Supports SAML	✅ Full SLA automation via actions/triggers
Support Widget	❌	❌	✅ Two different versions of a web widget
Third-party Integrations	✅ 80+ apps	✅ Many integrations, especially with the other Zoho apps	✅ 30 native integrations and 500 more via Zapier
Ticket Collaboration	❌	✅ Light agents, side conversations and CCs and followers	✅ See when other techs are viewing tickets in real-time, assign multiple people to a ticket
Workflow Automation	✅ Very basic automation features are available	✅ A lot of automation options with a great editor	✅ 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.