Kayako vs Zendesk vs Jitbit

Kayako

Kayako was one of the original Zendesk alternatives, and the two still share a lot: a shared inbox, a help center, SLA policies, macros, triggers and reporting. Kayako's selling points today are Kayako Messenger, which combines live chat and help center search in one widget at no extra cost, and the unified customer timeline. The headline feature is Kay, an AI agent that resolves tickets and takes actions such as refunds, billed at $1 per resolution.

The catch is that Kayako has become harder to evaluate. The old per-agent plans were replaced by a quote-only "Kayako One" plan; at the reported $79 per agent per month, 5 agents come to about $14,200 over 3 years. SSO is JWT-only, there's no Active Directory support, and the integration list is a fraction of Zendesk's.

Zendesk

Zendesk is the market leader, and it shows in the ecosystem: over a thousand marketplace apps, Explore analytics, Sunshine custom objects, and a hiring pool of agents and admins who already know it. Every channel is covered, the automation engine is deep, and AD authentication works through a server script. On the Professional plan it costs about $8,820 over 3 years for 5 agents, which at the reported prices is less than Kayako One.

Zendesk's downsides are well known: the full knowledge base and advanced AI are paid add-ons, the interface can feel bloated, and per-agent costs rise quickly as the team grows. Still, if you're choosing between the two, Zendesk is the safer long-term bet on ecosystem and roadmap. Kayako only wins if its AI-agent approach is exactly what you want.

Detailed feature comparison

	Kayako	Zendesk	Jitbit
	Veteran help desk rebuilt around an AI agent	The most popular help desk app out there	Help Desk Software built for email. Trusted by thousands of companies across 50+ countries.
Pricing: 3 years / 5 agents	$14220	$8820	$3897
Pricing: 3 years / 10 agents	$28440	$17640	$8367
Active Directory	❌	✅ Active Directory authentication is possible if you install a special script on your server	✅ Integration via a script for your server or ADFS and SAML
Activity Dashboard	✅ Real-time dashboards for team workload and SLA status	✅ You can put data from some reports into your dashboard	✅ Live overview dashboard
Asset Management	❌	❌	✅ A complete asset management module tightly integrated into the rest of the app
Canned Responses	✅ Macros that insert replies and update ticket properties	✅ Macros allow you to respond to tickets with a pre-written message.	✅ 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	✅ Custom fields for conversations, users and organizations	✅ You can add custom fields and use them with other features such as automation, macros, etc.	✅ 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	✅ Built-in satisfaction ratings after conversations are completed	✅ Only on Professional plan or higher	✅ Optional CSATs in email notifications and a report
Design Customization	✅ Help center and Messenger branding; the agent interface is not customizable	✅ You can customize the public-facing pages, but not what your employees see	✅ Unlimited customization options. Change colors with a live preview, add custom CSS and JS
Email Notification Templates	✅ Customizable email templates	✅ You can fully customize most email templates for notifications that your customers get	✅ You are able to completely change a template for any notification type
Escalation	✅ Escalation via SLA breach triggers and monitors	✅ Possible to escalate tickets with workflow automation features	✅ 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	✅ Migration from other help desks via the API or Kayako's onboarding team; no self-service CSV export	✅ Starting with Professional plan you can export your tickets to an XML file. Import only possible via API.	✅ Import and Export tickets via CSV files
Internationalization	✅ Multilingual help center and localized customer-facing content	✅ UI is not translatable. You can provide content, such as Knowledge Base articles in multiple languages on Professional plan	✅ Available in 16 different languages
ITIL Compliance	❌	✅ Claims to be designed with ITIL principles in mind	✅ Support for most ITIL processes
Knowledge Base	✅ Public and private help centers	✅ Basic version comes with Professional plan. Full version is only available as a separate add-on	✅ Customizable Knowledge Base optimized for search engines
Live Chat	✅ Included in Kayako Messenger	❌	✅ A free live chat component in the web widget
Mobile Apps	❌	✅ Offers apps for iOS and Android	✅ iOS and Android
Multi-channel support	✅ Email, live chat, Facebook and X (Twitter) in one shared inbox	✅ A lot of support channels are built-in in the app: email, Twitter, Facebook, 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	✅ Pre-built and custom reports; some users find custom reports hard to build	✅ Reports are only available on Professional plan or higher	✅ 13 reports with an ability to build your own and to export everything to Excel
REST API	✅ REST API covering conversations, users and organizations	✅ Fully featured API on all plans	✅ API covers all the app features
Single-Sign-On	✅ JWT-based SSO only. No SAML or Active Directory support in the current version	✅ Most standard SSO options are available	✅ SAML, Google login, Windows-integrated etc.
SLA Management	✅ SLA policies with targets per priority and automated breach triggers	✅ SLA features are natively supported in the app	✅ Full SLA automation via actions/triggers
Support Widget	✅ Kayako Messenger widget with chat and help center search	✅ Web widget and Mobile SDK	✅ Two different versions of a web widget
Third-party Integrations	✅ Salesforce, Shopify, Slack, Stripe and others; no large app marketplace	✅ Hundreds of integrations with all popular apps	✅ 30 native integrations and 500 more via Zapier
Ticket Collaboration	✅ Private notes, @mentions and collision detection	✅ 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	✅ Triggers, monitors and macros, plus AI actions via the Kay agent	✅ Powerful engine that allows you to automate any business process	✅ 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.