Zendesk competitors: what 25,887 companies actually run
Freshdesk and Intercom are the most common Zendesk competitors in public records: 4,621 and 2,220 companies run them, versus 17,059 on Zendesk.
Freshdesk is the most common Zendesk competitor: 4,621 companies run it, followed by Intercom (2,220), Help Scout (846) and Gorgias (617). Zendesk still leads with 17,059 companies, 66% of the 25,887 running any of the 13 help desk tools we tracked.
How many companies run Zendesk, and how many run each competitor?
Zendesk is far ahead: 17,059 companies run it, which is 66% of the 25,887 companies running any of the 13 help desk tools we compared. Freshdesk is a distant second with 4,621, and Intercom is third with 2,220.
What these numbers are: each count is companies with a direct public trace of the tool in DNS records, certificate logs or website code, out of 635,145 companies we checked. That is not market share or a paying-customer count, and one company can run more than one of these tools.
The ranking shows how fast the field thins out after the top three.
Companies with a public trace of each tool in our scans. A company can run more than one.
Next come Help Scout (846), Gorgias (617), ServiceNow (485), LiveChat (427) and Crisp (374). The tail holds Tidio, Dixa, Front, Pylon and Oracle Service Cloud, the smallest at 85. Small counts don't mean weak tools: several are built for a narrow buyer, and that buyer shows up clearly in the data.
Which Zendesk competitors do companies actually run?
Freshdesk, Intercom and Help Scout are the general-purpose Zendesk alternatives with the most companies behind them, with Freshdesk alone at 4,621. Gorgias, ServiceNow, LiveChat and Crisp each win one specific kind of buyer. The table puts every tool's count and group share side by side.
| Tool | Companies | Share | Size | Top industry | Often run with |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17,059 | 66% | 51–200 | Software | Zapier, Atlassian Statuspage | |
| 4,621 | 18% | 51–200 | IT Services | Bitwarden, Slack | |
| 2,220 | 8.6% | 11–50 | Software | Heap, Customer.io | |
| 846 | 3.3% | 51–200 | Software | DMARC Digests, Mixpanel | |
| 617 | 2.4% | 11–50 | Retail | Gorgias Convert, Rivo | |
| 485 | 1.9% | 1,001+ | IT Services | Qualified, Palo Alto Networks | |
| 427 | 1.6% | 1,001+ | Retail | AdRoll, CallRail | |
| 374 | 1.4% | 11–50 | Internet | Axeptio, tawk.to | |
| 260 | 1.0% | 1,001+ | IT Services | Heap, Judge.me | |
| 113 | 0.4% | 51–200 | E-commerce | Nosto, Klarna | |
| 89 | 0.3% | 51–200 | Software | Koala, Heap | |
| 89 | 0.3% | 51–200 | Software | Fivetran, ClickHouse | |
| 85 | 0.3% | 1,001+ | Retail | BioCatch, Khoros |
Freshdesk
Freshdesk, the Freshworks help desk for customer support and IT service teams, is the closest thing Zendesk has to a twin on size. Its top band is 51–200 employees, at 49% of users with a known size, almost exactly Zendesk's figure. Industry is where they part ways. Freshdesk's top sector is IT Services (17%), not Software, and its users are 6.5x more likely than average to be in security and investigations and 4.8x more likely to be in logistics. India also ranks among its top countries, which it doesn't for Zendesk. Podbean and Medal show it in public records.
Intercom
Intercom runs a size band smaller than Zendesk. Its most common band is 11–50 employees (29%), which fits the vendor's description: a helpdesk with a built-in AI agent, inbox, tickets and outbound messaging, aimed partly at early-stage startups. Software is its top industry at 23%, a touch above Zendesk's share. The sharpest skew is fintech, with payments and consumer finance both over-indexing at 58.2x. Cisco and Cloudinary carry an Intercom trace. So does Zendesk itself, whose own domain shows Intercom in our scans.
Help Scout
Help Scout pairs a shared inbox, AI agent, help center and customer insights, and in our data it is a SaaS tool run disproportionately by SaaS companies: its users are 19.1x more likely than average to be in Software as a Service. On size it looks like Zendesk, with 46% of known-size users at 51–200 employees and Software leading at 22%. Where it differs is the stack around it, which leans on product analytics (more on that below). Porkbun and Nexus Mods both show it.
Gorgias
Gorgias is one of the most specialized tools here. It is an ecommerce help desk built for online stores, especially on Shopify, and 33% of its known-industry users are in Retail. Its users are 79.0x more likely than average to be in Fashion and 47.2x more likely to be in Jewelry. Zendesk reaches retail too (its users over-index on cosmetic shops at 26.7x), but fashion is a far bigger slice of Gorgias's users than of Zendesk's. They also run small, with 11–50 employees the top band at 27%. Alpha Industries and ASSOULINE appear in its records.
ServiceNow
ServiceNow isn't a standalone help desk. The vendor describes an enterprise workflow platform that covers IT service management and CRM for customer service, and the data matches: 42% of its known-size users have 1,001+ employees, and they are 7.3x more likely than average to be in the 10,000+ band. IT Services leads its industries at 32%, and pharmaceuticals over-index at 5.2x. If you have thousands of employees and want customer service inside an IT workflow platform, ServiceNow is where companies your size show up. Anaplan and Deakin show it.
LiveChat
LiveChat is the surprise in the set. It adds real-time chat with AI agents to websites, which sounds like a small-business purchase, yet 41% of its known-size users have 1,001+ employees. Its industries are spread wide, with Retail on top at just 14%. Tourism over-indexes at 22.8x, with industrial manufacturing and automotive behind it. Combined with the ad tools its users run, that points to chat as a sales channel more than a support queue. Datavail and tet.lv show it in public records.
Crisp
Crisp is the small-company pick. Its users are 5.0x more likely than average to have 1–10 employees, and 11–50 is its top band at 34%. The vendor bundles a chat widget, shared inbox, AI agent, CRM, knowledge base and ticketing into one messaging platform. Internet companies lead its industries (17%), crowdfunding over-indexes at 88.7x, and France ranks right behind the US in its country list, higher than for any other tool here. Captivate and Beekast are in its records.
Which Zendesk alternative fits which kind of company?
Company size is one of the clearest dividing lines. Zendesk's top band is 51–200 employees (48% of users with a known size), Freshdesk sits in the same spot, and Oracle Service Cloud is the most enterprise-heavy, with 73% of its known-size users at 1,001+ employees.
The size chart shows the pattern: Intercom, Gorgias and Crisp lean small, ServiceNow and Oracle Service Cloud lean large, and Zendesk sits in the middle.
- 1–10 employees
- 11–50 employees
- 51–200 employees
- 201–1,000 employees
- 1,001+ employees
Share of each tool's companies by employee count, among companies with a known size.
By size:
- 1–10 and 11–50 employees: Crisp, Intercom and Gorgias. Front also over-indexes on the 1–10 band at 3.3x.
- 51–200: Zendesk, Freshdesk and Help Scout, plus Dixa, which puts 70% of its known-size users in this band.
- 1,001+: Oracle Service Cloud, ServiceNow and LiveChat. Tidio is split, over-indexing both on the 1,001–5,000 employee band (4.7x) and on 1–10 (3.5x).
By industry:
- Online fashion and retail: Gorgias, and Dixa, whose users are 168.2x more likely than average to be in Fashion, with Denmark and Sweden as its top countries.
- Fintech and business-to-business software: Intercom, and Pylon, which over-indexes on finance and accounting at 187.9x. OpenAI and Coinbase show Pylon.
- SaaS: Help Scout, and Front, whose users over-index on Software at 4.2x; Suno runs it.
- Large consumer brands: Oracle Service Cloud, with Costco and LinkedIn in its records.
- Travel and automotive: LiveChat.
What do companies run alongside Zendesk and its competitors?
Zendesk's most common neighbors are developer tools: 9.1% also run Atlassian Statuspage and 7.6% run Cursor, with Zapier at 3.3%. The pairings get much stronger for the commerce tools.
- Freshdesk: Slack (4.2%), 1Password (3.4%) and Bitwarden (3.0%). Password managers fit a tool sold to IT service teams.
- Intercom: Customer.io (6.3%), G2 (5.6%) and Heap (3.7%). That is a growth team's stack.
- Help Scout: DMARC Digests (6.3%), Mixpanel (4.1%) and Segment (3.1%).
- Gorgias: Gorgias Convert (Gorgias's own conversion add-on) at 43%, the strongest pairing in the whole group, and Rebuy at 12%.
- Dixa: Nosto (20%), Klarna (19%) and Salesforce Commerce Cloud (9.7%).
- ServiceNow: Palo Alto Networks (4.4%) and 6sense (4.0%).
- LiveChat: AdRoll (6.4%), CallRail (3.6%) and Awin (3.6%), all marketing-side tools.
The Gorgias and Dixa rows matter most for a buyer. Those tools sit inside a commerce stack (Nosto, Klarna, Rebuy), so they make most sense for teams whose support runs through the storefront.
What does a help desk detection look like?
Every count above rests on a record like the one below: a public trace that ties a company's domain to a help desk vendor.
help.example.com CNAME examplesupport.zendesk.comA record like this proves the company configured the tool on infrastructure it controls, such as a DNS entry, a verified domain, a site script or a support subdomain pointing at the vendor. It doesn't show how many agents use the tool or whether it handles most of the support volume. You can check any domain with our lookup.
How did we count Zendesk competitors?
We checked public DNS records, certificate logs and website code for 635,145 companies, and counted a company for a tool only when we found a direct trace: a DNS record, a verified domain, a script or a custom domain pointing at the vendor. The numbers were queried on October 4, 2026. Our crawler is described on the bot page, and the wider approach on our research page.
These are companies with a public trace, not market share and not paying customers. A company can run several tools, so group shares can add up to more than the whole. Size and industry are known for only part of the companies, so those shares cover only companies where we know them. Tools used purely inside a company leave no public trace, which means smaller and self-hosted help desks are undercounted.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most popular alternative to Zendesk?
Freshdesk. In our data 4,621 companies have a public trace of it, more than any other Zendesk competitor and 18% of the 25,887 companies running any help desk we tracked. Intercom is next with 2,220. Zendesk itself still leads with 17,059 companies.
Which Zendesk alternative do Shopify and fashion stores use?
Gorgias. It is built for ecommerce brands, especially on Shopify, and its users are 79.0x more likely than average to be in Fashion. 43% of them also run Gorgias Convert, the vendor's own add-on. Dixa is the other fashion-heavy pick, with a Fashion over-index of 168.2x and Denmark and Sweden as its top countries.
What do large enterprises use instead of Zendesk?
ServiceNow and Oracle Service Cloud. 73% of Oracle Service Cloud's known-size users have 1,001+ employees, as do 42% of ServiceNow's. ServiceNow users are also 7.3x more likely than average to be in the 10,000+ employee band. Costco and LinkedIn show Oracle Service Cloud in public records.
Which Zendesk competitor do small startups pick?
Intercom and Crisp. Intercom's most common band is 11–50 employees, at 29% of its known-size users, and the vendor aims it partly at early-stage startups. Crisp users are 5.0x more likely than average to have 1–10 employees. Front also over-indexes on the 1–10 band.
Can a company run Zendesk and another help desk at the same time?
Yes, and some do: the group shares in this article add up to more than the whole, so some companies carry traces of more than one tool. Zendesk's own domain, for example, shows Intercom in our scans, and Intercom appears among the common neighbors of Help Scout and Crisp. A trace shows a tool is configured, not which one handles most tickets.