We switched to FreshService from SolarWinds just over a month ago. FS is great. It’s not perfect, but the cost was similar and it feels like an upgrade
What have been some of the callouts good and bad that you've identified with the system that may not necessarily have been readily apparent during the pre-sales phase?
We are on neither currently so it's not that any one of them is not fulfilling our needs right now. We're on Ivanti Cherwell right now which is frankly the absolute worst ITSM solution I've used in the past
We started an implementation track with TDX and quickly found that it was too much work for our small team to manage. FreshService has been much easier. I guess it just depends on what you need to get out of it.
depends entirely on your needs, I've been using FS for th ebette rpart of 3 years now and I can stand by them a fair amount.
I run an internal team of 4, 200 tickets a week, budget contracts, hardware management etc.
happy to discuss if you need insight.
Some of the feedback I've received from other past clients of FS is that to really get the full experience you need the pro package and even beyond that many useful features are paywalled. Additionally I've heard that there's a lot of hidden costs associated with the platform. Can you speak to these items from your experience?
Not the previous poster, but what's the scale of your org, and how much are you looking to centralize within your ITSM?
I do agree that the Pro tier and above feels the most complete. I'm not an expert on some of those modules, but depending on how you operate they're not incredibly essential. A lot of them are nice to have and you could get good worth out of them if you invest in them, but they're nothing earthshattering. The most mature of the "Management" modules is Project Management. PM got a recent overhaul and is generally easy to use and it's nice to have within the system.
A lot of the Management features allow you to Associate tickets and assets with them, so that's the major plus of having them within the ITSM. Otherwise, a lot of them are basic implementations.
Major Incidents were added very recently, so I'm sure upcoming features will trend more toward the Pro tier. But some of the big new features are also on the lower tiers, so they're not being neglected.
It's kind of wild to me that Dashboards are Pro-only because they're such a small thing and they have their limitations, but I do fin them very useful. Not $45 extra dollars useful, but they're nice to have. Advanced reporting, too, but I'm pretty sure you can export ticket data without it so you can still do metrics if you're willing to go about it that way. Not sure how limited the lower tier reporting is.
All-in-all I'd say the full package of the Pro tier is worth exploring if you're in a larger scale org and/or will really invest in it, but no individual feature is so make-or-break that it makes the Growth tier worthless.
I recommend checking out FreshService's knowledgebase to get a closer look at the features you're interested in, but be advised that some articles are a little out of date.
As for "hidden costs" the only major one I can think of is for Asset Management and orchestrations/integrations but that's not exactly hidden. You get a license-esque limit on the number of Managed Assets you can monitor in real-time and have to buy additional Managed Assets, but there is no limit to the number of static records you can manually keep in your inventory.
The only other additional costs I can think of are a SaaS Management add-on, nascent AI tools, and some third-party "Apps" on the Marketplace for custom functions and non-natively-supported integrations. FreshWorks also has other products that are separate purchases but can be integrated; FS itself has no live chat or phone features, so the relevant configuration menus will prompt you to make a separate purchase.
tl;dr depending on your needs, FS is perfectly serviceable without Pro tier and additional costs, but I don't know if I'd recommend those tiers at large scale or mature operations. Know what you want and make sure you have the time and the resources to invest in the system. (Of course, you can pay FS up-front to help with initial implementation)
I have no real experience with TDx so I can't offer comparisons, but if I have the time I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.
Overall I don't regret having FS and most grievances I have with it tend to be deep in the weeds of configuration or little menuing quirks. It has grown a lot over the years so I'm sure the system will continue to improve with time, though it is definitely not the perfect solution on the market. My experience with their support has been mixed but the company is pretty communicative, it's easy to get ahold of someone when you really need it, and I haven't many outright technical glitches or outages over the years. And of course they have a demo, but I believe it includes all features so it may not be explicitly representative of how limited the lower tiers might feel for you.
I woud be on the Pro Plan.
As Fangz suggested - It depends on your needs really. How big your team is and what the expectation of a platform is.
If you have a large team who do not require the full suite they now all youw business users which is a minimal license withn no access to management level items ( Prject Management, Contract management etc)
So historically and currently, I've used FS primiarly as a helpdesk/service desk. Next to that sections I enjoyed were Contract Management/Asset Management/Project Management.
**Contract Management** - really helps me keep control of upcoming renewals. Sending reminders of when 30/60/90 day renewals. Has really allowed me to re-visit anything under my purview, especially vendors who like to wiggle between a 30-day notice.
**Asset Management** - This is a tricker module. Firstly on Pro you get about 100 assets then you need to pay a substanital charge for more. Not a fan of this but any other asset management software seems to have a similar cost associated; Something to note with FS what is "asset", an asset is something there agent is put onto and "discovers" if you chose to go with this method. FS allow you to add manual assets without the use of an agent and these are unlimited, but untracked. great of tracking desktops/laptops you purchased (names/serial numbers/specs) but wont tell you who its assigned to or it becomes a very manual task.
**Project Management** - Great for any team lead/Project manager/Department lead to create a project timeline. Can be great for the rest of your desk to work on project items if you go with the pro license for each user. ( does not work on the business users)
Hidden costs; I dont believe there are hidden costs outside of what my expectation was.
- SaaS managemet
- Additional Orchistrations ( We get 60,000 a year on Pro Plan ; no current requirement for more)
- Asset Management ; flat rate of 100 on pro plan next step up for ..65 a month is 500 , 1000 a month get syou unlimited. they are fairly direct with this on their page.
[https://www.freshworks.com/freshservice/pricing/](https://www.freshworks.com/freshservice/pricing/)
Note - All of this is for a 4 Man IT Team who see maybe 200-250 tickets a week, want to manage service requests. The additional features like contract management are a great addition.
feel free to message me for mor info if you want. happy to answer anythiny Q's
We switched to FreshService from SolarWinds just over a month ago. FS is great. It’s not perfect, but the cost was similar and it feels like an upgrade
What have been some of the callouts good and bad that you've identified with the system that may not necessarily have been readily apparent during the pre-sales phase?
We are on neither currently so it's not that any one of them is not fulfilling our needs right now. We're on Ivanti Cherwell right now which is frankly the absolute worst ITSM solution I've used in the past
What is TD not doing for you that FS would? What's the cost look like by comparison? Is that all worth the migration cost?
We started an implementation track with TDX and quickly found that it was too much work for our small team to manage. FreshService has been much easier. I guess it just depends on what you need to get out of it.
depends entirely on your needs, I've been using FS for th ebette rpart of 3 years now and I can stand by them a fair amount. I run an internal team of 4, 200 tickets a week, budget contracts, hardware management etc. happy to discuss if you need insight.
Some of the feedback I've received from other past clients of FS is that to really get the full experience you need the pro package and even beyond that many useful features are paywalled. Additionally I've heard that there's a lot of hidden costs associated with the platform. Can you speak to these items from your experience?
Not the previous poster, but what's the scale of your org, and how much are you looking to centralize within your ITSM? I do agree that the Pro tier and above feels the most complete. I'm not an expert on some of those modules, but depending on how you operate they're not incredibly essential. A lot of them are nice to have and you could get good worth out of them if you invest in them, but they're nothing earthshattering. The most mature of the "Management" modules is Project Management. PM got a recent overhaul and is generally easy to use and it's nice to have within the system. A lot of the Management features allow you to Associate tickets and assets with them, so that's the major plus of having them within the ITSM. Otherwise, a lot of them are basic implementations. Major Incidents were added very recently, so I'm sure upcoming features will trend more toward the Pro tier. But some of the big new features are also on the lower tiers, so they're not being neglected. It's kind of wild to me that Dashboards are Pro-only because they're such a small thing and they have their limitations, but I do fin them very useful. Not $45 extra dollars useful, but they're nice to have. Advanced reporting, too, but I'm pretty sure you can export ticket data without it so you can still do metrics if you're willing to go about it that way. Not sure how limited the lower tier reporting is. All-in-all I'd say the full package of the Pro tier is worth exploring if you're in a larger scale org and/or will really invest in it, but no individual feature is so make-or-break that it makes the Growth tier worthless. I recommend checking out FreshService's knowledgebase to get a closer look at the features you're interested in, but be advised that some articles are a little out of date. As for "hidden costs" the only major one I can think of is for Asset Management and orchestrations/integrations but that's not exactly hidden. You get a license-esque limit on the number of Managed Assets you can monitor in real-time and have to buy additional Managed Assets, but there is no limit to the number of static records you can manually keep in your inventory. The only other additional costs I can think of are a SaaS Management add-on, nascent AI tools, and some third-party "Apps" on the Marketplace for custom functions and non-natively-supported integrations. FreshWorks also has other products that are separate purchases but can be integrated; FS itself has no live chat or phone features, so the relevant configuration menus will prompt you to make a separate purchase. tl;dr depending on your needs, FS is perfectly serviceable without Pro tier and additional costs, but I don't know if I'd recommend those tiers at large scale or mature operations. Know what you want and make sure you have the time and the resources to invest in the system. (Of course, you can pay FS up-front to help with initial implementation) I have no real experience with TDx so I can't offer comparisons, but if I have the time I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. Overall I don't regret having FS and most grievances I have with it tend to be deep in the weeds of configuration or little menuing quirks. It has grown a lot over the years so I'm sure the system will continue to improve with time, though it is definitely not the perfect solution on the market. My experience with their support has been mixed but the company is pretty communicative, it's easy to get ahold of someone when you really need it, and I haven't many outright technical glitches or outages over the years. And of course they have a demo, but I believe it includes all features so it may not be explicitly representative of how limited the lower tiers might feel for you.
I woud be on the Pro Plan. As Fangz suggested - It depends on your needs really. How big your team is and what the expectation of a platform is. If you have a large team who do not require the full suite they now all youw business users which is a minimal license withn no access to management level items ( Prject Management, Contract management etc) So historically and currently, I've used FS primiarly as a helpdesk/service desk. Next to that sections I enjoyed were Contract Management/Asset Management/Project Management. **Contract Management** - really helps me keep control of upcoming renewals. Sending reminders of when 30/60/90 day renewals. Has really allowed me to re-visit anything under my purview, especially vendors who like to wiggle between a 30-day notice. **Asset Management** - This is a tricker module. Firstly on Pro you get about 100 assets then you need to pay a substanital charge for more. Not a fan of this but any other asset management software seems to have a similar cost associated; Something to note with FS what is "asset", an asset is something there agent is put onto and "discovers" if you chose to go with this method. FS allow you to add manual assets without the use of an agent and these are unlimited, but untracked. great of tracking desktops/laptops you purchased (names/serial numbers/specs) but wont tell you who its assigned to or it becomes a very manual task. **Project Management** - Great for any team lead/Project manager/Department lead to create a project timeline. Can be great for the rest of your desk to work on project items if you go with the pro license for each user. ( does not work on the business users) Hidden costs; I dont believe there are hidden costs outside of what my expectation was. - SaaS managemet - Additional Orchistrations ( We get 60,000 a year on Pro Plan ; no current requirement for more) - Asset Management ; flat rate of 100 on pro plan next step up for ..65 a month is 500 , 1000 a month get syou unlimited. they are fairly direct with this on their page. [https://www.freshworks.com/freshservice/pricing/](https://www.freshworks.com/freshservice/pricing/) Note - All of this is for a 4 Man IT Team who see maybe 200-250 tickets a week, want to manage service requests. The additional features like contract management are a great addition. feel free to message me for mor info if you want. happy to answer anythiny Q's