Kayako
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if you're a mid-size team with real ticket volume that wants AI deflection and seatless pricing.
New check
Comparison
Kayako vs Freshworks
Kayako and Freshworks both land on Depends.
Freshworks
Depends
Confidence: Medium
Buy if you're a scaling mid-market team that wants helpdesk, ITSM, or CRM in one AI-heavy suite.
| Compare | ||
|---|---|---|
| Verdict | Depends | Depends |
| Best for | Mid-size support teams (10+ agents) | Mid-market customer support teams |
| Who it's not for | Tiny teams . a shared inbox or Freshdesk free plan is enough | Small teams needing only a simple contact list |
| Privacy | No issues found with the current cloud product; legacy self-hosted Kayako Classic carries multiple public CVEs.⁸ | Public Trust Center, GDPR compliance, and HackerOne bug bounty; a few CVEs in integrations and reported customer-side misconfigurations. |
| Support quality | No direct evidence in sources | 24x5 on some plans; ownership complaints on Freshservice. |
| Public sentiment | Ratings hover around 4.0-4.1/5: users praise ease of use, while others stay unsure and gripe about pricing.³ | Aggregates look strong, but Trustpilot sits at 1.3/5 and sysadmin forums report mixed Freshservice experiences.15 |
| Biggest gotcha | Pricing complaints are reviewers' most common theme; confirm true costs before committing | Researchers found hundreds of Freshservice instances exposing internal data via misconfiguration . audit your settings. |
Pick Kayako when
- Mid-size support teams (10+ agents)
- Ticket-heavy B2B SaaS
- Teams migrating off Groove or shared inboxes
- Buyers piloting AI ticket deflection
When Kayako is not a fit
- Tiny teams . a shared inbox or Freshdesk free plan is enough
- Anyone needing transparent, predictable pricing before signing
- Orgs still on self-hosted Kayako Classic without a patch plan
- Very low ticket volumes where AI automation never pays back
Pick Freshworks when
- Mid-market customer support teams
- IT service desks (ITSM)
- Teams bundling CRM plus helpdesk
- Tiny sales teams on free Freshsales
When Freshworks is not a fit
- Small teams needing only a simple contact list
- Solo founders wanting spreadsheet-simple CRM
- Buyers needing 24x7 support on the cheapest plan
- Strict-security shops uncomfortable with misconfiguration exposure reports
Sources
- Kayako . official sitekayako.comofficial
- Kayako Pricingkayako.comofficial
- Kayako Reviews 2026 . G2g2.comreview
review
- Kayako Reviews . Trustpilottrustpilot.comreview
- I tested Kayako . TechRadartechradar.comreview
- Kayako Pricing 2026: Is It Worth It? . Featurebasefeaturebase.appreview
security
- CVE-2010-2912 . NVDnvd.nist.govsecurity
- June 2016 Security Advisory for Kayako Classicclassichelp.kayako.comsecurity
- Aurea case study . Kayakokayako.comofficial
- Trilogy case study . Kayakogo.kayako.comofficial
- DC Advisory: Kayako sale to ESW Capitaldcadvisory.comnews
- Kayako Revenue 2021: $162M ARR . GetLatkagetlatka.comnews
review