TOPdesk is one of the popular Service Management solutions that helps SMEs and large enterprises manage their help desks efficiently.

In a single console, it packs multiple support processes to facilitate seamless collaboration between different teams and deliver pleasant customer experiences.

Offered as SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) or on-premises, TOPdesk is an ITIL-aligned solution that employs best practices to support IT, HR, help desks, and facilities management. It has a robust application with a user-friendly interface, an expert support team, and knowledgeable consultants that will help you optimize your IT services.

In this post, we are going to learn about the TOPdesk solution, its features, and some of the good alternatives you can use for IT Service Management. 

Here are the Best TOPdesk Alternatives:

1. NinjaOne – EDITOR’S CHOICE Protects your infrastructure from internal and external threats. It supports scanning options and allows users to set and forget document backup for important files. Start a 14-day free trial.
2. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus – FREE TRIAL Provides excellent features and functionalities that allow users to troubleshoot IT service requests and minimize repetitive incidents and outages faster. Access a 30-day free trial.
3. SolarWinds Service Desk Α cloud-based tool that will ensure that your service request pipeline runs smoothly. AT&T, NASA, and Procter & Gamble are a few top companies that use SolarWinds Service Desk. 
4. Atera ITSM Α real-time alerting tool that can track all issues arising at your client’s endpoints in real-time and maintain the order of the system.
5. HaloITSM A cloud-based IT service management software that’s available for small and medium-sized businesses. It makes it easy to manage your IT infrastructure, devices, and applications. Also, you don’t have to worry about the installation or configuration of the product because HaloITSM takes care of everything for you.
6. Jira Service Desk An ITSM solution that empowers teams to deliver great service experiences and ensures your employees and customers can get help quickly.
7. BMC Helix ITSM A comprehensive Cognitive Service Management cloud offering. You can run it in any cloud you choose, with robust cognitive capabilities such as intelligent chatbots and predictive capabilities.

What is ITSM Software? Why is it Important?

ITSM stands for IT Service Management. It comprises all the technologies and processes used to plan, design, build, implement, deploy, improve, and support IT services for customers.

ITSM aims to continually improve IT services and deliver IT as a service by leveraging best practices. It focuses more on customer needs, rather than on the IT infrastructure. 

It is not a basic IT support, rather ITSM is more comprehensive as it encompasses policies and processes IT teams use to manage end-to-end IT services.

ITSM aligns well with holistic business objectives, as the processes and technologies involved are more strategic and intend to deliver value to customers. It allows for improved customer experiences, a boost in employee productivity, and reduced costs.

Benefits of ITSM

ITSM promotes a strategic and well-structured approach to service management to boost productivity and efficiency gains. It standardizes the delivery of IT services, aligns well with your overall business goals, and reduces risks, to ultimately deliver better customer experiences. The major benefits of ITSM are as follows:

• Promotes seamless cross-department collaboration with automated workflows
• Aligns IT departments with business priorities and monitors them via performance metrics
• Reinforces IT teams with the right tools to continually improve and share their expertise 
• Improves request coordination to accelerate delivery of IT services
• Quicker response to major incidents and prevent future incidents
• Customer-centric approach with self-service and continually improving processes
• Streamlined project management approach to bring IT and Development teams together
• Ensures compliance with regulatory standards
• Reporting automation

What is TOPdesk?

TOPdesk is one of the popular cloud-based ITSM (IT Service Management) and CAFM (Computer-Aided Facility Management) solutions that help SMEs and large enterprises manage their facilities’ work, IT, and HR help desks. 

Key Features:

• Robust ITSM, CAFM, and ESM platform
• Omni-channel support
• IT Change Management helps businesses implement and release changes efficiently with workflow automation
• Graphical schedule planner
• Fully customized self-service portal
• Asset management
• Reporting and analytics dashboard that visualizes key metrics and KPIs
• Robust incident management tool

With its asset management feature, enterprises can get a holistic view of all their assets and descriptions. Moreover, the IT managers can effectively monitor all maintenance activities going on, whilst planning future schedules. 

Lastly, it offers a self-service portal for customers and customizable dashboards for easy monitoring and reporting.

In a single system, TOPdesk houses Shared Service Management and multiple support processes to allow seamless collaboration between IT teams to help them deliver top-notch customer experiences. 

Be it SaaS or on-premises, TOPdesk’s ITIL-aligned platform will help you optimize your IT services with its intuitive functionalities. 

Pros of TOPdesk

• ITIL-aligned best practices
• Easy to use
• Ticket sorting and filtering are easy
• Multiple modules are available such as Self-service portal, Change Management, Incident Management, Asset Management, etc.

Pricing of TOPdesk

Pricing of TOPdesk starts from $66 per month, per user.

TOPdesk is available in three Plans:

1. Essential (basic plan)
2. Engaged (mid-level)
3. Excellent (enterprise-level)

To get the price quote, you need to contact the TOPdesk.

Why Do We Need TOPdesk Alternatives?

TOPdesk solution is module-based, and it can get expensive quickly if you require multiple modules for your business. Furthermore, the Actions and Events module is complex to understand and involves a steep learning curve for effective use.

According to the TOPdesk users, the solution comes with certain limitations such as a lack of integrations, sluggish UI sometimes, complicated initial installation, and a high learning curve.

TOPdesk offers a free 30-day trial to give you an idea of its overall functionality. However, if you aren’t satisfied with the capabilities, you can look elsewhere.

Looking for TOPdesk alternatives with robust ITSM and service desk features, flexible pricing models, and good integration capabilities? Here are some of the great options. 

The Best ITSM Alternatives

1. NinjaOne – FREE TRIAL

NinjaOne is a centralized IT Operations platform developed for IT teams and MSPs to modernize IT management and reduce its complexities, regardless of the business size. It monitors, supports, and manages all your users and devices to modernize IT processes. 

Key Features:

• Patch Management automates the patching process for all endpoints connected by the internet
• Endpoint management allows you to monitor and manage all IT assets from a single console and from anywhere
• The backup tool prevents ransomware attacks
• Service Desk makes it easier to accept, allocate, and automate IT ticketing processes
• Remote Access allows you to control all your devices, both attended and unattended
• Document everything with ease for reference
• Manage, install or uninstall the software at scale or individually
• Get real-time insights into all IT assets, and discover new assets with IT Asset Management 
• Backup crucial business data and Automate remediation of vulnerabilities

Previously known as NinjaRMM, NinjaOne is a security-centric platform that features automation, scripting, and manual customization as well. 

Start a 14-day free trial.

2. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus – FREE TRIAL

ManageEngine is Zoho’s IT division. ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is an ITIL-ready help desk platform with built-in Project and Asset management tools. It allows IT teams to deliver pleasant customer service with minimal complexity and reduced costs. It offers a 360-degree view into all networks and centralized control to tackle IT issues all in one place, without any downtime. 

Key Features:

• Automate ticketing processes such as dispatch, classification, and categorization as per preset rules
• Configure alerts to ensure the timely resolution of tickets
• Self-service portal for easy access to IT services
• Service Catalog optimizes service delivery with custom SLAs and multi-stage approvals
• Incident management tool boosts agent productivity, helps meet SLAs, reduces outages, and helps you efficiently manage the entire ticketing lifecycle
• Leverage automated workflows to precisely plan, approve and implement changes within the enterprise to prevent failures
• The Built-in CMDB tool allows you to track and manage all configurations and map all of their dependencies
• Custom reporting and customizable dashboards
• Streamlined asset management 

For this, ServiceDesk Plus employs the best ITSM-based workflows and robust integrations with various IT management applications. What makes it more flexible is the smart automation, cloud-based ticketing system, and built-in ITIL workflows. All of these features make it a breeze to manage tickets, resolve issues faster and accelerate the entire lifecycle of IT projects.

Moreover, it helps businesses with compliance and allows them to create support SLAs, and set up escalation levels. Start a 30-day free trial.

ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Access a 30-day FREE Trial

3. SolarWinds Service Desk

SolarWinds Service Desk, previously known as Samanage, is a cloud-based, enterprise-level, multi-tenant ITSM and help desk solution developed to manage requests efficiently.

Key Features:

• IT Service Catalog: Helps employees standardize service requests and resolution processes by offering a detailed, user-friendly menu of services
• Incident Management: Allows you to consolidate, prioritize and manage incoming tickets to boost employee productivity
• IT asset Management: Fully integrated tool compiles all software, hardware, POs, and other technological assets for easy management 
• Ticketing software: Omni-channel IT ticketing solution to resolve issues faster
• Dashboards: Provides a 360-degree view into your service desk with real-time metrics
• CMDB (Configuration Management Database) Software: provides deeper visibility into your IT stack
• Help Desk KB (Knowledge Base): a well-consolidated database of articles, solutions, and posts for easy reference to common issues
• IT Change Management: align ITIL processes strategically to execute a consolidated change

It is a highly customizable platform that allows IT, and departmental teams, to collaborate seamlessly, share ideas, and allocate tasks through “whiteboard”. With SolarWinds Service Desk, businesses can identify risks, manage contracts, keep up with license auditing, look after compliance and so much more. For this, it employs best ITSM practices and features AI (Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning), and automation technologies.

4. Atera

Atera is a cloud-based RMM (Remote Monitoring and Management), PSA (Professional Services Automation), and remote support and control software for MSPs and IT teams. The helpdesk and ticketing software is user-friendly and intuitive, making communication with end-users seamless.

Key Features:

• Intelligent help desk and ticketing software
• AI ticket tagging
• Automated asset discovery and documenting
• Hosted service offers storage space for documentation
• Customer portal framework featuring KB (Knowledge Base) templates
• A robust knowledge base centralizes the storage of tips, tricks, articles, and other information 
• Automated reports and analytics
• After ticket resolution, send automated customer feedback surveys 

It offers complete real-time visibility and better control over multiple networks, helping you deliver exceptional IT support to customers. 

A proactive alerting system notifies users before the problem arises to help them take action beforehand. By the same token, IT professionals also get real-time alerts related to IP monitoring, SQL server, system resources, network monitoring, logged-in customers, Active Directory, and other crucial factors.

Additionally, Atera comes with IT automation services to help you manage various IT maintenance and IT administrative tasks executed on servers and workflows. As needed, Atera’s Automated Patch Management system can be implemented on individual groups and devices.

Lastly, Atera also offers remote maintenance abilities to help businesses with various elements such as command prompt, service manager, and task-manager services.

5. HaloITSM

HaloITSM is an ITIL-aligned help desk solution available in the cloud as well as on-premises. The application is designed with power-packed features and an intuitive UI. 

Key Features:

• Incident management: Features ITIL-aligned processes to meet SLAs and seamlessly manage incidents.
• Service Catalog: Helps users find and request the services they are looking for directly from the service portal. This prevents day-to-day errors and helps them automatically fulfill requests.
  
• Change Control: Provides deeper visibility into all changes within the enterprise to easily plan, deliver and track organizational changes, be it on any scale. This makes it easier for all departments to standardize processes and meet deadlines.
• Asset Management: Centralizes the management of all end-user assets and configurations. CMDB is a robust tool that provides full visibility into configuration elements and relationships and dependencies between CIs. It helps you easily log issues and incidents against CIs.
• Integration: With various apps for centralized control

Rapid, updated workflow makes it easier for IT teams to deliver world-class service to employees and customers. The all-in-one solution standardizes your business processes and houses smart analytics for better IT delivery.

6. Jira Service Management

Jira Service Management, previously known as Jira Service Desk, is an ITSM and IT Service Desk that helps Dev and Ops teams collaborate faster and seamlessly to deliver exceptional IT services to customers in real-time.

Key Features:

• Fully functional ITSM, ticketing, and service desk software tool
• Robust Knowledge Base offers contextual knowledge with linked issues to help IT teams respond to changes, requests, and incidents faster
• Real-time team collaboration 
• Easily ingest data from other tools
• Automate repetitive tasks to boost team productivity 
• Audit trail for each change
• Change Management 
• Problem Management 
• Omni-channel ticketing platform 
• Integrates seamlessly with 500+ applications from the Atlassian Marketplace

It is high-velocity service request management software featuring a self-service portal, incident management, conversational ticketing, knowledge management, request management, IT asset management, etc. 

Jira Service Management aims to streamline collaboration between Dev and IT Ops teams to ensure faster query and ticket resolution with lesser complexities. Users can keep track of ownership, monitor inventories, and manage entire life cycles as well.

Lastly, businesses can get deeper visibility into their IT stack running multiple applications and services with the built-in configuration management tools. 

7. BMC Helix ITSM

BMC Helix ITSM comprises intelligent and predictive automation technologies to implement the best ITSM principles within multi-cloud business environments.

Key Features:

• Respond faster with a real-time, automated correlation of incidents
• Proactive alerting to identify issues faster
• Contextual data sharing in collaboration tools for seamless communications
• Change management for IT and DevOps by defining complexity and impact
• Dynamic, customizable dashboards visualize key metrics and service activities
• Automated task categorization and task allocation
• Features incident management as it integrates service and operations management
• Service Catalog and Self-Service portal
• Configuration management
• Incident and problem management 
• Multi-device and multi-cloud management
• Agentless discovery and asset management

It is a cloud-native SaaS solution that leverages AI (Artificial Intelligence) and automation to deliver superior service management for IT teams. It is also referred to as 3C’s- which stands for Cloud, Container, and Cognitive. 

All the services in BMC Helix are available via the cloud. Users can leverage containers to run the software within any public cloud. Lastly, the solution packs impressive automated cognitive features such as AI, ML, virtual agents, and chatbots.

 Conclusion

With this, we wrap our detailed guide on TOPdesk and review TOPdesk best alternatives. 

TOPdesk is one of the best ITSM, facilities management, and help desk solutions. However, TOPdesk comes with its own set of limitations. Lack of integration and module-based design which makes it expensive are two of the most common downsides of TOPdesk, according to the users.

Therefore, if you’re looking for more flexible pricing models, you can opt for any of the TOPdesk alternatives reviewed above. All of them are the best ITSM and service management solutions with an impressive set of functionalities that cater to enterprises of all sizes.