Freshservice is a widely used IT service management (ITSM) platform from Freshworks. Teams often use it to manage IT tickets, workflows, and assets. However, despite its versatility, Freshservice has some limitations.

From conversations with IT leaders, the most common concerns we hear about Freshservice include its clunky workflow builder, difficulty scaling complex workflows, buggy performance, and weak Slack integration. 

That’s why teams that want modern tier-1 ticket automation or Slack-first IT support (or simply a smoother ITSM experience or better pricing) often look elsewhere. However, finding the right alternative can be difficult as Freshservice covers a lot of different use cases. 

To help you find the best Freshservice alternative for your organization’s needs, we’ve created a list of the best options, grouped into two categories:

Part 1: AI-Driven ITSM for Automation and Tier-1 Ticket Resolution

We’ll start off by exploring how Risotto, our product, overcomes Freshservice’s limitations and helps teams automate 20-60% of tier-1 tickets. 

Specifically, we’ll discuss Risotto’s out-of-the-box, Slack-native integration that lets teams get operational in hours and streamline repetitive tasks like access requests, password resets, and knowledge-based questions.

Note: For a real-life example, check out our case study with Superhuman. They used Risotto to automatically resolve 20% of employee support tickets and improve their average response time to mere seconds.

Part 2: Traditional ITSM Platforms for Broader Use Cases

Outside of Risotto’s AI-powered ITSM capabilities, we’ll also discuss six other Freshservice alternatives with capabilities like:

• Change management
• Incident management
• Problem management 
• Request management
• Knowledge management
• Asset and configuration management

Best Freshservice Alternatives

1. Risotto
2. Jira Service Management
3. Zendesk
4. ServiceNow
5. SolarWinds
6. Ivanti
7. BMC (Helix ITSM)

1. Risotto

Slack-Native, AI-Powered ITSM & Tier-1 Ticket Resolution

Risotto is an AI-powered IT support platform built to automate 20-60% of tier-1 tickets and provide seamless employee support directly in Slack: 

• Fundrise: Automated nearly 60% of IT support requests. 
• Hazel Health: Increased deflection from 3–5% to over 20%. 
• Superhuman: Automated nearly 20% of IT support requests. 
• Trust & Will: Automated nearly 35% of IT support requests.
• Retool: Improved average SLA resolution time from 2 days to under 1 day.
• Vidyard: Automated nearly 56% of IT support tickets. 

We layer intelligent AI automation on top of your existing ticketing tools, including Jira, Freshservice, or Zendesk, and maintain seamless bi-directional sync with Slack to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

Unlike Freshservice, which often struggles with clunky workflows and a weak Slack connector, Risotto was designed from the ground up to work natively in Slack and automate both knowledge-based questions and software access requests.

In this section, we’ll cover the key benefits of using Risotto for tier-1 ticket automation and employee support, including:

• Offering pre-built workflows that get you operational in hours rather than weeks or months. 
• Automating common IT actions like software access requests and password resets.
• Automating knowledge-based questions, performing initial triage, and multi-step troubleshooting. 
• Providing a Slack-native experience that meets employees where they already work. 
• Scaling support across departments beyond just IT (HR, Sales, Legal, Compliance), so you can automate repetitive requests company-wide.

Risotto Works Immediately Out of the Box

🚫 Freshservice struggles with buggy workflows and configurations, and often requires heavy customization before working reliably.

❇️ In contrast, Risotto delivers tier-1 automation benefits immediately within hours of setup, not after weeks or months of complex implementation.

As several of our clients noted:

“Ease of deployment was huge. We didn’t need a consultant or months of configuration. Risotto just worked.”
‍– Peter Hadjisavas, Head of IT at Hazel Health. Read the full case study here.

“We accomplished nearly the same configuration with Risotto in an hour that took us months with the other company… The speed and simplicity of Risotto’s setup was a great sign that we had made a good decision.”
– Phillip Rickett, VP of IT at Fundrise. Read the full case study here.  

Automate Software Access Requests & Knowledge-Based Questions 

Risotto frees up agents to focus on higher-value work, and excels in two key areas:   

1. Automate common IT actions such as software access requests (including time-based access, approval-based access, and self-service access) and password resets. 

2. Automate knowledge-based questions. In the example below, an employee asks, “How can we connect to the guest office Wi-Fi?”. Risotto uses advanced natural language processing to identify the issue, perform triage, and fully resolve the issue:

Slack-Native Experience That Meets Teams Where They Work

🚫 Freshservice users often struggle due to its clunky workflow builder and bug-prone configuration. Workflows quickly become difficult to scale, the UI is hard to manage, and the system requires significant customization before it works reliably. Its Slack connector is also limited, which reduces adoption in organizations that prefer Slack as their main channel.

❇️ Risotto is Slack-native, fast to deploy, and reliable at scale. Instead of relying on brittle visual workflows or shallow connectors, Risotto was designed from the ground up to operate entirely in Slack. Teams can get started in hours rather than weeks, with automation for both knowledge-based requests and software access built in from day one.

As Phillip Rickett, VP of IT at Fundrise, explained:

“We want AI to seamlessly fit into our team’s daily operations, meeting our users where they already work… Risotto’s minimal operational overhead and integration into Slack has enabled us to achieve exactly that.”

Closer Look at Risotto’s Software Access Automation & Knowledge-Based Question Handling Capabilities

Software Access Automation

Through our Okta integration, teams can import applications and permissions in minutes.

You can configure rules through a user-friendly interface, and view all applications in one central place: 

For each application in the dashboard, Risotto offers flexible configuration tools:

1. RBAC Rule Builder: Point and click using simple Boolean logic. 
2. Approval Workflow Builder: Sequential approvals, broadcast approvals, "all-of" logic, "any-of" logic, and more. 

The platform then automatically supports three types of access workflows: time-based, approval-based, and self-service access.

• Time-based access: Employees can request temporary access to an application by specifying the reason and duration in Slack. Risotto automatically grants access for the set period, notifies employees before it expires, and revokes it when the time is up, with the full trail logged for compliance.

• Approval-based access: When access requires manager or team approval, Risotto routes the request to the right approver in Slack with all necessary context. Once approved, access is provisioned instantly, and the justification is recorded automatically.

• Self-service access: For low-risk applications, Risotto grants access immediately without manual intervention. Employees request access in Slack, and based on pre-configured rules, Risotto applies the right level of permissions (e.g., read-only vs. full access)

All approvals are logged for compliance, and the entire process happens in Slack without forcing employees to set up and learn yet another tool. 

As several of our customers noted:

“The software access automations were a huge win for us. They were super easy to set up and we now have more than 30 applications with automated provisioning running 24/7.”
– Tom Grinberg, IT Manager at Trust & Will 

“When a team member asks, ‘How do I get access to Hightouch?’ they’re not looking for a link or a document; they need immediate, actionable assistance… Risotto intelligently understands the intent behind the request. It confirms existing permissions, coordinates necessary approvals proactively, and automatically provisions access upon approval. This automation significantly speeds up provisioning and improves user satisfaction.”
– Phillip Rickett, VP of IT at Fundrise

‍"Automated software access saves us so much time. Within minutes people get the access they need with everything tracked, approved, and no additional overhead needed… For sensitive tools and resources Risotto's automated time-based access has been a game-changer."
– Collin Clifford, Legal & Compliance Manager at Superhuman 

2. Knowledge-Based Questions 

Risotto interacts like an experienced IT team member would. It asks intelligent triage questions, adapts to unexpected responses, analyzes screenshots, and synthesizes information from multiple sources including knowledge articles, recent Slack updates, and past tickets. 

To demonstrate this capability, let’s take a look at four examples of Risotto’s answer quality:

• Example #1: Combining Multiple Knowledge Sources
• Example #2: Intelligent Triage 
• Example #3: Adapting to Context Changes  
• Example #4: Screenshot Recognition

Example #1: Combining Multiple Knowledge Sources

Risotto excels at utilizing multiple knowledge sources to provide a solution. 

Here, Andrew asks, “I uploaded my Uber receipt for my SF trip, but the system throws a generic error. What do I do?” Risotto references information from both Notion and recent Slack updates to give the employee the most current and accurate information. 

This ability to merge formal documentation with real-time team knowledge prevents employees from getting incomplete or out-of-date answers.

Example #2: Intelligent Triage 

As you can see, the employee asks, "I'm in the conference room and the camera isn't working, can you help?" 

Risotto performs intelligent tier-1 triage & information collection, and asks: "Which conference room are you in?", to which the employee replies: “Conference room B.”

Risotto provides a detailed, targeted solution that’s specific to conference room B’s configuration.

The employee updates that unplugging and plugging it back in worked. This triggers Risotto to close the ticket automatically. 

IT agents can also manually mark resolution with a ✅ emoji and instantly convert answers into knowledge articles via the ✍️ emoji, as seen below: 

If the issue can’t be resolved automatically, Risotto escalates it to the right team member. In this case, Risotto knows that Amanda is the relevant team member, so it posts the ticket in the appropriate Slack channel. It tags Amanda, who Risotto knows from past ticket history, as someone experienced with camera equipment.

Amanda can see the complete conversation history, including the original employee question and Risotto’s troubleshooting steps. Recognizing that the issue requires hands-on assistance, she replies, “Hey Andrew, I’ll be right there!”.

This context-aware handoff saves Amanda time repeating questions or solutions, and gets the employee’s issue resolved faster. 

Example #3: Adapting to Context Changes

An employee messages Risotto asking, “How can I get an employee badge?” 

Risotto replies with the typical steps for new hires: badges are issued during onboarding, picked up once Facilities notifies the employee, and activated by IT so they’re tied to the profile.

But the situation shifts when the employee clarifies: “I actually just need a temporary one, I left mine at home.” 

Instead of repeating the original instructions, Risotto pivots and explains: “If you forgot your badge at home, you can stop by the reception desk to pick up a temporary badge for the day.”

This kind of context awareness mirrors how a seasoned IT agent would adjust their answer on the fly, showing that Risotto can handle unexpected turns in the conversation rather than getting stuck on its first interpretation.

Example #4: Screenshot Recognition

An employee uploads a screenshot of an error with no explanation. Risotto analyzes the image, recognizes it as an AWS VPN issue, and explains that the company has switched to Cloudflare, providing the correct login steps. The problem is resolved automatically without human involvement.

Scaling Support Beyond IT With Multi-Department Automation

Most organizations adopt Risotto through a natural, two-phase progression.

First, IT teams roll out Risotto alongside their existing ticketing system (e.g., Jira, Freshservice, or Zendesk) via bi-directional sync, automating 20-60% of tier-1 tickets and supporting more employees without adding headcount. 

As word spreads and other departments witness IT's automation results, teams like HR, Compliance, Sales, and others implement Risotto to reduce their own repetitive support requests. Rather than purchasing separate, overly complex ticketing tools, these departments choose Risotto's built-in ticketing system, which provides exactly what they need without unnecessary features (saving significant cost and time). 

As noted by Colin, who oversees Superhuman’s IT and compliance, “The multi-department capabilities are awesome. Our engineering and RevOps teams now also want to use Risotto as they also get lots of the same questions over and over again”.

Book a Demo Call & Explore Customer Success Stories 

To experience Risotto in action, we invite you to schedule a demo. 

To learn more, explore these customer success stories:

• Fundrise: Automated nearly 60% of IT support requests. 
• Hazel Health: Increased deflection from 3–5% to over 20%. 
• Superhuman: Automated nearly 20% of IT support requests. 
• Trust & Will: Automated nearly 35% of IT support requests.
• Retool: Improved average SLA resolution time from 2 days to under 1 day.
• Vidyard: Automated nearly 56% of IT support tickets. 

2. Jira Service Management

Jira Service Management started as a project management tool and has grown into a full-featured ITSM platform, best for SaaS and tech companies already in the Atlassian ecosystem. It offers deep integration with development workflows but can be complex to configure, and AI tier-1 ticket automation often requires continuous tuning (as we discuss in more detail in our JSM Alternatives article).

Key features include:

• Request management to handle employee and customer requests in one place
• Incident management that connects IT and DevOps 
• Change management with context from development tools to minimize risk
• Asset management to track inventory, ownership, and lifecycle
• Configuration management for visibility into service dependencies
• Knowledge management with self-service and collaboration
• Problem management to group incidents and fast-track root cause analysis
• Atlassian Intelligence: AI features to cut down on repetitive work
• Open API and marketplace integrations for extending functionality

3. Zendesk

Zendesk began as a customer support platform and has since been adapted by IT support teams. It works best for smaller organizations (under 500 employees) or companies already using Zendesk for external support. While it lacks the depth of enterprise-grade ITSM systems, it is user-friendly, flexible, and quick to deploy.

Key features include:

• Centralized incident and service request management
• Employee-centric service desk with personalized, AI-powered interactions
• AI-driven scalability with 24/7 self-service portal and autonomous AI agents
• Smart knowledge base to surface relevant SOPs and articles
• No-code workflow automation with pre-built integrations
• Custom SLAs, reporting, and audit trails for continuous improvement
• Built-in compliance and enterprise-grade security controls
• Proactive problem and change management workflows
• Integrations with Slack, Microsoft Teams, Okta, PagerDuty, JIRA, CRMs, etc.

4. ServiceNow

ServiceNow is an enterprise-grade ITSM solution built for large organizations with 5,000+ employees. It covers the full ITIL framework and offers numerous customization options, but typically requires significant investment in setup, consulting, and ongoing management.

Key features include:

• IT Service Management with resilient, productivity-focused services
• IT Operations Management with AIOps, insights, and predictive automation
• IT Asset Management to streamline hardware, software, and cloud-based lifecycles
• Strategic Portfolio Management for aligning IT strategy to business goals
• Incident management with AI and automation to minimize business impact
• Integrated AI agents and digital end-user experience monitoring
• Unified platform for IT, data, and workflows

5. SolarWinds

SolarWinds Service Desk provides a broad IT operations platform, combining observability, monitoring, and an ITSM tool in one suite. It is a strong fit for traditional industries and non-software enterprises, where IT is focused on core business tech such as POS systems or network infrastructure.

Key features include:

• Unified monitoring and observability across network, infrastructure, databases, and applications
• IT Service Management with AI and automation for ticket management and resolution
• Incident response tools to maintain operational resilience
• Enterprise Service Management to extend beyond IT
• AI-powered insights for hybrid IT environments
• Asset and CMDB management for tracking and governance

6. Ivanti

Ivanti (Neurons for ITSM/ESM) is an enterprise IT and security provider built for compliance-heavy environments. It is used by organizations like Goodyear and Domino’s to unify IT service management, asset lifecycle, and security workflows across multiple departments.

Key features include:

• IT Service Management for help desk and ticketing
• IT Asset Management for tracking and lifecycle governance
• Change management workflows aligned with ITIL best practices
• Endpoint management for visibility, control, and protection
• Automated workflows between IT and security for unified operations
• Ivanti Neurons AI platform combining analytics, automation, and user management
• Exposure management for the prioritization and remediation of vulnerabilities

7. BMC

BMC Helix is the modern successor to the Remedy platform, designed for very large enterprises running global IT operations. It brings AI-driven service management and AIOps features for organizations needing scale, speed, and advanced automation.

Key features include:

• AI agents that automate tasks, surface insights, and provide recommendations
• Intelligent knowledge management to consolidate and share organizational knowledge
• Conversational AI for end-user support
• AI-driven incident clustering to identify and address major issues faster
• Smart change risk analysis to reduce change-related failures
• Integrated discovery and AIOps for service infrastructure visibility
• Unified service and operations management with cross-team collaboration
• Automated knowledge capture from resolutions to grow institutional knowledge

Ready to See Risotto in Action?

Risotto is an AI-powered IT support platform that automates 20-60% of tier-1 requests. Unlike Freshservice’s clunky workflows and limited Slack connector, Risotto is Slack-native, quick to deploy, and stable at scale. It also features built-in automation for both knowledge-based requests and software access from day one.

Schedule a demo call today to see how Risotto can transform your internal support.