Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Hosting Software and Control Panels : Kayako v4 alternatives?

[Toby H]

We were looking to move to Kayako from our now under-featured in house solution, but the new pricing they have implemented with v4 pushes it over what I would be happy to spend up front.

Of course as a hosting company using their hosted option seems kind of silly to us, and currently you can only be company.kayako.com which to be frank, looks really unprofessional who ever you are- its also pretty expensive considering that flaw.

So, what are the alternatives, and what does everyone think of them? It'd be really nice if we could build up a list of products here with some reviews and information on their compared features vs cost.

What I do not want to see is people plugging their software, or people from Kayako justifying the new pricing. I've read all that and understand why you've done it, it just pushes the software out of my budget.

Many thanks,

[M Bacon]

Are you looking for Live Chat or a Help Desk or both?

Help Desk Software
http://thevisionworld.com $9.99 /month
http://accord5.com Free

Live Chat Software
http://livezilla.net Free
http://livehelp.stardevelop.com/$119.95 for one domain and $249.95 for Multiple Domains
http://www.phplivesupport.com/ $49.95

I tried these before and thought they wasn't that bad all. We can't think of any others at the moment.

[bluemediaprint]

Kayako Alternative Helpdesk Softwares

Vision Helpdesk starts from $9.99 per month unlimited staff.
WHMCS offers billing and limited support options but its good for small companies who do not want advance helpdesk features.
Trellis Free

[Daryl]

If you go with WHMCS, not only do you get a billing system but a support system and as an option upgrade you can have the Star Develop live chat system within WHMCS as well.

[philtrix]

I got free Vision Helpdesk (http://www.thevisionworld.com) license from my web hosting provider and have been using it since last few weeks now and pretty satisfied with its features and working..

The application is a very good alternative to Kayako considering the vast number of features it offers as compared to high kayako pricing.

[Toby H]

Thanks for all the suggestions so far!

Originally Posted by M Bacon

Are you looking for Live Chat or a Help Desk or both?

Just a help desk really, as we've got Zopim in place for live chat which we really like, but I was interested in the new features of Kayako's full package with their new live chat system

Originally Posted by Daryl

If you go with WHMCS, not only do you get a billing system but a support system and as an option upgrade you can have the Star Develop live chat system within WHMCS as well.

Because of what we do, WHMCS wouldn't really fit our needs for billing, and the support desk doesn't have enough reporting functions etc. Perfect for shared hosting, but the accountability with reporting and features like SLA management that we need isn't there.


Anyone using ZenDesk or Ceberus? I'm pretty interested in ZenDesk but not seen much mention of hosting companies using it.

[dazmanultra]

How many employees do you have?

On a per employee basis Kayako isn't that expensive.

[bluemediaprint]

Originally Posted by Toby H

Anyone using ZenDesk or Ceberus? I'm pretty interested in ZenDesk but not seen much mention of hosting companies using it.

Zendesk is just good looking but useless for Web Hosting.

Cerberus is bad looking and non user friendly, You can try installing their software and you will know what I mean

Again its just my opinion, you are free to burn your time and energy.

[08A4210]

I am trying to find a way too.

Kayako has become a nightmare for me.

Simply is not a service I can trust any more. the software is full of bugs and features lost. good luck

[JFSG]

If you need cheaper Vision Helpdesk license you can visit LicensePal. It's pretty cheap and many are recommending it.

http://www.licensepal.com/products/vision.php

[tickedon]

Originally Posted by Toby H

Anyone using ZenDesk or Ceberus? I'm pretty interested in ZenDesk but not seen much mention of hosting companies using it.

I've been a big fan of Cerberus for many years. We haven't used their most recent release but it's backed by a great team (we ended up building our own helpdesk to meet some specific needs and so no longer use Cerberus).

The staff interface is a bit... bland? Certainly very functional though and all the features you'd need should be there somewhere.

The front-facing customer interface was always very easily themed - we got plenty of comments from our customers asking what we were using as it was really nice and worked really well.

I can only assume that V5 continues that and is even better. Well worth a look imo

[bluemediaprint]

Originally Posted by tickedon

(we ended up building our own helpdesk to meet some specific needs and so no longer use Cerberus).

That's what happens when you start using Cerberus you start feeling better develop our own helpdesk. Cerberus is backed by good developers but lacking design and architecture.

[tickedon]

Originally Posted by bluemediaprint

That's what happens when you start using Cerberus you start feeling better develop our own helpdesk. Cerberus is backed by good developers but lacking design and architecture.

Not actually true in our case! I didn't want to get into it in my last post - our "specific needs" are that we actually sell billing/CRM software and our customers wanted an integrated helpdesk, which we built. It would be a bit strange if we didn't use our own software, so that's why we switched ("eating your own dog food" and all that!).

I've nothing but praise for Cerberus, and it's full readable source nature makes it very easy to customise (which we had).

[Toby H]

Originally Posted by dazmanultra

How many employees do you have?

On a per employee basis Kayako isn't that expensive.

There's 5 of us, we're just under a year old as a company, until now we're not really been offering our services to the world and just working with some specific partners, as such we'd been using our own systems for client management, support and billing.

Now the time has come for us to start offering our services more widely, we're looking to switch to easier to use and nicer to look at software for our customer facing systems, rather than our current internal helpdesk system.

Thanks

[gotlivechat]

Hi, have you done a quick search on any SE for live support software or live chat software? You should find plenty of providers, or in-house software you can run on your own servers.