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Compare: PSA and service desk

Zendesk alternative: Tenvara

Zendesk is a customer service platform used by all kinds of businesses, and some MSPs use it for their helpdesk and live chat. It is built for customer service in general rather than around MSP work such as devices, contracts and billable time. MSPs look at Tenvara when they want a service desk made for IT support, where tickets and chats sit next to the customer's devices, contracts and time.

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Tenvara: PSA and service desk

The tool today

What Zendesk does

A general customer service platform with ticketing, messaging, a help centre and AI agents. Made by Zendesk. This is how the vendor describes it, in our words.

  • Email ticketing with routing, pre-written responses, automations and triggers.
  • Messaging, live chat and telephony on Suite plans.
  • A help centre and knowledge base for self-service.
  • SLA policies for reply and resolution times.
  • AI agents, reporting dashboards and a marketplace of over 1,800 apps and integrations.

Side by side

Tenvara vs Zendesk

The PSA and service desk jobs that matter most, and how each product handles them. Then what else comes with Tenvara, such as RMM, remote access and Microsoft 365 management, in the same app.

Email ticketing with SLAs

Tenvara Yes

Microsoft 365 mailboxes, SLAs per priority Guide

Zendesk Yes

SLA policies on selected plans

Live chat

Tenvara Yes

Website widget, portal and tray on managed PCs Guide

Zendesk Yes

Messaging and live chat on Suite plans

Help centre and knowledge base

Tenvara Yes

Help articles published to the portal Guide

Zendesk Yes

Knowledge base on Suite plans

Saved replies

Tenvara Yes

Shared and personal canned responses with placeholders Guide

Zendesk Yes

Shared and personal macros

Approvals

Tenvara Yes

Multi-step, with customer approvers by email or portal Guide

Zendesk Yes

Ticket approvals on Professional plans and above

Chat routing by skill

Tenvara Yes

Chat channels routed by page, team and skill Guide

Zendesk Yes

Skills routing on Professional plans and above

Customer satisfaction

Tenvara Yes

Ratings on resolved tickets and NPS surveys Guide

Zendesk Yes

CSAT surveys

Devices on the ticket

Tenvara Yes

Linked devices with health and Remote in Guide

Zendesk No

Built for general customer service

Contracts and billable time

Tenvara Yes

Included hours, overage and native invoices Guide

Zendesk No

Built for general customer service

Information requests and conditional forms

Tenvara Yes

Conditional forms, tables and secrets to the vault Guide

Zendesk Yes

Conditional ticket fields on Suite Growth and above

SLAs by department or VIP

Tenvara Yes

A policy per department and one for VIP contacts Guide

Zendesk Yes

SLA conditions on user and organisation fields

Ticket categories

Tenvara Yes

Three levels deep, required per queue or ticket type Guide

Zendesk Yes

Nested drop-down ticket fields

On-hold statuses that pause the SLA

Tenvara Yes

A reason and a date, pausing only the SLA clocks you choose Guide

Zendesk Yes

On-hold and Pending pause agent work time

Phone calls to tickets

Tenvara Yes

Call pop-up with caller lookup, from your own phone system Guide

Zendesk Yes

Calls become tickets with Talk or a Suite plan

Also in Tenvara

What else you get with Tenvara, in the same app

Remote monitoring and alerts

Tenvara Yes

Device health, checks and alerts by policy, on one agent Guide

Zendesk No

Not included

Remote access

Tenvara Yes

Control a device's screen from the browser, with every session logged Guide

Zendesk No

Not included; integrates with TeamViewer and Splashtop

Microsoft 365 management

Tenvara Yes

Every customer tenant, its users, licences, starters and leavers Guide

Zendesk No

Not included

Endpoint, server and VM backup

Tenvara Yes

Image, folder and Hyper-V or Proxmox VM backups Guide

Zendesk No

Not included

Patching

Tenvara Yes

Operating system updates by policy in maintenance windows Guide

Zendesk No

Not included

Security monitoring

Tenvara Yes

Security events from devices, Microsoft 365 and firewalls, with detections Guide

Zendesk No

Not included

Credentials vault

Tenvara Yes

Encrypted logins and two-factor secrets, with every reveal logged Guide

Zendesk No

Not included

Microsoft 365 backup

Tenvara Yes

Mail, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams backed up and restored Guide

Zendesk No

Not included

Project management

Tenvara Yes

Phases, tasks, dependencies, timelines and budgets for each customer Guide

Zendesk No

Not included; integrations via Marketplace

Invoicing and payments

Tenvara Yes

Invoices from contracts and time, Xero or QuickBooks sync, card and Direct Debit Guide

Zendesk No

Not included; integrations via Marketplace

Add-on means the vendor sells it as a separate product or paid extra. Zendesk details come from the vendor's own website, see sources.

The one-app pitch

What else you'd replace

Most MSPs running Zendesk pay for several other tools beside it. Tenvara does these jobs too, on the same customer record, with one agent and one login.

See every comparison

Switching

Moving from Zendesk

A calm move, not a big bang. Run both side by side until your team is happy.

How a gradual move to Tenvara works
  1. 1

    Import your customers, sites and contacts

    Import customers, sites and contacts from a CSV export, with a dry run first. Contact email addresses matter, as incoming mail is matched on them.

    Importing from CSV
  2. 2

    Point your support mailbox at Tenvara

    Connect your Microsoft 365 support mailbox so new mail becomes tickets, and finish open tickets in Zendesk.

    Email to ticket and alert rules
  3. 3

    Swap the chat widget

    Add a Tenvara chat widget for your website and paste its one-line embed code in place of the Zendesk one.

    Website widget, portal and tray
  4. 4

    Recreate your help articles

    Copy the articles customers use most into the Tenvara knowledge base and publish them to the portal.

    Knowledge base articles

Zendesk pricing

Zendesk publishes its prices on its website. Check its pricing page for current prices and terms.

Vendor pricing page

Tenvara pricing

One product with every feature included, hosted or self-hosted. Tenvara is new and in beta, and pricing is announced before launch.

See pricing

Questions

Zendesk vs Tenvara: FAQ

In Tenvara a ticket links to the customer's devices, alerts and contract, time counts towards billing, and chats from the tray arrive tied to the computer.

Email to your Microsoft 365 support mailbox, the customer portal, live chat from your website, the portal and the tray on managed computers, plus alerts that open tickets through your rules.

Yes. Publish knowledge base or customer articles to the portal's Help centre, which has search, and insert them into ticket replies as links.

With Microsoft sign-in, an emailed code, a password with two-factor or a passkey. They raise and follow tickets, approve requests, read help articles, accept quotes and chat with you.

Yes. Export your customers, sites and contacts to CSV and import them in Settings, Migration, with column mapping, a dry run first and undo if you need it.

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Tenvara is coming soon.

Apply for the beta to run Tenvara side by side with Zendesk before you decide, or get launch updates and hear first when pricing is announced.

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Comparison based on publicly available information as of September 2026. Zendesk is a trademark of its owner; Tenvara is not affiliated with it. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll correct it.

Sources