Zendesk vs. LiveChat: A comparison guide for 2025
The best customer service software is scalable, reliable, and has a low total cost of ownership. See how we compare to LiveChat and give a free trial a go.
Why is Zendesk the best alternative to LiveChat?
Providing good customer service without the right software is like going on a road trip by horse and carriage. Sure, it may be possible, but your experience likely won’t be great. When choosing customer service software, Zendesk and LiveChat are two options—follow along to see how the two compare.
Scalability
Zendesk is a comprehensive customer service solution built to grow alongside small, medium, or enterprise businesses. Our solution includes live chat, ticketing, call center, knowledge base, and messaging functionality. As the name suggests, LiveChat focuses primarily on chat-based support and lacks advanced ticketing capabilities, making it an inadequate choice for businesses seeking a comprehensive customer service solution to scale alongside them. Additionally, LiveChat supports far fewer integrations than complete customer service solutions like Zendesk.
Speed and reliability
Zendesk is built with customer experience (CX) best practices in mind and is ready to use out of the box, allowing you to move at the speed of your customers. Conversely, users have expressed dissatisfaction with the speed and reliability of LiveChat. For example, users said the live chat tool lags and glitches often and causes problems that increase customer wait time.
No hidden costs
Zendesk is a cost-effective solution with no hidden fees or endless add-ons, including everything you need to offer quality support from day one, such as a knowledge base, bots, and a help desk. On the other hand, LiveChat requires paid add-ons for the same features, increasing your total cost of ownership (TCO). As a result, users express dissatisfaction with its pricing. For example, one user stated that the tool costs a lot for poor support. Similarly, another user said that the solution is quite expensive for what it offers.
More in this guide:
- At-a-glance comparison: Zendesk vs. LiveChat
- LiveChat vs. Zendesk: Features comparison
- Join more than 160,000 companies that trust Zendesk
- Frequently asked questions
- Ready to try Zendesk?
At-a-glance comparison: Zendesk vs. LiveChat
Learn more about Zendesk vs. LiveChat with this quick side-by-side comparison.
| What you need to deliver the best CX | Zendesk | LiveChat |
|---|---|---|
| Omnichannel support | ✓ | Limited channels |
| Reporting and analytics | ✓ | Limited capabilities |
| Customizations | ✓ | Limited customizations |
| Apps and integrations | 1,500+ | ~200 |
| Call management | ✓ | Paid integration required |
| AI | ✓ | Limited features |
LiveChat vs. Zendesk: Features comparison
To better understand LiveChat vs. Zendesk, here are six key features you should consider before making a choice.
Omnichannel support
Zendesk empowers agents to deliver personalized, omnichannel service. Our solution provides a full view of the customer across any channel like email, live chat, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, and more.
Alternatively, LiveChat caters to businesses focusing on direct and real-time customer engagement, which may limit your capability to offer an extensive support experience.
Reporting and analytics
Zendesk features pre-built and customizable dashboards and customer service reports, giving businesses real-time and historical insights into their support operations so they can take action on their data.
On the other hand, LiveChat is limited to chat-related metrics. Because of this, users have expressed a desire for more advanced reporting capabilities and deeper insights into customer behavior and agent productivity.
Customizations
Zendesk is flexible and easy to customize, allowing agents to adapt their workspace to unique workflows. Our complete customer support solution enables you to create tailored help centers, live chat widgets, community forums, and more.
Meanwhile, LiveChat lacks agent profile customization, which impacts branding for users.
Apps and integrations
Zendesk offers over 1,500 apps and integrations, from marketing automation software to customer relationship management (CRM) tools. This gives your business a 360-degree customer view without juggling multiple apps, allowing your business to scale to new use cases.
Unlike Zendesk, LiveChat is limited to roughly 200 integrations.
Call management
Zendesk enables businesses to take calls with call center software right out of the box. Our voice solution includes interactive voice response (IVR) routing, call recording, and an embedded call button that lets customers place calls via mobile app or web browser.
LiveChat, however, relies on a paid integration with SnapCall for calling features, increasing its TCO.
AI
Zendesk AI is built on billions of customer service interactions, which means you can offer fast and personalized AI-powered support in just a few clicks—no training required. From chatbots and generative AI tools to AI-powered knowledge bases, our AI lends your team a helping hand to boost productivity and save costs.
LiveChat has limited AI features. Unlike LiveChat, standard bots come in all Zendesk Suite plans.
Join more than 160,000 companies that trust Zendesk
More than 160,000 companies across industries trust Zendesk, including Uber, Vimeo, and Grubhub. Hear from customers who have benefited from partnering with us.
Age of Learning
Learn how Age of Learning leverages Zendesk.
Shopify
Lightspeed
Discover how Lightspeed utilizes Zendesk.
Frequently asked questions
Ready to try Zendesk?
When choosing between LiveChat and Zendesk, you’ll want a scalable, quick, and reliable solution with a low TCO. Zendesk is that solution. Our end-to-end customer service software is built to grow alongside your business and features CX best practices right out of the box, all without hidden fees. This enables your team to provide meaningful support from day one, saving you time and money. See for yourself with a free trial.
Zendesk vs. the rest: Compare the software
Continue reading to discover how Zendesk compares to other customer service software.