Spiceworks Help Desk vs Zammad (2026): which should you pick?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Spiceworks Help Desk and Zammad share a 2.8 GPA, both have a free plan, and Spiceworks Help Desk starts cheaper, at $6 a month for each person against about $7.82 a month for each person.
Checked Nov 12, 2026 · graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA
Spiceworks Help Desk grades higher on value for money. Zammad grades higher on features. They get the same grade on the free plan, ease of use and platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Spiceworks Help Desk
Free cloud ticketing for IT teams, with a low-cost ad-free tier
Zammad
Open-source help desk, hosted in Germany or run on your own server
Which one is for you
Pick Spiceworks Help Desk if
- Fits if you run IT for an organization and want a ticket desk without a bill
- Works for an IT team of up to 5 techs
Look elsewhere if
- Skip it if you need to serve outside customers by chat or social
- Tight if you have more than 5 techs, since Core stops there and Premium is $6 a seat
- Not for you if ads in the tool bother you, as ad-free is Premium
- Watch out: you need a Spiceworks account to sign up, and tasklists, bulk actions and custom statuses are Premium
Pick Zammad if
- Fits if you want a help desk you can host yourself or rent hosted
- Works for a team that wants WhatsApp and Facebook channels on the top plan
Look elsewhere if
- Tight if you grow: Starter stops at 5 agents and Professional at 35
- Watch out: prices exclude VAT, and AI features cost €0.03 per call on top
- Watch out: annual billing runs a full year and needs notice at least two months before it ends
- Watch out: self-hosting makes you responsible for updates, backups and uptime, and support subscriptions for it start at €2,999 a year
How we grade them
| 2.8GPASpiceworks Help DeskGood | 2.8GPAZammadGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | ACore is free, and Premium is $6 per seat a month billed annually, under the $11.40 mark (60% of the cheapest quarter in this category). | BStarter is €7 per agent a month billed annually, under the $11.40 mark, but it stops at 5 agents, and chat and SLAs need Professional at €16. Prices exclude VAT. |
| Free plan and trial | BCore gives 1 to 5 tech and admin seats with ticketing, reporting and a portal, which a small IT team could live on. It is supported by ads. | BThe open-source software is free to run yourself and the hosted service has a 30-day Professional trial. Self-hosting means updates, backups and uptime are yours. |
| Features | CIT tickets by portal or email, assignment, alerts and reporting. The listing's gaps: no live chat or social channels, and tasklists, bulk actions and custom statuses are Premium. | BEmail, forms, SMS, chat, Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp, with macros, triggers, SLAs and a knowledge base across the plans. Nothing in the listing shows a gap in core ticketing. |
| Ease of use | CNo store rating on record, and you'd set up the portal, categories and alerts yourself. | CNo store rating on record, and channels, triggers and roles need setting up. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWeb plus iPhone and Android apps, with 4 listed integrations. No desktop app on record. | BWeb only, with 6 listed integrations including GitHub and GitLab links. No phone or desktop app on record. |
| Best for | a free ticket desk for an IT team | an open-source help desk you can host or rent |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Spiceworks Help Desk and Zammad. How we grade
Price against what you get
Spiceworks Help Desk starts at $6 a month for each person and scores 2.3 out of 4 on features, ease of use and platforms. Zammad starts at about $7.82 a month for each person and scores 2.7.
Zammad scores higher, and starts $1.82 a month higher: the question is whether the extra is worth that to you. Of the other help desk and live chat tools on the chart, none scores higher than Spiceworks Help Desk for less, and 1 scores higher than Zammad for less.
Features, ease of use and platforms, averaged
What paid plans start at, a month (each step along is roughly double) →
- The best score at each price
- Has a free plan
- No free plan
Where they differ
- Zammad is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
- Spiceworks Help Desk also covers workflow automation, reports and help center.
- Zammad also covers shared inbox and live chat.
At a glance
| Spiceworks Help Desk | Zammad | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $6 per seat / month, billed annually ($7 billed monthly) | €7 per agent / month, billed annually (€9 billed monthly) |
| Free plan | Core plan: 1 to 5 tech and admin seats, ticketing, incident tracking, alerts, reporting, unlimited end users and an end-user portal. Supported by ads. | The open-source software is free to download and run on your own servers; you handle updates, backups and availability. |
| Free trial | None listed | 30-day free trial of the hosted service on the Professional plan |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Spiceworks Inc. | Zammad GmbH |
| Price read from | spiceworks.com | zammad.com |
| Checked | Nov 12, 2026 | Nov 12, 2026 |
Worth knowing
Spiceworks Help Desk
- Core is limited to 5 tech and admin seats and is ad-supported; going ad-free or adding seats means Premium.
- Tasklists, bulk actions and custom ticket statuses are Premium only.
- Built for IT requests inside an organization; it has no live chat or social channels for outside customers.
- A Spiceworks account is needed to sign up.
Zammad
- Prices are in euros and exclude value-added tax; hosted plans cap agents at 5 on Starter and 35 on Professional.
- Annual billing runs for a full year and needs notice at least two months before the term ends.
- AI features are optional and cost €0.03 per AI call on top of the plan price.
- Self-hosting makes you responsible for updates, backups and availability.
Key features
Spiceworks Help Desk
- End-user portal and email intake
- Staff can submit tickets through a customizable web portal or by email to the help desk address, with unlimited end users on both plans.
- Ticket rules and routing
- Rules assign tickets, set categories, due dates and priorities when a condition is met, and tickets can be sorted into custom queues and views.
- Reporting and Power BI connector
- Filterable reports cover open or pending tickets over a chosen period, and a Power BI Desktop connector pulls the data into a report template.
- Knowledge base
- Teams can write articles private to themselves or adapt shared how-tos to their own environment.
- Mobile app
- A native app for iOS and Android lets technicians manage tickets away from a desk.
- Links to other Spiceworks tools
- It connects to Spiceworks' Inventory Online, Connectivity Dashboard, IP Scanner and vendor contracts tools.
Zammad
- Multichannel tickets
- Email, web forms and SMS on every hosted plan, chat and Telegram from Professional, and Facebook and WhatsApp on Plus.
- Automation tools
- Text modules, macros, triggers, schedulers and business hours are in the Starter plan; SLAs and custom roles start at Professional.
- Knowledge base
- A monolingual knowledge base is included from Professional and a multilingual one from Plus.
- Hosted in Germany
- Hosted instances run in an ISO 27001-certified German data center with SSL encryption and two-factor authentication.
- Optional AI features
- Professional and Plus can switch on AI features such as ticket summaries, charged at €0.03 per AI call.
- Open source, self-hostable
- The full code is public under a GPL v3 licence, so a team can run it on its own servers.
Plans
Spiceworks Help Desk
Core$0
1 to 5 tech and admin seats with ticketing, incident tracking, alerts, reporting, an end-user portal, custom attributes and multi-factor authentication.
Premium$6
per seat / month, billed annually ($7 billed monthly)
Unlimited tech and admin seats, with no ads, tasklists, bulk actions and custom ticket statuses on top of Core.
Zammad
Starter v2€7
per agent / month, billed annually (€9 billed monthly)
Hosted. Up to 5 agents; email, web form and SMS channels, text modules, macros, triggers and 20 GB of disk space.
Professional v2€16
per agent / month, billed annually (€18 billed monthly)
Hosted. Up to 35 agents; adds chat and Telegram, SLAs, individual roles, a monolingual knowledge base and 50 GB of disk.
Plus v2€25
per agent / month, billed annually (€27 billed monthly)
Hosted. Unlimited agents; adds Facebook and WhatsApp, a multilingual knowledge base, GitHub/GitLab links and reporting.
Self-hosted€0
Download Zammad and host it yourself under its open-source licence, with no vendor support included.
Self-hosted support€2,999
per year (Business); Enterprise €5,999, Corporation €9,999
Support subscriptions for self-hosted installs, with response times of 6, 4 or 2 hours and 15, 45 or 95 service requests a year.
Ways to pay less
Spiceworks Help Desk
- Annual discount
Save 14.29% with annual billing
Premium is $6 per seat a month billed annually, against $7 billed monthly, a saving the page puts at 14.29%.
Zammad
- Annual discount
Save 10% with annual billing
The hosted pricing page offers a lower per-agent price on annual billing than on monthly billing, labeled as a 10% saving.
Common questions
Which is cheaper, Spiceworks Help Desk or Zammad?
As of Nov 12, 2026, Spiceworks Help Desk is cheaper to start with: $6 a month for each person, against about $7.82 a month for each person for Zammad. Spiceworks Help Desk starts at $6 per seat / month, billed annually ($7 billed monthly), and Zammad starts at €7 per agent / month, billed annually (€9 billed monthly).
Which has a free plan, Spiceworks Help Desk or Zammad?
As of Nov 12, 2026, both Spiceworks Help Desk and Zammad have a free plan.
Which platforms do Spiceworks Help Desk and Zammad run on?
As of Nov 12, 2026, only Spiceworks Help Desk lists iOS and Android apps. Both list a web app. A platform missing from a listing is one its maker's pages did not mention.
More comparisons
How this page was made
- The verdict at the top follows a fixed rule. When both tools are in the same category and either is in our top three for it, the verdict follows that ranking: the higher-placed tool is our pick. The top three weigh who each tool suits as well as its grades, so a pick can go against the GPA. Otherwise the page does not pick one and says which grades higher: the higher GPA first; on a tie, the one with a free plan, then the one that starts cheaper in dollars a month, counted the same way for both; if they are still level, what the choice depends on.
- The grades are our own, from each tool’s review or report card. The GPA is their average.
- Prices, plans and platforms come from each tool’s listing. The table above says where each price was read and when.
- The differences and the answers to the questions are worked out from those listings.