I'm researching cloud-based alternatives to Freshdesk and Jira that are in a similar or lower price range than Jira and support Okta integration for SSO. Freshdesk is currently used mainly for ticketing, while Jira is used by another team for tickets, DevOps, and Confluence-related work. I'm still gathering possibilities for decision-makers, so recommendations for tools worth shortlisting would be helpful. I also plan to clarify each team's detailed workflows before making a final comparison.
5 Answers
Before comparing products, it would help to define exactly what each team needs. Freshdesk may only need to be replaced as a basic ticketing system, while replacing the Jira, DevOps, and Confluence combination could require project tracking, documentation, integrations, and development workflows. Those are very different requirements.
Alloy Navigator could also be a candidate. It combines service desk features with asset management and supports Okta SSO. Compare it with Halo and JitBit based on your required workflows, number of users, and the full implementation cost.
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is another commonly considered option, and Desk365 may be worth checking if affordability is the main concern. Verify their current Okta support and whether SSO is included in the plan you would actually purchase.
Halo and JitBit are worth putting on the shortlist. JitBit is often the more affordable option, while Halo can be a stronger fit for IT service management depending on the number of agents and users. Make sure you compare the actual workflows you need rather than just the headline license price.
Halo may or may not be cheaper depending on your scale, but I find it stronger than Jira for ITSM. Jira combined with Confluence is still particularly convenient for development and DevOps teams.
Ask every vendor for pricing with SAML or Okta SSO included. Some products look inexpensive until SSO moves you to an enterprise plan. If this is mainly an internal help desk, ClearFeed may be worth investigating because it can bring requests from Slack, email, and a portal into one queue. However, Okta SSO is on its custom enterprise tier and it does not currently provide SCIM, so it may not end up cheaper. It also is not a general replacement for Jira's software or project-tracking functions.
That distinction is important: a help-desk replacement and a Jira replacement may need to be evaluated separately instead of expecting one product to cover both equally well.
That makes sense. I'm mainly collecting possible options right now, then I'll get more detail from the teams before narrowing down the requirements and pricing.