| Functionality | 8 <p>Atlas offers most of the support functionality that SMBs will need. It includes support for most channels, help centre creation, basic AI, automation and reporting functionality. It also uniquely offers "session recording" functionality, which allows you to view a video/ live session of a user using your web product. </p><p>However, it lacks more advanced features such as a chatbot builder, native phone and SMS support, advanced automation, and custom reporting. The product is still evolving, with features in beta. </p> | 10 <p>Zendesk packs all the essential support tools most SMBs—and even enterprises—could ask for. It stands out with the most comprehensive range of support channels in our curation, making it easy to manage seamless cross-channel communication with customers within a single ticket. Plus, its advanced automation, AI capabilities, and robust reporting features are hard to beat.</p><p>In our experience, Zendesk tends to be the go-to platform for companies looking to level up their customer support as they grow.</p> |
| Ease of Use | 8 <p>Atlas has a gentle learning curve, and really shines with its efficient keyboard shortcuts that power users love. One of its best features is the customer timeline, which gives you a clear, chronological view of every client interaction at a glance. While everything flows nicely for shortcut users, those who prefer mouse navigation might find it frustrating that they can't see all tickets in a sidebar.</p> | 2 <p>Zendesk has one of the steepest learning curves we’ve seen. The interface can feel overwhelming, with settings spread out across different areas like Zendesk Chat and the Admin Center. If you don’t have an admin with prior experience configuring and managing Zendesk, getting up to speed can quickly become frustrating.</p> |
| Look and feel | 6 <p>Atlas has a modern, clean interface that is pleasing to use. However, the UI lacks the polish of more established competitors, and loading times can be comparatively slow, taking 2-3 seconds for some pages.</p> | 4 <p>From both an agent and admin perspective, Zendesk’s interface feels plain, and some pages can come across as cluttered and overwhelming. But on the bright side, page load times are quick.</p> |
| Customisability | 6 <p>Atlas offers a standard level of customisability.</p><p>Users can create custom fields for customers, set up custom views, and track custom events. The live chat widget and chatbot builder have standard customization options.</p><p>However, it lacks more advanced customization features like custom objects, custom actions, and custom reports. Help Centre customization (style, layout) is particularly limited.</p> | 10 <p>Zendesk offers a high level of customization for both internal and external pages. Externally, you can deeply customize the style and layout of your Help Center (supporting over 40 languages), even using custom code to make it uniquely yours. Internally, the agent workspace is also highly flexible—you can tailor the layout and how information is displayed, with dynamic updates based on the content of each ticket.</p> |
| Ease of Setup | 4 <p>Frustratingly, Atlas does not offer a self-serve free trial for its platform. Instead, you'll need to trudge through a sales demo before you can get access. However, the process is relatively short and smooth and once access was granted, we found the tool to be simple to set up and configure.</p> | 3 <p>We found Zendesk's onboarding process to be clunky and a bit overwhelming. Configuring even a basic setup can take over 30 minutes, largely because the interface feels disjointed, with settings scattered in different places. Connecting your first channels can be especially frustrating—for instance, linking external emails requires manual configuration unless you’re using Gmail. And because the platform is so customizable, it’s easy to spend an entire week fine-tuning everything to fully unlock its potential.</p> |
| Customer Support | 9 <p>Atlas's customer support is excellent. They offer 24/7 in-app live chat with Atlas's team (including the founder!), who are always happy to provide friendly and personal help.</p> | 2 <p>Multiple users we’ve spoken to have raised concerns about Zendesk’s customer support. A common frustration is the support team’s tendency to provide unhelpful responses, often redirecting users to irrelevant Help Center articles and requiring far too much back-and-forth. We also found navigating Zendesk’s Help Center to be a challenge—it’s missing the clear visuals and video guidance that other platforms do so well.</p> |
| Integratability | 4 <p>Atlas only has 15 pre-built integrations. While these integrations cover key areas like CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot, Close, Pipedrive) and calling (Aircall, Dialpad), it lacks integrations with popular tools in other categories such as project management, data enrichment, and surveys. It does offer an API for custom integrations.</p> | 9 <p>Zendesk boasts a massive ecosystem of pre-built integrations that cover most of the tools startups rely on. This includes popular CRMs like HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Salesforce, email marketing tools like Mailchimp, and project management platforms like Asana, Jira, and Trello. Beyond that, it offers an extensive marketplace for even more integrations, plus a robust API for building custom connections.</p> |
| Ease of Migration | 3 <p>Atlas's data export capabilities are somewhat limited. While reporting data for selected reports can be exported directly from within Atlas, most data seem only available for export via API. For example, tickets can only be exported as PDFs.</p> | 8 <p>Zendesk allows you to self-serve export key data with ease. For most other data, exports are available either through the API or by making a request to their support team.</p> |
