Freshservice
osTicket
| Feature | Freshservice | osTicket |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | From $19/mo | Free / from $12/mo |
| Free Plan | ✗ No | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.4 / 5 | 4 / 5 |
| Best For | it-teams, enterprise, msp-providers, help-desks | small-businesses, budget-conscious-teams, self-hosted-advocates, it-departments |
| Founded | 2014 | 2003 |
| Incident Management | ✓ | ✗ |
| Asset Management | ✓ | ✗ |
| Change Management | ✓ | ✗ |
| Service Catalog | ✓ | ✗ |
| Knowledge Base | ✓ | ✓ |
| Ai Agent | ✓ | ✗ |
| Ticket Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Email Piping | ✗ | ✓ |
| Custom Fields | ✗ | ✓ |
| Sla Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Agent Collision Avoidance | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Freshservice Pros
- Intuitive interface
- ITIL-ready
- Good automation
- AI capabilities
✗ Freshservice Cons
- Expensive at higher tiers
- Limited customization
- Reporting limitations
✓ osTicket Pros
- Completely free self-hosted version
- Active open-source community
- Highly customizable
- Supports multiple departments
✗ osTicket Cons
- Dated user interface
- Requires server management
- Limited automation compared to paid tools
The Verdict
Freshservice is built for it teams and enterprise, with a focus on incident-management and asset-management. osTicket targets small businesses and budget conscious teams and leads with ticket-management and email-piping.
On pricing, osTicket is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $12/mo compared to $19/mo for Freshservice. That $7/mo difference adds up quickly for growing teams.
osTicket has a free plan, which gives it a meaningful edge for individuals and small teams exploring their options. Freshservice requires a paid subscription from day one.
Freshservice edges out on user ratings (4.4 vs 4). While both are well-regarded, that gap reflects real differences in user satisfaction worth considering.
Bottom line: Freshservice has a slight overall edge — but if completely free self-hosted version matters most to you, osTicket may still be the right call.