FreeITSM vs ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
FreeITSM
freeitsm.co.uk
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
manageengine.comSide by side
| Figure | FreeITSM | ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $10/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 9 |
| Spec score · IT Change Management Software | 9.0 (#6) | 8.9 (#8) |
| Spec score · IT Knowledge Base Software | 8.9 (#9) | 8.8 (#11) |
| Spec score · AI IT Service Desk Software | 8.9 (#4) | 8.8 (#6) |
| Spec score · IT Problem Management Software | 9.0 (#7) | 9.0 (#8) |
| Spec score · IT SLA Management Software | 8.9 (#11) | 8.9 (#12) |
| Integrations | Official pages document Microsoft 365, Google Workspace/Gmail, VMware vCenter, Microsoft Intune, WhatsApp through Twilio or Meta, and optional chat channels. | Native integrations include Endpoint Central, Patch Manager Plus, Remote Access Plus, Vulnerability Manager Plus, Microsoft Intune, Configuration Manager, Microsoft 365, Active Directory, Entra ID, Zoho Assist, EventLog Analyzer and Log360. |
| Licence | The project is released under the MIT License. | ServiceDesk Plus is proprietary licensed software rather than open source; the EULA prohibits modification, reverse engineering and redistribution and restricts an installation to one server. |
| Public API | The product exposes a versioned REST API at /api/v1/, with an OpenAPI 3.0 document, granular permissions, rate limiting, structured JSON errors and audit parity with the UI. | The Cloud API v3 is a REST interface over HTTP that mirrors web-client operations and supports OAuth 2.0 and a Postman collection. |
| Security controls | System security features include OIDC SSO, TOTP MFA, password expiry, account lockout, IP brute-force bans, trusted devices and encrypted settings. | Security documentation states SAML 2.0 SSO, HTTPS and SSL transport, token-authenticated mobile connections, input filtering against SQL injection and XSS, role-based access, audit trails, brute-force/DoS detection and encrypted failover replication. |
| System requirements | Manual installation requires PHP 7.4–8.4, MySQL 8.0 or newer, PDO MySQL, cURL, OpenSSL and mbstring; MariaDB 10.5+ is also listed on the getting-started page. | The published MSP requirements list Windows Server 2019/2022/2025, Debian 11–13, RHEL 8 or later, Ubuntu 14 or later and CentOS; a baseline under 100 daily requests is 500GB SSD, 16GB RAM and four to eight CPU cores. |
| What it does | FreeITSM is a self-hosted web IT service-management platform for running a service desk and related IT operations. | ServiceDesk Plus combines IT service management, IT asset management, CMDB and enterprise service management for departments such as HR, facilities and finance, with cloud and on-premises deployment. |
Plans
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
- Standard$13 a month
- Professional$27 a month
- Enterprise$67 a month
- Standard Cloud$10 a month
- Professional Cloud$21 a month
- Enterprise Cloud$50 a month
- Standard On-premises$120 a month
- Professional On-premises$248 a month
- Enterprise On-premises$598 a month
In their own words
FreeITSM
FreeITSM is an open-source IT service management platform with 23 integrated modules for running a service desk. Its Tickets module connects Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace mailboxes for email ticketing, assignment, prioritisation, replies, attachments and audit trails. Assets tracks physical and virtual equipment and can discover VMware virtual machines through vCenter. Listed service-management tools include risk assessment, approval workflows, change calendars and change audit trails. Optional AI features provide knowledge answers, ticket-reply cleanup, form assistance, workflow authoring and problem detection. They use a customer-provided Anthropic, OpenAI or OpenRouter key, and provider usage may cost extra. FreeITSM runs with Docker on Linux or Windows, or through IIS with PHP or WAMP and MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.5+. Security options include OpenID Connect SSO, AES-256-GCM key management, TOTP multi-factor authentication, account lockout, brute-force protection and trusted devices. The project has no formal support.
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus is an IT help desk product with a free plan and a 30-day trial. Its feature set includes SLA management, a knowledge base, approval workflows, an employee portal, single sign-on, and IT asset management. The paid plans separate core help desk use from broader management needs: Standard is $13 a month, billed monthly, for IT help desk work; Professional is $27 a month, billed monthly, and adds asset management; Enterprise is $67 a month, billed monthly, and includes change management and projects alongside the help desk and asset management. The product is available on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web, and Windows, with mobile apps listed. That combination gives teams a way to compare the included service and asset capabilities against their plan requirements while accounting for access across desktop and mobile platforms.