Every category where a model named ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
IT service management	IT operations and endpoint	10%	3 of 48	15%	33	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	1	0	2	0	3
GPT-5.4 mini	0	1	1	1	3
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	0	1	1
Perplexity Sonar	1	2	1	0	4
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	2	1	1	5
Mistral Small	0	1	0	0	1
DeepSeek V4 Flash	1	3	0	0	4
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	1	0	0	1	2
Kimi K2	0	4	0	0	4
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	4	0	1	5
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	1	0	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct16 labels1

Paraphrase5 labelsNone

Comparative24 labelsNone

Budget-constrained22 labels13

Scale-constrained11 labelsNone

Negative16 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative94 labels in all, every segment counted; 14 of the 14 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“This is a long-standing ITSM platform favored by mid-sized organizations that need comprehensive functionality at a reasonable price.” Claude Haiku 4.5 · ITSM · budget prompt · first choice

“the strongest default choice is ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus because it is repeatedly identified as the lowest-cost” Perplexity Sonar · ITSM · budget prompt · first choice

“Download ServiceDesk Plus free edition—it's the sweet spot for limited budgets without sacrificing usability.” Grok 4.1 Fast · ITSM · budget prompt · first choice

“is widely considered the best overall ITSM platform for companies with a limited budget” Qwen 3.7 Flash · ITSM · budget prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus — official advisories show multiple security fixes over time” GPT-5.4 mini · ITSM · negative prompt · soft negative

“Platforms with Common Pain Points (Proceed Cautiously) ... Frequent community posts about bugs” GLM 4.7 FlashX · ITSM · negative prompt · soft negative

“Clunky/outdated UI, steep learning curve, sluggish performance/customization” Grok 4.1 Fast · ITSM · negative prompt · soft negative

“frequent targets of high-severity security vulnerabilities (CVEs)” Gemini 3.5 Flash · ITSM · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, over the 94 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Freshservice83 of 9436Compare →

Jira Service Management83 of 9411Compare →

ServiceNow51 of 9412Not in the top three

BMC Helix ITSM36 of 941Not in the top three

Ivanti Neurons for ITSM26 of 941Not in the top three

Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk25 of 943Not in the top three

Alloy Navigator21 of 940Not in the top three

SolarWinds Service Desk21 of 940Not in the top three

Zendesk20 of 940Not in the top three

HaloITSM17 of 940Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 84 of the 94 answers that named ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

gartner.com59

alloysoftware.com45

blog.invgate.com40

eesel.ai39

motadata.com30

cloudnuro.ai27

xurrent.com26

toolradar.com25

guideflow.com24

expertinsights.com22

337 of the 337 domain citations in answers naming ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

gartner.com/reviews/market/it-service-management-platforms58

alloysoftware.com/blog/best-itsm-platforms-for-small-business41

eesel.ai/blog/itsm-for-smb36

cloudnuro.ai/blog/best-itsm-tools-for-small-businesses-budget-friendly-options-with-enterp26

toolradar.com/guides/best-itsm-software25

guideflow.com/blog/it-service-management-tools24

motadata.com/blog/best-itsm-tools24

expertinsights.com/it-management/the-top-it-service-management-itsm-solutions21

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus; a claim can dispute any of them.

ManageEngine 3

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at manageengine.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

Your name and company appear on the claimed page, or the company alone if you ask below. A title and a LinkedIn address appear there too if you give them, and are left off if you do not. Your email address is never published.