Help Desk Software · reliability comparison
Intercom vs Zendesk: which is more reliable? (2026)
Intercom is more reliable than Zendesk, scoring 87.9 vs 51.7 out of 100. Over the last 90 days Intercom reported 8 incidents and Zendesk reported 13, with effective uptime of 99.92% and 98.85% respectively. Intercom resolves incidents faster on average (1h).
Data updated Nov 2, 2026 · How we score
| Metric | Intercom | Zendesk |
|---|---|---|
| Reliability score | 87.9 | 51.7 |
| Rank (help desk platforms) | #8 | #12 |
| Uptime (90 days) | 99.92% | 98.85% |
| Incidents (90 days) | 8 | 13 |
| Partial / major outages | 3 | 10 |
| Avg time to resolve | 1h | 7h 47m |
| Outages we detected | 0 | 0 |
| Transparency score | 100/100 | 100/100 |
Where Intercom and Zendesk differ
- Zendesk reported 63% more incidents than Intercom over the last 90 days (13 vs 8).
- Zendesk had 10 partial or major outages, compared with 3 for Intercom.
- Intercom fixes problems faster: 1h on average, against 7h 47m for Zendesk (7.8× quicker).
- Intercom's longest outage on record lasted 3h 29m (Apr 14, 2026); Zendesk's lasted 6h 40m (Sep 21, 2026).
90-day uptime
Intercom
Zendesk
- No incidents
- Degraded
- Partial outage
- Major outage
- No data
Recent Intercom incidents
- Degraded performanceOct 30, 2026 · resolved in 24m
Affected: Fin AI Agent
- Degraded performanceOct 14, 2026 · resolved in 12m
Customer contact details showing up as "Redacted" in the Intercom Inbox
Affected: Inbox
- Degraded performanceSep 16, 2026 · resolved in 5h 27m
Issues with Fin for Salesforce
Affected: Other
- Degraded performanceSep 9, 2026 · resolved in 9m
Messenger Help Articles not displaying
Affected: Mobile Messenger, Web Messenger
- Degraded performanceSep 4, 2026 · resolved in 39m
Fin intermittent failures responding to first conversation messages
Affected: Fin AI Agent
- Major outageSep 3, 2026 · resolved in 12m
Fin failures in Australia region
Affected: Apps and Integrations, Help Center, Reporting, Knowledge Hub, Phone, Tickets +10 more
Recent Zendesk incidents
- Partial outageOct 29, 2026 · resolved in 43m
Multiple Products access issues in Pod26
Affected: Support, Agent Workspace (via Support)
- Degraded performanceOct 29, 2026 · resolved in 2h 40m
Affected: Forethought AI Agents, Dashboard
- Major outageOct 28, 2026 · resolved in 1h 1m
Some customers are encountering CF error messages accessing Zendesk Supportofficial update ↗
Affected: Support, API, Knowledge, Articles / Knowledge Base, Community, Misc +24 more
- Partial outageOct 23, 2026 · resolved in 2h 58m
US-East degraded trafficofficial update ↗
Affected: Support, Ticketing
- Partial outageOct 22, 2026 · resolved in 2h 3m
Support Search errors pod 27official update ↗
Affected: Support, Search
- Degraded performanceOct 16, 2026 · resolved in 4d 14h
Affected: AI Agents, Core Services, Dashboard, Analytics
Other help desk platforms to consider
- Hiver · #1 · 99.99% uptime
- Kustomer · #2 · 99.99% uptime
- HubSpot Service Hub · #3 · 100% uptime
- Tidio · #4 · 99.98% uptime