9 best Front alternatives in 2027

The best Front alternatives in 2027 are Computer, by DevRev, Missive, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Hiver, Help Scout, Fin, HubSpot Service Hub, and Zoho Desk.

Front is a shared inbox for email, SMS, social, and chat, rated 4.6 on G2 from 2,518 reviews. Shared-inbox collaboration is its home ground, and several tools below match it. Others change the job.

This guide compares nine Front alternatives and competitors on shared-inbox fit, AI, seat price, and G2 rating. The right one depends on your team size, your budget, and whether you work inside Gmail or Slack.

TL;DR

These are the top alternatives to Front:

1. Computer, by DevRev: Best for tickets needing product and engineering context
2. Missive: Best for small teams combining chat and email
3. Zendesk: Best for enterprise ticketing with heavy automation
4. Freshdesk: Best for growing multichannel support teams
5. Hiver: Best for Gmail-based shared support
6. Help Scout: Best for simple, email-first support teams
7. Fin (formerly Intercom): Best for adding AI to existing helpdesks
8. HubSpot Service Hub: Best for teams already on HubSpot
9. Zoho Desk: Best for budget-minded Zoho teams

Why do teams look for Front alternatives?

Teams look for Front alternatives mainly because costs rise with team size, setup and rules take work, busy inboxes get noisy, the AI doesn’t always help, and some work stays manual.

A Front alternative is any shared inbox, helpdesk, or AI support tool that can take over the work a team does in Front’s inbox. Five complaints from G2 reviewers explain why teams still look elsewhere.

• Costs rise with team size: Plans are $25, $65, and $105 per seat per month on annual billing, and Starter stops at 10 seats. A marketing consultant at a small business writes that “there is a significant increase in costs” beyond that (April 28, 2026).
• Setup and rules take work: A support team manager at a mid-market company writes that “it can take time to set up the right workflows, views, tags, and reporting habits” (June 18, 2026; incentivized review).
• Busy inboxes get noisy: A reviewer at a small business writes, “I dislike how Front automatically groups email chains from the same customer, even when the new email is about a completely different subject or issue” (October 24, 2026; incentivized review).
• The AI doesn’t always help: Autopilot starts at $0.05 per conversation, and Copilot is $20 per seat on Starter and Professional. A director of maintenance and inspections at a small business writes that “the Front AI hasn’t been very helpful” (April 29, 2026).
• Some work stays manual: A sales manager at a mid-market company writes that “some processes are still too manual” (June 22, 2026; incentivized review).

Front’s Jira connector means a bug can be handed off from the inbox. The open question is how much context travels with it.

Front alternatives comparison for 2027

The table compares nine alternatives, with Front as the baseline, on best for, standout features, G2 rating, and pricing.

How we evaluated these Front alternatives

We assessed each tool against seven editorial criteria, led by shared inbox and collaboration (25%), using vendor pages and G2. Front’s inbox is the benchmark, so the first criterion asks how well each tool does the same job.

The seven criteria below are ordered from most to least important for a team that shares an inbox today but sees some tickets stall on product and engineering questions. The percentage after each criterion is its weight.

• Shared inbox and collaboration (25%): Can a team assign, comment, and reply together on one thread across email, chat, and messaging?
• Customer and product context on the ticket (20%): Does the person answering see the account, the plan, and the product record, or only the message?
• Engineering follow-through (15%): Can a ticket become a tracked engineering item and stay linked until the fix ships?
• AI that resolves (15%): Does the AI answer, act in connected systems, and hand off with context?
• Pricing you can predict (10%): Is the unit a seat, a conversation, an outcome, or a credit, and is the rate published?
• Channels (10%): Does one workspace cover email, chat, messaging, social, and voice?
• Effort to switch (5%): What exports, imports, and parallel running does the move involve?

These percentages express editorial priorities, not calculated vendor scores or a weighted ranking. Teams should test the criteria against their own workflows.

How to weight by situation: a team that only needs a cheaper shared inbox should lean on the first criterion and pricing. A team with a long queue of engineering-bound tickets should lean on context and follow-through.

How these tools differ: some are shared inboxes (Missive, Hiver, Help Scout), some are ticketing platforms (Zendesk, Freshdesk, Zoho Desk), one is an AI layer for the helpdesk you keep (Fin), and one connects tickets to product and engineering records (Computer, by DevRev).

Top alternatives to Front by use case

1. Computer, by DevRev

Best for: Tickets needing product and engineering context.

Pricing: Contact for pricing. Plan, add-ons, and usage depend on the deployment, as DevRev’s pricing page explains.

G2 rating: 4.3 out of 5 from 210 reviews.

Overview

DevRev is a Palo Alto company founded in 2020 by Dheeraj Pandey and Manoj Agarwal, formerly of Nutanix, and backed by Khosla Ventures and Mayfield. Computer, by DevRev, is an AI teammate that runs on Computer Memory, a permission-aware knowledge layer built from the systems your teams already use.

It is not a CRM, and it is not a shared inbox first. Shared-inbox collaboration is Front’s home ground, so teams that only want a better inbox have closer matches below.

Computer, by DevRev, has two paths for a Front team. Customer Agent can run beside an existing support tool, so one workflow moves first.

The Computer+ Support App is the option for teams that want to replace the support workspace, and DevRev describes it as a support inbox with ticket workflows, knowledge, and routing. The Support App is an add-on exclusive to Pro and Max plans.

Standout features

• Customer Agent checks error logs in Datadog, pulls the order from Shopify, replays the customer’s session, and reads console output before it resolves, in a configured deployment.
• Computer Memory keeps support, product, and engineering records in one permission-aware graph, so a ticket carries the account and product context with it.
• Computer AirSync is a two-way sync with systems such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Jira, GitHub, and Slack.
• Teams build in Agent Studio, test agents in a sandbox, and require approval before sensitive actions.
• Every query, answer, and action is logged, and actions run inside the person’s permissions.
• Each week, Computer reviews the conversations the agent handled and brings a short set of fixes, and your team approves each change.
• Voice AI runs on Customer Agent, and deployments can cover chat, email, WhatsApp, and voice, depending on configuration.
• When a case needs a person, Customer Agent summarizes the conversation and escalates it.
• DevRev’s Trust Center shows SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO/IEC 27001:2022.

Pros

• It reaches logs, orders, and session replays, so a ticket that needs engineering evidence can still resolve.
• Support, product, and engineering read the same record.
• It can run beside an existing tool, so a team can start with one workflow.

Cons

• Pricing is by contact, so a budget needs a conversation with DevRev.
• Fewer reviews than the incumbents: 210 on G2 against 2,518 for Front.
• A team that only needs a collaborative shared inbox will find more here than it needs.

Computer, by DevRev, vs. Front: Front’s Jira connector creates and links issues from a conversation, syncs comments in both directions, and shows Jira status live. Computer AirSync syncs two ways with Jira, GitHub, and other systems, and Computer Memory keeps support, product, and engineering records in one graph.

What reviewers say

• Love: Flexible field mapping. An HR specialist at a mid-market company writes, “What I like most about DevRev is its ability to support highly flexible, custom field mapping across different platforms” (March 26, 2026).
• Complain: Email threads. The same reviewer writes, “One thing I don’t like is that email threads can sometimes be difficult to follow” (same review).

2. Missive

Best for: Small teams combining chat and email in one app.

Pricing: Starter $14, Productive $24, and Business $36 per user per month, billed yearly, with a 30-day trial.

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5 from 861 reviews.

Overview

Missive is based in Quebec City, Canada, and grew out of an earlier business, Conference Badge. It is a collaborative inbox: each team gets shared inboxes with tasks, a space to discuss work inside the thread, and rules for repetitive work.

Standout features

• Starter includes email, SMS, and social accounts, team spaces, inboxes, conversations, and tasks.
• Productive adds integrations with external tools, rules and automations, basic analytics, and API and MCP access.
• Business adds SAML SSO, IP restrictions, advanced analytics, and onboarding.
• An AI assistant can pull context from connected tools through MCP, with AI credits or your own key.
• Missive shows SOC 2 Type II compliance.

Pros

• Chat, email, and tasks sit in one inbox.
• Seat prices start at $14.

Cons

• Starter stops at five seats and Productive at 50.
• No free plan, only a 30-day trial.

Missive vs. Front: Missive’s Starter covers email, SMS, and social accounts for up to five seats. Front’s Starter covers a single channel type for up to 10 seats.

3. Zendesk

Best for: Enterprise ticketing with heavy automation.

Pricing: $19, $55, and $115 per agent per month on annual billing. Five automated resolutions per agent each month come with Support Team and Suite Team (10 on Suite Professional), then $2.00 each on pay as you go.

G2 rating: 4.3 out of 5 from 7,100 reviews. Our Zendesk alternatives guide covers the vendor in more detail.

Overview

Zendesk was founded in Copenhagen in 2007 and is headquartered in San Francisco. Zendesk says its AI agents handle multi-step, multi-intent requests and act across systems, over social, web, mobile, voice, and email.

Standout features

• AI agents ask clarifying questions, then complete the request in one conversation.
• Agents route a case to the right team with full context when it needs a person.
• Voice agents handle call flows from start to finish.
• Copilot is a $50-per-agent-per-month add-on.
• A Jira app creates or links issues from a ticket.

Pros

• A mature ticketing platform with the largest G2 review base here.
• A published resolution rate.

Cons

• Resolutions past the allowance come on top of seats.
• Plan pricing spreads across several suites and add-ons.

Zendesk vs. Front: Zendesk’s Jira app creates or links issues from a ticket, shares public and private comments, and links up to 200 tickets to one Jira issue. Front’s Jira connector creates and links issues, syncs comments both ways, and shows live status.

What reviewers say

• Love: One place for requests. A software development engineer in test at a mid-market computer software company writes, “What I like most is that it gives me a single place to manage all my internal IT requests” (July 26, 2026).
• Complain: Long ticket threads. The same reviewer writes that “when a ticket has several comments, it can take a bit of scrolling to find a specific update” (same review).

4. Freshdesk

Best for: Growing multichannel support teams.

Pricing: Growth $19, Pro $55, and Enterprise $89 per agent per month on annual billing. The first 500 Freddy AI Agent sessions are free, then $49 per 100.

G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 from 3,794 reviews. Our Freshdesk alternatives guide covers the vendor in more detail.

Overview

Freshworks began in 2010 as Freshdesk and now sells a suite that also includes Freshservice. Freshdesk is its ticketing product, with a 14-day trial and no permanent free plan.

Standout features

• Freddy AI Agent answers from a verified knowledge base.
• Freddy AI Copilot summarizes tickets, drafts replies, and translates.
• Tickets flow in from service channels with workflow automation and customer context.
• A documented Jira sync carries status, priority, comments, and attachments, with up to five Jira issues per ticket.

Pros

• Clear seat prices and a published AI rate.
• A trial that shows the top tier before you commit.

Cons

• AI sessions bill by volume on top of seats.
• No permanent free plan.

Freshdesk vs. Front: Freshdesk’s Jira sync carries status, priority, comments, and attachments, with up to five Jira issues per ticket. Front’s Jira connector syncs comments both ways and shows live status.

What reviewers say

• Love: Email and ticket history. A reviewer at a mid-market consumer electronics company writes that “centralized email handling and searchable ticket history remain useful for day-to-day support operations” (August 13, 2026).
• Complain: Contract flexibility. The same reviewer writes, “Our team size changed, but the subscription could not change with it” (same review).

Shared-inbox alternatives

5. Hiver

Best for: Google Workspace teams that want to stay in Gmail.

Pricing: Growth $25, Pro $55, and Elite $85 per user per month. Hiver doesn’t state a billing cycle beside the prices.

G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5 from 1,296 reviews of Hiver in Gmail. G2 shows Hiver Omni separately.

Overview

Hiver describes itself as an AI omnichannel customer service platform. It sells two products at the same prices: Hiver in Gmail works inside Gmail, and Hiver Omni is a standalone omnichannel platform. A 7-day free trial is available.

Standout features

• AI agents triage and resolve requests and act across your systems, and they pause for approval on actions you mark sensitive.
• Pro adds a customer portal, SLAs, CSAT, advanced analytics, and API access.
• Elite adds AI QA, AI Insights, skill-based routing, custom objects, and SSO.
• Omni adds omnichannel and a Voice add-on at $30 per voice seat per month.

Pros

• A shared inbox that lives inside Gmail.
• AI on every plan, with approval steps for sensitive actions.

Cons

• Hiver shows no separate AI price.
• Hiver in Gmail and Hiver Omni are separate products with separate G2 coverage.

Hiver vs. Front: Hiver includes AI agents, a Copilot, and a Knowledge Builder on every plan. Front sells Autopilot at $0.05 per conversation and Copilot at $20 per seat on Starter and Professional.

What reviewers say

• Love: Fast adoption in Gmail. A sales executive at a small business writes, “Because it works directly inside Gmail, adoption is fast and requires minimal training” (December 12, 2025).
• Complain: AI feels basic. The same reviewer writes that “some of its more advanced automation and AI capabilities still feel fairly basic compared with dedicated helpdesk platforms” (same review).

6. Help Scout

Best for: Simple, email-first support teams.

Pricing: Standard $25, Plus $45, and Pro $75 per user per month, with a free plan for five people. AI Answers costs $0.75 per resolution.

G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 from 431 reviews. Our Help Scout alternatives guide covers the vendor in more detail.

Overview

Help Scout was founded in 2011, started in Boston, and is fully remote. It is a support tool built around a shared inbox and a Docs knowledge base.

Standout features

• The free plan covers five people, one inbox, and one Docs site.
• AI Answers is an add-on billed monthly per resolution, with a spending cap.
• AI Assist and AI Summarize are unlimited.
• A Jira integration comes with Plus and Pro.

Pros

• A free plan and a published per-resolution AI rate.
• A clean interface for email conversations.

Cons

• Standard stops at 25 seats and Plus at 50.
• Help Scout doesn’t state which billing cycle its toggle shows.

Help Scout vs. Front: Help Scout’s Jira integration offers New Issue and Link an issue from the conversation sidebar on Plus and Pro. Front’s Jira connector also syncs comments both ways and shows live status.

What reviewers say

• Love: Clean interface. A junior software engineer at a mid-market company writes that “Help Scout has clean interface that make it easy to manage customer conversations” (August 6, 2026).
• Complain: Advanced automation. The same reviewer writes, “Some advanced automation features are limited” (same review).

AI layer on your existing tools

7. Fin (formerly Intercom)

Best for: Adding AI to the helpdesk you already run.

Pricing: $0.99 per outcome, with a minimum monthly commitment. Helpdesk seats are $29, $85, and $132 per seat per month (billing cycle not stated).

G2 rating: 4.5 out of 5 from 3,922 reviews, under G2’s Fin listing. Our Intercom alternatives guide covers the vendor in more detail.

Overview

Fin is Intercom’s AI agent, and the company now goes by Fin too. Salesforce completed its acquisition of Fin, formerly Intercom, on September 10, 2026.

Standout features

• One workspace to train, test, deploy, and analyze.
• If/else branching and code enforce strict rules in Procedures.
• Support in more than 45 languages, across email, voice, live chat, and social.
• A 14-day free trial, no credit card.

Pros

• A published per-outcome rate with no seat cost next to an existing helpdesk.
• Hands off to a person when its safety parameters aren’t met.

Cons

• An outcome includes customer-confirmed resolutions, customers who stop asking for help, and completed workflows such as handoffs, so it is a wider unit than a strict resolution.
• Cost climbs with outcome volume, and a minimum commitment applies.

Fin vs. Front: Fin bills $0.99 per outcome, and Front’s Autopilot starts at $0.05 per conversation. The two units count different things, so compare them on your own volume.

Helpdesks tied to a CRM suite

8. HubSpot Service Hub

Best for: Teams already on HubSpot.

Pricing: Free for up to two seats. Service Seats are $100 per seat per month billed monthly ($90 billed annually) for Professional and $150 for Enterprise.

G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 from 3,018 reviews. Our HubSpot alternatives guide covers the vendor in more detail.

Overview

HubSpot was founded in 2006 by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Service Hub sits beside HubSpot’s CRM, marketing, and sales products.

Standout features

• A Service Seat includes Core Seat access, and Service Seats aren’t available on Starter.
• Customer Agent resolves a text conversation for 50 credits.
• Pay-as-you-go credits are $0.010 each, so one resolved text conversation costs about $0.50.
• Core Seats are $20, $50, or $75 per month.

Pros

• Service and CRM data live on one platform.
• A free tier and a published per-credit AI rate.

Cons

• Full service features start at the $100 Service Seat.
• Customer Agent bills in credits on top of seats.

HubSpot Service Hub vs. Front: HubSpot’s Customer Agent costs 50 credits, about $0.50, per resolved text conversation. Front’s Autopilot starts at $0.05 per conversation, and the two units count different things.

9. Zoho Desk

Best for: Budget-minded teams on the Zoho suite.

Pricing: Express $7, Standard $14, Professional $23, and Enterprise $40 per user per month, billed annually. A free edition covers three licenses.

G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 from 7,996 reviews.

Overview

Zoho Corporation began as AdventNet in 1996 in New Jersey and took the Zoho name in 2009. Zoho Desk is its ticketing product, and Zoho’s CRM and other business apps sit in the same suite.

Standout features

• The free edition covers three licenses.
• Express includes pre-built AI agents with up to 30M free tokens a month, on your own LLM key or Zoho’s.
• Zia AI on Professional brings generative, predictive, and analytical capabilities.
• Every paid plan is billed annually.

Pros

• The lowest seat prices in this comparison.
• A free token allowance on Express AI agents.

Cons

• The free edition stops at three licenses.
• Some of the more useful features sit in higher tiers, according to a reviewer.

Zoho Desk vs. Front: Zoho Desk’s paid plans run from $7 to $40 per user per month on annual billing, with a free edition for three licenses. Front’s plans run from $25 to $105 per seat per month on annual billing, with no free plan.

What reviewers say

• Love: One easy platform. A software engineer at a small business writes that “it centralizes customer support in one easy-to-use platform” (September 28, 2026).
• Complain: Features in higher tiers. The same reviewer writes that “some of the more useful features are locked behind higher-tier plans” (same review).

Other Front alternatives worth considering

• Crisp (G2 4.5 from 205 reviews) is an AI customer support platform with a shared inbox and live chat. It prices per workspace: free for two seats, then $45, $95, and $295 a month, with AI credits included.
• ClearFeed is a Slack-based helpdesk for customer and internal support, with ticketing and SLA alerts in Slack, plus email, live chat, and Microsoft Teams. It prices per agent or by usage, with a 14-day trial, and shows no dollar amounts.
• Kayako (G2 4.0 from 226 reviews) sells Kayako One, a unified inbox with ticketing, knowledge base, live chat, and the Kay AI agent. Kay costs $1 per resolved ticket with no seat fees, and seat prices are by request.
• SparrowDesk is customer service software with email, chat, a shared inbox, and a help center. It has a free plan for three people, then $16, $49, and $89 per agent per month, and its Zoona AI Agent costs $0.49 per resolution.
• Gmelius works inside Gmail and Google Workspace, with shared inboxes, shared drafts, @mention notes, and AI assistants. Growth is $25 and Pro is $40 per user per month on yearly billing, with a 7-day trial.
• Aissist adds an AI agent to helpdesks it names, including Front, Zendesk, and Freshdesk. It charges about $0.25 per resolution on email, forms, and social and about $0.60 on chat, WhatsApp, and SMS, with 1,000 free tickets a month.
• Shared Inbox by Canary is a shared inbox and helpdesk product from the Canary Mail team. We didn’t find a pricing page of its own to read, so we show no price.

How do you switch from Front?

A shared inbox holds conversation history, rules, and channel connections, so a move touches all three.

What carries over

Front says its API lets developers access and update almost all elements in Front, including messages, contacts, channels, inboxes, teammates, and analytics. Its analytics Messages export has one row per message with up to 47 fields, such as assignee, tags, and ticket status. Customer and account records that live in your CRM stay where they are.

What needs manual attention

The Messages export cuts each message body to a 200-character extract, and Front offers it on the latest Professional plan or above, so full threads come through the API. Rules, macros, and channel connections are settings inside Front, so a team recreates them in the new tool.

Moving to Computer, by DevRev, has two separate paths. Customer Agent can run beside the inbox or helpdesk you have now, so nothing moves at first.

The Computer+ Support App is the replacement path, an add-on on Pro and Max plans, and it means moving the support workspace. DevRev’s marketplace shows no Front connector, and DevRev publishes no Front-specific AirSync, so neither path has a Front import to rely on.

Three checks before switching

Before switching, test whether:

• The new tool covers the same channels, whether email, SMS, social, or chat.
• Conversation history and contacts come across by export or API.
• Both tools can run in parallel for a few weeks before you cut over.

These checks reduce uncertainty, but validate a sample migration and a recovery plan before a full cutover.

How do you choose a Front alternative?

Choose by team size, budget, and where your team works.

• Team size: Small teams fit Missive (Starter stops at five seats), Help Scout (free plan for five people), or Zoho Desk (free edition for three licenses). Growing teams fit Freshdesk or Hiver, large ones Zendesk, and CRM teams HubSpot Service Hub or Zoho Desk. Computer, by DevRev, fits small and large teams: start with one workflow and expand.
• Where your team works: Gmail teams fit Hiver or Gmelius, and Slack teams fit ClearFeed. Outlook teams can look at Missive, which says it syncs two ways with Microsoft 365. Teams that live in a helpdesk fit Zendesk, Freshdesk, or Help Scout.
• Seat prices: Per user per month on annual billing: Zoho Desk $7 to $40, Missive $14 to $36, Zendesk and Freshdesk from $19, Help Scout and Hiver from $25, and Front $25 to $105. HubSpot is free for two seats, then $90 to $100 per Professional seat.
• AI rates: Fin charges $0.99 per outcome. Computer, by DevRev, charges per resolved request when the AI does the job end to end, so cost follows resolved work, not seats. Contact DevRev for rates.
• Already on Front: Computer, by DevRev, has two paths. Customer Agent can run beside the inbox or helpdesk you have now, and the Computer+ Support App is the replacement path, an add-on on Pro and Max plans. DevRev’s marketplace shows no Front connector, so no Front-specific import is published for either path.

A worked example: the cost of 1,000 AI-handled conversations at each published rate.

• Front Autopilot: $50, at the $0.05 starting rate.
• HubSpot: $500, at 50 credits of $0.010 each for 1,000 resolved text conversations.
• Help Scout: $750, at $0.75 per resolution.
• Fin: $990, at $0.99 per outcome.
• Zendesk: $2,000, at the $2.00 pay-as-you-go rate past the allowance.

Autopilot counts conversations and the others count resolutions or outcomes, so the totals show rates, not like-for-like bills.

Then match your situation to the tool:

• You are a small team that wants chat, email, and tasks in one inbox: Choose Missive.
• You live in Gmail: Choose Hiver or Gmelius.
• You live in Slack: Choose ClearFeed.
• You want a simple, email-first support desk with a free plan: Choose Help Scout.
• You need enterprise ticketing and heavy automation: Choose Zendesk, or Freshdesk for a lower seat price.
• You run HubSpot: Choose HubSpot Service Hub.
• You run Zoho: Choose Zoho Desk.
• You want AI on top of a helpdesk you keep: Choose Fin, Aissist, or Kayako’s Kay.
• Your tickets keep waiting on a log, a plan check, or an engineer: Choose Computer, by DevRev.
• Your team works one shared inbox together and wants Autopilot at a published rate: Stay on Front.

Price and channel narrow the choice, but one question settles it: is the inbox the job, or what happens after the reply?

Why is Computer, by DevRev, our pick?

Computer, by DevRev, is our pick when a ticket needs product context and engineering follow-through after the reply, for three reasons you can check.

• It carries context to the ticket: Customer Agent reads logs, orders, and session replays before it resolves, and Computer Memory gives support, product, and engineering shared context, so a hard ticket doesn’t bounce back for lack of evidence.
• It has been tested at volume: In a pre-launch test on 200,000 real customer queries, BILL measured a 70% resolution rate against a 30% approval threshold. In production, BILL’s story says the agent became the first line of response for 800,000 customer inquiries, with deflection above BILL’s 30% goal within six months.
• It acts inside guardrails: Agents built in Agent Studio run inside the person’s permissions, pause for approval on sensitive steps, and are logged. Computer AirSync syncs two ways with Jira and GitHub.