Formbricks
Formbricks grinds through 5.2 RC hardening, with MCP and accessibility as the quiet throughlines.
Comparison · Support
Plain vs Deskpro
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Plain and Deskpro — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Plain vs Deskpro: at a glance
What is Plain?
Plain is turning Sidekick from an assist tool into an agent that acts across your stack.
Plain is a customer-support platform whose changelog is now largely the story of Sidekick, its AI agent. This window gives Sidekick a dedicated home page, puts it inside workflows so it starts working the moment a thread matches, and lets it take actions across connected tools and inside Plain. Around it are supporting workflow and integration updates: scheduled workflows, chat-widget thread fields, and Linear issue linking.
What is Deskpro?
Deskpro ships on a steady release train, folding AI deeper into the help desk with each version.
Deskpro is a mature help-desk platform on a predictable dated-release cadence (2026.3, 2026.2, 2026.1). The current arc is methodical AI integration — practical, controllable AI replies and summaries — paired with multilingual support and steady reliability and security work. 2026.3 focuses on non-English correctness and adds the latest Google Gemini models.
Plain vs Deskpro: editorial side-by-side
Plain
7.5SUPPORT
Plain is turning Sidekick from an assist tool into an agent that acts across your stack.
◆ Current state
Plain is a customer-support platform whose changelog is now largely the story of Sidekick, its AI agent. This window gives Sidekick a dedicated home page, puts it inside workflows so it starts working the moment a thread matches, and lets it take actions across connected tools and inside Plain. Around it are supporting workflow and integration updates: scheduled workflows, chat-widget thread fields, and Linear issue linking.
◆ Where it's heading
Sidekick is moving from suggesting to doing: proactive triage via workflows, action-taking across connected tools, and presence in Slack all point at Plain building an autonomous support teammate rather than a reply-drafting assistant. The workflow and API plumbing shipping alongside (scheduling, thread-field passthrough) is the connective tissue that lets Sidekick act on richer context automatically.
◆ Prediction
Expect deeper Sidekick autonomy next, with more action types across integrations and tighter workflow triggers, while Plain keeps hardening the surrounding automation and API surface that feeds it.
Deskpro
2.5SUPPORT
Deskpro ships on a steady release train, folding AI deeper into the help desk with each version.
◆ Current state
Deskpro is a mature help-desk platform on a predictable dated-release cadence (2026.3, 2026.2, 2026.1). The current arc is methodical AI integration — practical, controllable AI replies and summaries — paired with multilingual support and steady reliability and security work. 2026.3 focuses on non-English correctness and adds the latest Google Gemini models.
◆ Where it's heading
Deskpro is widening AI across the product while keeping it governed: 2026.1 framed AI as 'more practical and controllable,' 2026.2 improved AI content-source indexing for large help desks, and 2026.3 tightens what AI features can access. Alongside that, it keeps expanding channels (Instagram, Messenger) and hardening auth (SAML/OIDC single sign-out). The pattern is enterprise-readiness: capable AI that admins can scope and trust.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next dated release to continue the pair of model updates plus access controls, and to push multilingual AI parity further. Channel expansion (social, messaging) and help-desk-scale AI indexing are the likely areas of continued investment.
Alternatives to Plain and Deskpro
Other Support products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Plain or Deskpro.
Canny
Canny bends its feedback tool into an AI triage engine wired to the CRM.
Service Fusion
Service Fusion's feed is EverPro marketing content, not a product changelog.
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Cloud
The cloud ITSM edition tracks the same Zia rollout, with migration fixes in tow
ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus
Steadily wiring Zoho's Zia LLM into ITSM, one data center at a time
ProProfs Chat
ProProfs Chat's feed is SEO listicles and competitor roundups, not a changelog.
See all Plain alternatives → · See all Deskpro alternatives →
Recent activity from Plain and Deskpro
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 23h agoDeskproDeskpro Release 2026.3
- 9d agoPlainSidekick gets a dedicated home page in the sidebar
- 14d agoPlainWorkflows can now run on a recurring schedule
- 15d agoPlainSidekick auto-starts on threads matching a workflow
- 18d agoPlain'Create customer' now always shows in search
- 20d agoPlainPass thread fields through the chat widget
- 21d agoPlainSidekick can now take actions across connected tools ⚡
- 1mo agoDeskproDeskpro Release 2026.2
- 5mo agoDeskproDeskpro Release 2026.1
- 7mo agoDeskproDeskpro Release 2025.6
- 10mo agoDeskproDeskpro Release 2025.5
- 11mo agoDeskproDeskpro Release 2025.4
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Plain and Deskpro?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Plain is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Plain better than Deskpro?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Plain is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 7.5 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Support products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Plain?
Top Plain alternatives in Support are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Plain alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/plain for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Deskpro?
Top Deskpro alternatives in Support are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Deskpro alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/deskpro for the full list with editorial commentary on each.