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Comparison · Support
Hiver vs LiveAgent
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Hiver and LiveAgent — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:customer-support
Hiver vs LiveAgent: at a glance
What is Hiver?
Gmail-based support tooling wiring internal docs into its AI and unifying search across channels
Hiver's April releases center on grounding its AI in a company's own material. Confluence pages, Google Docs and Google Sheets can be added as knowledge sources, and Ask AI can query an uploaded Sheet directly — answering questions like top customers by revenue without manual analysis. Alongside that, Omnichannel Search spans email, chat and Slack with unified results and channel attribution, and automations gained a trigger for conversations moved into a shared inbox. Each release appears twice in the feed.
What is LiveAgent?
LiveAgent's 5.70 branch adds Mistral and Gemini, live call transcription and message translation.
LiveAgent's 5.70 branch arrived with a large feature batch: Mistral AI as an EU-hosted provider, Gemini and OpenAI for ticket summaries and translation, live call transcription with speaker attribution, and on-demand translation of inbound messages. It also adds a Deskpro migration plugin and plan limits on event, time and SLA rules. The releases since are fix-only, mostly around chat widget errors and API gaps.
Hiver vs LiveAgent: editorial side-by-side
Hiver
0.0SUPPORT
Gmail-based support tooling wiring internal docs into its AI and unifying search across channels
◆ Current state
Hiver's April releases center on grounding its AI in a company's own material. Confluence pages, Google Docs and Google Sheets can be added as knowledge sources, and Ask AI can query an uploaded Sheet directly — answering questions like top customers by revenue without manual analysis. Alongside that, Omnichannel Search spans email, chat and Slack with unified results and channel attribution, and automations gained a trigger for conversations moved into a shared inbox. Each release appears twice in the feed.
◆ Where it's heading
The product is extending past the shared-inbox job into being the place a support agent finds any answer. Knowledge sources make the AI useful on internal SOPs rather than generic replies; omnichannel search makes prior context findable regardless of where the conversation happened. Both reduce the reasons an agent leaves Gmail, which is the whole premise Hiver sells on.
◆ Prediction
Expect more knowledge source connectors on the pattern set by Drive and Confluence, since the Sheets query capability shows the ingestion path already handles structured as well as prose content.
LiveAgent
6.3SUPPORT
LiveAgent's 5.70 branch adds Mistral and Gemini, live call transcription and message translation.
◆ Current state
LiveAgent's 5.70 branch arrived with a large feature batch: Mistral AI as an EU-hosted provider, Gemini and OpenAI for ticket summaries and translation, live call transcription with speaker attribution, and on-demand translation of inbound messages. It also adds a Deskpro migration plugin and plan limits on event, time and SLA rules. The releases since are fix-only, mostly around chat widget errors and API gaps.
◆ Where it's heading
The AI layer is turning multi-provider: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and Mistral now sit side by side, with retired OpenAI models migrated automatically. Voice and translation are where that layer is being applied first. The paired 5.69 and 5.70 releases on the same day show two branches being maintained in parallel.
◆ Prediction
Expect message translation to move past its 'Stage 1' on-demand scope, likely toward outbound or automatic translation. Further 5.69/5.70 fix pairs are likely in the meantime.
Alternatives to Hiver and LiveAgent
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 Hiver or LiveAgent.
Tawk.to
tawk.to's widget 4.4.0 turns to keyboard and screen-reader fixes after a run of form work.
Libredesk
Libredesk moves to v2.9.1 candidates with AI reply handling and security audit fixes.
Live Helper Chat
Live Helper Chat 4.97 lets bots read file captions and OCR text and react to uploads.
DoneDone
DoneDone smooths daily work: paste-in checklists and replies that keep their formatting.
Twilio
Twilio follows Cohorts with three GA control APIs for webhooks, recording and caller trust.
See all Hiver alternatives → · See all LiveAgent alternatives →
Recent activity from Hiver and LiveAgent
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoLiveAgent5.69.6: chat widget errors and stale Claude model picker fixed
- 2d agoLiveAgent5.70.2: chat widget start failures and refusal reasons fixed
- 3d agoLiveAgent5.70.2: security fix, call recordings back in APIv3 messages
- 9d agoLiveAgent5.70.2: Mistral and Gemini, live call transcripts, translation
- 10d agoLiveAgent5.69.6 fixes chats showing another chat's messages
- 10d agoLiveAgent5.68.9 backports chat-mixup and transcription fixes
- 6mo agoHiverRun queries on Google Sheets with Ask AI
- 6mo agoHiverGoogle Drive and Confluence as AI Knowledge Sources
- 6mo agoHiverNew Automation trigger and condition
- 6mo agoHiverGoogle Drive and Confluence as AI Knowledge Sources
- 6mo agoHiverRun queries on Google Sheets with Ask AI
- 6mo agoHiverIntroducing Omnichannel Search
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Hiver and LiveAgent?
Both compete on the same themes — customer-support — within Support. LiveAgent is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 0 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 Hiver better than LiveAgent?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. LiveAgent is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 0 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 Hiver?
Top Hiver alternatives in Support are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Hiver alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/hiver for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to LiveAgent?
Top LiveAgent alternatives in Support are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "LiveAgent alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/liveagent for the full list with editorial commentary on each.