Spiceworks
Spiceworks covers the Microsoft 365 outage from the help desk's side.
Comparison · Support
Plain vs Xurrent
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Plain and Xurrent — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:ai-agents
Plain vs Xurrent: at a glance
What is Plain?
Plain built an autonomous support agent, and has now built the controls to trust it.
Plain's changelog is dated entries with no titles, and nearly all of it concerns two AI surfaces: Ari, the customer-facing responder, and Sidekick, the internal agent. Sidekick spent July gaining reach — its own full-page home, reusable workspace skills, and connection to arbitrary MCP servers. The newest release turns to Ari and adds what was missing around it: a way to test it before customers see it, provenance behind each answer, configurable tone, and explicit escalation rules.
What is Xurrent?
Xurrent's November update blocks unverified email senders from changing records.
Xurrent ITSM publishes a monthly update page that grows week by week. The November 12 revision stops unverified email senders from updating records, creates the major incident request group when a major incident is accepted, brings Sera AI summaries to problems and adds iPaaS Lookup Tables. It builds on the first November revision, which put Closure Agent sign-off drafts and reopen suggestions in the Inbox.
Plain vs Xurrent: editorial side-by-side
Plain
8.8SUPPORT
Plain built an autonomous support agent, and has now built the controls to trust it.
◆ Current state
Plain's changelog is dated entries with no titles, and nearly all of it concerns two AI surfaces: Ari, the customer-facing responder, and Sidekick, the internal agent. Sidekick spent July gaining reach — its own full-page home, reusable workspace skills, and connection to arbitrary MCP servers. The newest release turns to Ari and adds what was missing around it: a way to test it before customers see it, provenance behind each answer, configurable tone, and explicit escalation rules.
◆ Where it's heading
The sequence reads as capability first, then governance. Plain rebuilt Ari into an agentic first responder, opened Sidekick to any MCP server, and let teams write skills the whole workspace shares — all of which widen what the agents can do and reach. The current release closes the loop the other way, making that autonomy inspectable and bounded before it is switched on. That is the order support-AI vendors have to complete in: teams will not put an agent in front of customers on capability claims alone.
◆ Prediction
With testing and provenance in place, the next step is likely measurement — resolution and escalation rates per skill, or per-answer quality review feeding back into the skills teams write. The entries are short summaries linking off-site, so per-release depth is limited.
Xurrent
5.0SUPPORT
Xurrent's November update blocks unverified email senders from changing records.
◆ Current state
Xurrent ITSM publishes a monthly update page that grows week by week. The November 12 revision stops unverified email senders from updating records, creates the major incident request group when a major incident is accepted, brings Sera AI summaries to problems and adds iPaaS Lookup Tables. It builds on the first November revision, which put Closure Agent sign-off drafts and reopen suggestions in the Inbox.
◆ Where it's heading
After September's Sera agent launch, each revision spreads AI summaries and agents into another record type while tightening controls around them. This month adds a security fix for email-driven updates alongside more integration plumbing.
◆ Prediction
Expect later November revisions to bring Sera summaries or agents to more record types, such as changes, and more iPaaS building blocks.
Alternatives to Plain and Xurrent
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 Xurrent.
DoneDone
DoneDone's editor gets tables, spreadsheet paste and text colors.
Twilio
Twilio's voice AI stops cutting callers off mid-sentence, using its own turn-taking model.
LiveAgent
LiveAgent 5.71 starts letting bots work chats over MCP and answer the phones.
Chatway
Chatway adds a Ticket Center, moving from live chat toward a full helpdesk.
Faveo Helpdesk
Faveo Helpdesk's free edition has shipped mostly security patches and stack upgrades since 2019.
See all Plain alternatives → · See all Xurrent alternatives →
Recent activity from Plain and Xurrent
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 2d agoXurrentXurrent blocks unverified email senders, adds Sera problem summaries
- 9d agoXurrentXurrent ITSM - November 2026 Product Updates
- 16d agoXurrentXurrent adds Outlook, Jira Cloud connectors and agent time reports
- 1mo agoXurrentXurrent adds task approvals in Sera chat, Self Service library
- 1mo agoXurrentXurrent ITSM - October 2026 Product Updates
- 1mo agoXurrentXurrent ITSM - October 2026 Product Updates
- 2mo agoPlainTest Ari before customers see it, with per-answer proof ⚡
- 3mo agoPlainImport past conversations from any tool, no built-in importer
- 3mo agoPlainSidekick connects to any MCP server ⚡
- 3mo agoPlainSidekick gains reusable, workspace-shared skills ⚡
- 3mo agoPlainShare published workflows by link
- 4mo agoPlainSidekick gets its own full-page home and tool controls
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Plain and Xurrent?
Both compete on the same themes — ai-agents — within Support. Plain is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 8.8 vs 5.0), 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 Plain better than Xurrent?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Plain is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 8.8 vs 5.0), 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 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 Xurrent?
Top Xurrent alternatives in Support are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Xurrent alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/xurrent for the full list with editorial commentary on each.