Chatwoot is a free, open-source Zendesk alternative that puts chat, email and social messages in one shared inbox. Zendesk charges per agent each month; self-hosted Chatwoot has no per-agent fee.
| App | Good for | Code | Import from Zendesk | Ease of use |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Chatwoot | Small support teams answering chat, email and social messages together | Code Open source | Import from Zendesk Partly | Some setup |
Zendesk is a customer service platform built around tickets: emails, chats and calls become tickets that agents assign, answer and track, with a help centre and many integrations.
Teams look for an alternative because Zendesk is priced per agent each month, with features spread across several plans, so a growing team pays more each year. Smaller teams often find it heavier than they need. A self-hosted app such as Chatwoot gives you a shared support inbox and help centre with no price per agent, and keeps customer data on your own server.
Answer website chat, email, WhatsApp and social in one inbox.
A shared inbox for email, website chat and social channels, with assignment, labels, private notes, canned replies, reports and a help centre. It suits small and medium support teams; Zendesk has deeper ticket workflows and more integrations.
Export your customer contacts from Zendesk and import them into Chatwoot from a CSV file. Past tickets cannot be imported, so keep Zendesk available read-only. Forward your support email address to Chatwoot, add its chat widget to your website, and recreate macros as canned replies and automation rules.
Chatwoot is the free, open-source alternative to Zendesk for customer support in the catalogue today. A shared inbox for email, website chat and social channels, with assignment, labels, private notes, canned replies, reports and a help centre. It suits small and medium support teams; Zendesk has deeper ticket workflows and more integrations.
Yes. Connect your support address and emails arrive as conversations in the shared inbox, where your team assigns and answers them.
Yes. You can publish help articles in a public help centre on your own address.
Yes, the app is free. To run them you need Cloudgate and a server. Use hosted Cloudgate, which can also provide the server, or install Cloudgate on a server of your own for free. Cloudgate's plans and prices are at cloudgate.octabyte.io/pricing. One server can run several apps.
No. Cloudgate installs the app on your server and gives it a secure web address. You use it in your browser.
