Best Open Source Help Desk Software
For a team answering customers, start with Zammad or osTicket. Zammad (AGPL-3.0, Ruby on PostgreSQL, hosted from €7 per agent a month) is the more polished, and its hosted plans run on servers in Germany. osTicket (GPL-2.0, PHP on MySQL or MariaDB) is the classic that runs on cheap shared hosting and keeps every feature in the free download. If the tickets come from colleagues instead, GLPI is the one built as an IT service desk, with each ticket linked to the machine, licence or contract it concerns.
Past those three, two columns do most of the sorting. Focus splits the seven customer-support tools from GLPI and the four that claim both jobs (Faveo, OTOBO, Znuny and Request Tracker). Built with decides who on your team can run the thing: five PHP projects, three in Perl, two in Ruby, and one each in Python and Go. Self-hosting is free for all twelve, so the Hosted plan column only matters if you would rather pay the vendor to run it.
Our picks
- Best when data has to stay in Germany: Zammad. Hosted plans run on servers in Germany, starting at €7 per agent a month billed annually.
- Best for a team on cheap shared hosting: osTicket. A PHP and MySQL app with no paid feature matrix held back, plus an official cloud edition from $12 per agent a month.
- Best for live chat on your website: Chatwoot. Live-chat-first under the MIT license, with chat, email, social and messaging channels feeding one inbox.
- Best for internal IT with an asset inventory: GLPI. The only row whose Focus is IT service desk, built on a full asset and inventory database.
- Cheapest listed hosting for a large support team: Frappe Helpdesk. Hosted pricing is $5 per site a month rather than per agent, and it drops in beside ERPNext if you already run it.
At a glance
| Option | License | Built with | Database | Focus | Hosted plan (from) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AGPL-3.0source | Rubysource | PostgreSQLsource | Customer supportsource | €7 per agent/month (billed annually)source | |
| GPL-2.0source | PHPsource | MySQL / MariaDBsource | Customer supportsource | $12 per agent/monthsource | |
| AGPL-3.0source | PHPsource | MySQL or PostgreSQLsource | Customer supportsource | ||
| MITsource | Rubysource | PostgreSQLsource | Customer supportsource | $19 per agent/month (billed annually)source | |
| OSL-3.0source | PHPsource | MySQL / MariaDBsource | Customer supportsource | $8 per agent/month (billed annually)source | |
| OSL-3.0source | PHPsource | MySQL / MariaDBsource | Bothsource | $9 per agent/monthsource | |
| GPL-3.0source | PHPsource | MySQL / MariaDBsource | IT service desksource | €19 per user/month (excl. VAT)source | |
| GPL-3.0source | Perlsource | MySQL or PostgreSQLsource | Bothsource | Managed hosting, price on requestsource | |
| GPL-3.0source | Perlsource | MySQL or PostgreSQLsource | Bothsource | Hosting offered, price on requestsource | |
| GPL-2.0source | Perlsource | MySQL or PostgreSQLsource | Bothsource | $15 per user/month (billed annually)source | |
| AGPL-3.0source | Pythonsource | MySQL / MariaDBsource | Customer supportsource | $5 per site/month (not per agent)source | |
| AGPL-3.0source | Gosource | PostgreSQLsource | Customer supportsource |
Shared hosting with MySQL or a PostgreSQL server
The Database column is a hosting question in disguise. osTicket, UVdesk, Faveo and GLPI run on MySQL or MariaDB, and FreeScout takes MySQL or PostgreSQL, so none of the five needs a Postgres server of its own; osTicket and FreeScout are the ones known for running on inexpensive shared hosting, FreeScout in under an hour. Zammad, Chatwoot and Libredesk need PostgreSQL, which usually means a server of your own to operate.
Libredesk is the lightest of the PostgreSQL group: one Go binary alongside Postgres and Redis gives you live chat, email and WhatsApp in a shared inbox. It is also the youngest and smallest project in the table, with no hosted plan, so the easy install comes with a short track record.
OTOBO, Znuny or Request Tracker for teams coming from OTRS
OTOBO and Znuny are both forks of the old OTRS Community Edition, and they answer different needs. OTOBO, restarted in 2019, keeps the ITIL-style process tickets, SLAs and customer portal behind a modernised interface. Znuny's stated purpose is long-term support, with fixes for the 6.0 line running beside a newer branch, and its interface is the one OTRS users already know. Request Tracker is the third Perl option, more than twenty years old, scriptable and email-driven, with hosted plans from $15 per user a month billed annually.
All three share one cost: Perl. It is an unusual enough stack now that finding people to maintain it takes effort, which is worth weighing before a migration.
Comparing hosted prices across currencies and billing units
The Hosted plan cells can't be lined up directly. Zammad and GLPI price in euros, and GLPI's €19 is per user a month before VAT. osTicket, Chatwoot, UVdesk and Faveo charge per agent, while Frappe Helpdesk's $5 covers a whole site and gets cheaper per head as the team grows. OTOBO quotes its managed hosting on request. The entry price also isn't the whole bill: Chatwoot keeps SSO and audit logs on its top paid tier, FreeScout sells a fair amount of what others bundle as paid modules, and Faveo runs separate recurring and perpetual licences for its help desk and service desk products.
The License column matters if you plan to change the code. Zammad, FreeScout, Frappe Helpdesk and Libredesk are AGPL-3.0, so changes you run as a network service have to be shared. Chatwoot's MIT license is the only permissive one here.
The options in detail
Zammad
Zammad is the most polished option in this group: a Rails application from a German company that sells a hosted version alongside the free self-hosted one, with email, web forms and SMS landing in the same queue. It is the one teams reach for when data residency matters, since the hosted plans run on servers in Germany. The trade-off is weight: it expects a PostgreSQL server of its own, so it is more to operate than a PHP app you drop on shared hosting.
osTicket
osTicket is the classic of the category: a PHP and MySQL ticketing system that has been running on cheap shared hosting for years, and the reference point most of the others get compared against. Everything is in the free download, with no paid feature matrix held back, and there is an official cloud edition if you would rather not run it yourself. The interface is dated next to the newer tools here, and it is a ticket queue rather than a modern omnichannel inbox.
FreeScout
FreeScout is a shared-inbox help desk, closer to Help Scout than to a classic ticket queue: conversations land in mailboxes the whole team works out of together. It is a plain PHP and MySQL application, which is why people get it running on inexpensive shared hosting in under an hour, and the core is genuinely free. There is no first-party cloud, and a fair amount of what other tools bundle is sold here as separate paid modules from its marketplace.
Chatwoot
Chatwoot is the live-chat-first option and by far the largest community here, built as an open alternative to Intercom and Zendesk: a website chat widget, email, social and messaging channels all feed one shared inbox. It is a Rails application, and the hosted side has a free tier for very small teams before the paid plans start. Worth reading the plan comparison first: things like SSO and audit logs sit on the top paid tier rather than coming with every plan.
UVdesk
UVdesk is aimed squarely at online sellers: the free community edition is a Symfony application, and the paid plans add the marketplace and storefront integrations that matter when most of your tickets are about orders rather than IT. If your support volume is order-related, that focus saves real custom work. It is a smaller project than Chatwoot or Zammad, so expect a thinner ecosystem outside its e-commerce niche.
Faveo Helpdesk
Faveo sells two products off one Laravel codebase: a help desk for customer support and a service desk for internal IT, each available self-hosted or on Faveo's own cloud. The open-source community edition is free, and the paid tiers layer on SLA management, workflow automation and extra channels such as WhatsApp. Its pricing is the most complicated here, with separate recurring and perpetual licences for each of the two products, so read the tables carefully before committing.
GLPI
GLPI is an IT service desk bolted onto a full asset and inventory database, and that pairing is the whole point: a ticket is linked to the machine, licence or contract it concerns. That makes it the natural pick for an internal IT team that also has to answer what the company owns and when it expires. It is more to learn than a plain ticket queue, and it is the wrong tool if your job is answering customers rather than colleagues.
OTOBO
OTOBO is an actively developed fork of the old OTRS Community Edition, restarted in 2019 to keep a fully free version of that lineage alive. It carries the ITIL-flavoured feature set people know from OTRS, process tickets, SLAs and a customer portal, behind a modernised interface. Perl is the price of admission: the stack is unusual enough now that finding people who will cheerfully maintain it takes effort, and the vendor quotes its managed hosting rather than listing a price.
Znuny
Znuny is the other OTRS Community Edition fork, and the conservative one: its stated purpose is long-term support, with bug and security fixes for the old 6.0 line running alongside a newer feature branch. If you already run OTRS and want continuity rather than a redesign, this is the low-risk path, and both branches are still getting releases. It is a small team with no hosted offering of its own, and the interface is unapologetically the one you already know.
Request Tracker
Request Tracker has been running help desks, university IT and security response teams for more than twenty years, and it shows in the best way: it is extraordinarily configurable, scriptable and email-driven, and it does not buckle at volume. Best Practical, the company behind it, sells hosted plans and support on top. It is also the least fashionable option here, with a Perl stack and an interface built for people who live in it all day rather than for a first-time admin.
Frappe Helpdesk
Frappe Helpdesk is the newest-feeling of the mature options: a clean, fast ticket interface built on the Frappe framework, the same Python stack behind ERPNext. That lineage is the reason to pick it or to skip it, because if you already run Frappe or ERPNext this drops in beside them and shares your customer records. Its hosted pricing is charged per site rather than per agent, which is unusually good value for a large support team and beside the point for a two-person one.
Libredesk
Libredesk is the minimal option: one Go binary alongside Postgres and Redis, and you have live chat, email and WhatsApp arriving in a shared inbox. For a small team that wants something modern without a Ruby or PHP deployment to babysit, it is the easiest thing on this list to stand up. It is also the youngest and smallest project here, with no hosted plan and a much shorter track record than anything else in the table.
How we researched this
Free to download isn't the same as open source, and this list holds to the second: Hesk is free to use but source-available under a proprietary license, and Odoo Helpdesk is an Odoo Enterprise app, so neither is here. The twelve that remain were picked to cover customer-support desks, a shared inbox, and IT service desks. GLPI's sibling iTop was left out so two asset-management suites didn't crowd a help desk comparison, Peppermint was dropped because its own site did not load, and Trudesk, Papercups, Chaskiq, Tiledesk and erxes were set aside as effectively unmaintained or as chat products rather than help desks.
License, language and database mostly come from each project's own repository or install docs, and prices from the vendor's pricing page, left in their original currency and billing unit. FreeScout's and Libredesk's Hosted plan cells are blank because neither project sells a hosted plan of its own; FreeScout's cloud link lists third-party providers. Vendors reprice and move features between tiers, so open the pricing page before you commit to a hosted plan.