Drift is a popular customer messaging platform, but if you're looking for an open source alternative that gives you full control, flexibility, and ownership over your customer interactions, several excellent options exist. These solutions provide modern, scalable communication tools without locking you into expensive subscriptions or proprietary ecosystems.
Chatwoot
Chatwoot offers a comprehensive, self-hosted customer support platform that unifies conversations across multiple channels into a single inbox. With an AI-powered assistant named Captain, it automates routine queries to lighten the load on your team. You can empower your customers with a self-service help center and keep your team aligned through internal notes and collaborative features. Chatwoot also integrates smoothly with popular tools like Slack and Shopify, supports detailed customer profiles, and delivers rich reporting to improve your support operations continuously.
Papercups
Papercups is built with privacy and control at its core, developed in Elixir for real-time performance and reliability. It provides an open-source live chat experience that integrates effortlessly with email, SMS, and team chat platforms like Slack. Papercups emphasizes flexibility with easy embedding options for web and mobile apps and supports team collaboration with conversation assignment and markdown formatting. If you want a lightweight yet powerful support tool that keeps your data secure, Papercups is a compelling choice.
Chaskiq
Chaskiq stands out with its focus on the entire customer journey, offering a customizable web messenger that goes beyond basic chat. It supports rich media, video calls, and programmable chat flows for personalized engagement. Chaskiq’s campaign and automation features allow you to send targeted messages based on user behavior, while its built-in Help Center ensures your documentation is always within reach. Designed as an extensible platform, it offers robust integrations with tools like WhatsApp, Zoom, and Slack, making it ideal for teams that want deep customization and seamless workflows.
Each of these open source platforms provides a unique approach to customer communication, empowering you to deliver seamless support and engagement while retaining control of your data and workflows.