Looking for an Intercom alternative with full control and transparency?
Open source options are changing the game, giving you complete data ownership, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, without compromising on features.
Chatwoot
Chatwoot is a compelling choice in this space. Built as a self-hosted, open-source customer engagement suite, it doesn’t just aim to replace Intercom, it reimagines what modern customer support should be. At its core is a unified inbox where emails, live chat, and social messages all converge, allowing support teams to manage communication seamlessly and efficiently.
But it’s not just about centralization. Chatwoot brings intelligence to the table with Captain, an AI assistant that handles repetitive queries, freeing agents to focus on more complex conversations. This smart automation is paired with a full-featured help center portal, empowering customers to self-serve when they can and reach out when they need.
Inside teams aren’t left out. Private notes, internal mentions, and robust conversation tools make it easy for support staff to collaborate behind the scenes. Agents save time with keyboard shortcuts and canned replies, while the system manages workloads intelligently through routing rules and availability settings.
And knowing your customer? That’s built in. Custom attributes, pre-chat forms, and detailed profiles let you tailor support on a personal level. Analytics give you the bigger picture, who’s performing, how customers feel, and where to improve, all without handing your data over to third-party platforms.
From Slack integrations to multilingual support, Chatwoot proves that open source doesn’t mean cutting corners. It means owning the platform that powers your customer relationships.
Papercups
Chaskiq presents itself as a modern, adaptable platform beyond just chat. It enables you to customize conversations with rich media, video calls, and dynamic content. Designed for the full customer journey, it supports smart routing, behavior-triggered bots, and multimedia campaigns. Its extensible dashboard and strong integrations with tools like Slack, WhatsApp, and Zoom allow you to tailor workflows deeply. The built-in help center and multilanguage support make it a solid choice for global teams aiming for seamless, personalized customer experiences.
Chaskiq
Papercups, built in Elixir, focuses heavily on privacy, data control, and real-time performance. It offers a flexible, self-hostable live chat app designed to fit naturally into your existing workflows. With integrations for email, SMS, Slack, and Mattermost, Papercups lets teams collaborate easily on customer conversations. Its chat widget is customizable and ready for modern frameworks like React and Flutter, making embedding simple. Thanks to Elixir’s concurrency and fault tolerance, Papercups can handle everything from startups to larger operations without missing a beat.