Welcome to a new era of customer support.
If you've ever felt boxed in by expensive subscriptions, rigid features, or the lack of control that comes with SaaS platforms like Zendesk, you're not alone.
More teams than ever are turning to open source customer support software that puts them back in control.
Whether you're scaling a startup or running enterprise operations, these platforms offer freedom, transparency, and powerful capabilities, without the vendor lock-in.
Below is a narrative overview of the leading open source alternatives to Zendesk.
Chatwoot
Chatwoot puts conversation at the center of support.
It's not just a ticketing tool, it’s a complete omnichannel communication hub.
From WhatsApp to live chat, every interaction comes into a unified inbox, keeping things simple for your team and fast for your users.
AI steps in through Captain, the built-in assistant that handles routine queries, freeing up agents to focus on real human problems.
You also get collaboration tools like private notes and canned replies, along with a self-service help center.
It’s designed to grow with you, with automation, routing, and customer data that gives agents the full picture.
Best of all, you host it yourself, so your data stays yours.
UVdesk
UVdesk takes a developer-friendly approach to support.
It’s built on Symfony and gives you a modular system where everything, from automations to branding, can be extended or tailored.
Emails become tickets, repetitive tasks become workflows, and no matter how big your team gets, there’s no limit on agents or tickets.
Its support center bundle allows for customer-facing portals, while ecommerce integrations with Amazon, Shopify, and others help online sellers manage support in context.
Whether it’s translation, spam filtering, or saved replies, UVdesk delivers an enterprise-grade experience with open source freedom.
Zammad
Zammad brings clarity to chaos.
All your support channels feed into one modern interface, and every message becomes a ticket, easy to track, assign, and resolve.
It blends simplicity with power, from drag-and-drop ticket sorting to full-text search and GitHub integrations.
There’s collaboration through notes and drafts, automation through macros and workflows, and protection through permissions and two-factor authentication.
Zammad doesn’t just help you manage support, it helps you understand and optimize it, with built-in analytics and reports.
Freescout
FreeScout is lightweight without cutting corners.
It’s built on Laravel, easy to host, and packed with features like internal notes, collision detection, live chat, and even CRM tools.
Designed for full ownership and privacy, it runs on your terms, no subscriptions, no data sharing.
It supports mobile-friendly design, dozens of languages, and powerful email integration, including Microsoft Exchange.
From Slack to WhatsApp to Telegram, FreeScout turns your inbox into a true multi-channel support hub, lean, fast, and fully under your control.
Peppermint
Peppermint strips out the noise.
It’s built for simplicity, privacy, and speed.
Whether you're tracking internal IT issues or customer tickets, it gives you markdown-based notes, file uploads, and full offline capability.
Everything runs on your infrastructure, without sending data to the cloud.
It’s fast enough to run on a Raspberry Pi and clean enough to use on a 4K display.
Peppermint isn’t just minimal, it’s intentional.
A lightweight solution that respects your privacy, budget, and autonomy.