Chatwoot
Chatwoot is an open-source customer support platform — an alternative to Intercom and Zendesk — that brings website chat, email, WhatsApp, and social messages into one shared inbox. Its core is MIT-licensed and can be self-hosted, so you avoid per-agent fees and keep conversation data on infrastructure you control.
- Replaces:
- Intercom, Zendesk
- Open source:
- MIT core; enterprise features separately licensed
Chatwoot in plain terms
Chatwoot provides a shared team inbox, contact profiles, canned responses, routing and assignment, reports, a website chat widget, and APIs and webhooks for automation. Code outside its enterprise directory is licensed under the MIT Expat license; enterprise features are separately licensed.
A good fit when…
- Support teams whose per-agent costs are high relative to their size
- Businesses handling customer conversations across chat, email, and messaging apps
- Organizations that need support conversations kept on their own infrastructure
- Products that want support deeply integrated with their own app and CRM
Choose something else when…
- Teams that want an advanced AI agent resolving a large share of conversations out of the box
- Companies relying heavily on in-app product tours and proactive messaging — Intercom is stronger there
What running it involves
- Minimum 2 CPU cores, 4 GB RAM, and 20 GB SSD on Ubuntu 20.04+ (production: 4+ cores, 8 GB+ RAM, 50 GB+ SSD)
- PostgreSQL 12+ and Redis 6+
- A reverse proxy such as Nginx, a domain, and an SSL certificate
- SMTP for outbound email
- Docker or Chatwoot’s Linux install script
Email and messaging channels each need their own provider credentials, so channel setup is where most of the configuration time goes.
If you’d rather not self-host
Chatwoot Cloud lists a free Hacker plan for up to 2 agents, then $19 (Startups), $39 (Business), and $99 (Enterprise) per agent per month, as of September 2026.
Requirements and prices are from the project’s own docs and pricing pages as of September 2026 — see sources below.
Deploying and customizing Chatwoot
Channel setup
Website chat, email, WhatsApp, and social inboxes connected and branded.
Routing and teams
Assignment rules, teams, and business hours that match how support is staffed.
App integration
The chat widget embedded in your app with verified user identity.
CRM sync
Contacts and conversations linked to customer records in your CRM.
Automation
Webhooks and API integrations that tag, route, and escalate automatically.
Hosting and backups
Deployed on your cloud with monitoring and database backups.
Migrating to Chatwoot
Contacts and conversation history export from Intercom or Zendesk and import through Chatwoot’s API. Channels are reconnected one at a time, the website widget is swapped, and canned responses and routing rules are recreated. Help-center content moves separately.
Chatwoot vs Intercom
Chatwoot vs Intercom compared on per-seat pricing, AI agents, channels, and self-hosting — with list prices and when each fits.
Custom Client Portal Development
Custom client portals for document sharing, project status, approvals, invoices, and messaging — branded, secure, and owned by you.
Chatwoot — common questions
Is Chatwoot free?+
What do you need to self-host Chatwoot?+
Can Chatwoot replace Intercom?+
Which channels does Chatwoot support?+
Sources
Open-Source Alternatives to Salesforce, HubSpot & Other SaaS (2026)
A practical 2026 guide to self-hostable open-source alternatives — replace Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Calendly, Mailchimp and more, and stop paying per seat.
How to Cut Your SaaS Bill Without Losing Capability
A practical playbook to reduce SaaS costs in 2026 — audit per-seat tools, consolidate overlap, and replace the worst offenders with self-hosted open source you own.
Self-Hosting on AWS: Own Your Software Instead of Renting It
What it means to self-host open-source software on AWS — the benefits, the real responsibilities, and how a managed setup gives you ownership without the headache.
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