Chatwoot
Customer SupportA customer support inbox that brings live chat, email and social channels into one shared view for support teams.
What the free edition leaves out
The free edition is genuinely usable, but some team or enterprise features need a paid plan. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not say, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Not confirmed | The cloud pricing page shows SSO/SAML only on the Enterprise cloud plan; the help docs have a SAML setup article with no edition stated. Self-hosted availability is not stated. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Not confirmed | The product docs list a custom roles article with no edition information. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Paid | The Enterprise Edition page lists Audit Logs as an Enterprise feature; the cloud pricing page also shows audit logs only on the Enterprise plan. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Not confirmed | – | – |
| Backups and restore | Not confirmed | – | – |
| API access | Not confirmed | The pricing FAQ says you can use the API to export conversations, contacts and other data; plan limits are not stated. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Paid | The Enterprise Edition page lists SLA Management and direct support as Enterprise features. | Source ↗ |
Best for
Support teams that want a self-hosted shared inbox with live chat, email and social channels and are fine running PostgreSQL and Redis.
Why choose it over Intercom
The core is MIT licensed, so you can self-host it and read or change the code outside the enterprise folder. A hosted cloud version exists if you do not want to run it. Enterprise features are an add-on you can unlock on the same install, without reinstalling.
Where it falls short
Whitelabeling, SLA management, audit logs and agent capacity management are listed as Enterprise Edition features, and the enterprise/ folder needs a paid subscription for production use. Self-hosting means you manage PostgreSQL, Redis, upgrades and backups. Direct support is listed as an Enterprise feature.
Open-source alternative to
- Intercom — Chatwoot offers a website live-chat widget and a shared inbox you can host yourself, so it can replace Intercom for support conversations. This is a replacement use, not an official claim by the project.
- Zendesk — Chatwoot handles customer conversations across channels with a team inbox, so it can replace Zendesk for basic support work. This is a replacement use, not an official claim by the project.
Category
Customer SupportTopics
Tech stack
Ruby
Vue
JavaScript
DockerLanguages as reported by GitHub for the repository.
