Helpdesk and support inbox
Self-hosted alternatives to Zendesk, priced
3 open-source tools that can replace Zendesk, each shown with what it would actually cost to run for a team of 10 people. Zendesk on the Suite Team tier costs $638 a month at that size.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs Zendesk | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FreeScout | $14.40 | $51.90 | +$20,934 | easy | AGPL-3.0 |
| Chatwoot | $57.60 | $283 | +$11,579 | hard | source-available |
| Zammad | $57.60 | $283 | +$11,579 | hard | AGPL-3.0 |
The final column is the 36-month difference: positive means self-hosting is cheaper.
Which one to pick
FreeScout 4,532 stars
Laravel and MySQL. A shared mailbox rather than a full support suite, which is exactly what most small teams are overpaying Zendesk for.
At 10 people it needs 1.4 GB of memory and 13 GB of disk, which fits the Basic 2 GiB at DigitalOcean for $12.00 a month. Setting it up is roughly 2 hours of work, then 0.5 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Zendesk versus FreeScout breakdown · FreeScout at every team size
Chatwoot 36,724 stars
Rails web process plus a Sidekiq worker, PostgreSQL and Redis. The worker is not optional; skipping it silently breaks outbound email and webhooks.
At 10 people it needs 5.4 GB of memory and 28 GB of disk, which fits the Basic 8 GiB at DigitalOcean for $48.00 a month. Setting it up is roughly 16 hours of work, then 3 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Zendesk versus Chatwoot breakdown · Chatwoot at every team size
Zammad 5,905 stars
Rails with PostgreSQL, Redis and Elasticsearch. Elasticsearch is what makes this the heaviest helpdesk here, and it is effectively required for usable search.
At 10 people it needs 5.4 GB of memory and 33 GB of disk, which fits the Basic 8 GiB at DigitalOcean for $48.00 a month. Setting it up is roughly 16 hours of work, then 3 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Zendesk versus Zammad breakdown · Zammad at every team size
How the pricing was established
Zendesk pricing was read from its own pricing page on 2026-09-12, quoted in euros and converted at 1.1592 dollars to the euro, the Frankfurter, European Central Bank reference rates rate for 2026-09-11. Server prices come from the providers listed on the hosting page. The sizing model and the cost of your time are set out in full on the methodology page.