Best Open-Source Ticketing Systems (2026)

The catch — and we'll be honest about it throughout — is that "free to license" and "free to run" are not the same thing. Someone has to install it, secure it, patch it, back it up, and keep the lights on. For some teams that trade is obviously worth it; for others it quietly costs more than the SaaS they were trying to escape.

This is a researched roundup of the best open-source ticketing software worth shortlisting in 2026: osTicket, Zammad, FreeScout, Chatwoot, UVdesk, Faveo, Peppermint, and GLPI (for IT/ITSM). For each we cover what it is, its license, what self-hosting actually requires, its community size (GitHub stars), honest strengths and limits, and who it's genuinely for. We verified every project, license, and star count against its GitHub repository in June 2026 and cite the figures — where a number moves fast, we flag it.

How we compared

We focused on projects that are (a) genuinely open-source under a recognized license, (b) actively maintained as of mid-2026, and (c) usable as a real ticketing or help desk system, not abandoned demos. For each we pulled the license and current GitHub star count directly from the repository (stars are a rough but useful proxy for community size and momentum), read the docs to establish the self-hosting stack and minimum requirements, and checked G2 and Capterra for real-user ratings. A caveat worth stating up front: open-source tools attract far fewer formal reviews than commercial SaaS, so review counts here are small (often single or double digits) — treat the star ratings as directional, not statistically robust. All figures are approximate and current as of June 2026; confirm on each project's repo before you commit.

The best open-source ticketing systems at a glance

Licenses and star counts verified directly against each project's GitHub repo, June 2026; stars are approximate and move daily. \UVdesk's ~19.1k stars sit against only ~563 forks — an unusually skewed ratio, so we treat its star count as a weak popularity signal rather than proof of a large active community (see below).*

The 8 best open-source ticketing systems

1. osTicket — the classic, runs-anywhere workhorse

What it is: The grandparent of open-source help desks, around since 2010. It funnels email, phone notes, and web-form requests into a simple multi-user ticket queue with canned responses, SLAs, custom fields, and basic routing. License: GPL-2.0. Community: ~3.8k GitHub stars — a smaller star count than newer tools, but a very long track record and a large installed base, especially in education and small IT shops. Self-host requirements: Plain PHP/MySQL on a standard LAMP/LEMP stack. This is its superpower — it runs comfortably on a ~$5/month VPS or even shared hosting, so the infrastructure bar is the lowest on this list. Strengths & limits: Rock-solid, lightweight, and almost free to run. The trade-off is a dated interface and no native modern channels (live chat, social) without add-ons. Real-user ratings are decent — roughly G2 4.4/5 (~44 reviews) and Capterra 4.3/5. What users say: Reviewers credit the fundamentals — one Software Advice reviewer writes that it "provides solid automation and email integration features that helped improve response times and overall support efficiency." The recurring complaint is the look: another Software Advice reviewer found "OSTicket proved to have poor and outdated interface and functionality that we [were] simply embarrassed to show to our clients." Who it's for: Teams that want dependable email ticketing with minimal hosting cost and don't care about a modern UI.

2. Zammad — the modern omnichannel contender

What it is: A polished, modern web help desk with omnichannel intake (email, web, chat, plus social and messaging channels), strong full-text search, a flexible role/permission system, and built-in reporting. It's the project most often recommended as the "grown-up" osTicket replacement. License: AGPL-3.0 (note: AGPL's network-use clause matters if you plan to modify and offer it as a hosted service to others). Community: ~5.7k GitHub stars, an active foundation-backed project, and high user ratings — about G2 4.5/5 and Capterra 4.6/5, albeit on small review counts. Self-host requirements: This is the honest catch. Zammad needs Ruby, PostgreSQL, and Elasticsearch, with 4GB+ RAM minimum — shared hosting is not an option. Elasticsearch in particular adds real operational weight: upgrades can require index rebuilds that take hours on large instances. Strengths & limits: Best-in-class UX and channels for an open-source tool; the cost is meaningfully higher setup and maintenance effort than osTicket or FreeScout. What users say: The praise centers on a modern feel rare in open source. A verified IT-services reviewer on Software Advice (5 stars, 2+ years of daily use) calls it a "modern and efficient ticketing system for our team," and an automotive-industry reviewer (Andre B.) sums it up as "one of the best open-source ticketing systems that also looks good." The flip side surfaces on G2, where some users note limited hands-on setup support for self-hosters. Who it's for: Mid-size teams that want a modern, multichannel help desk and have (or can rent) the ops capacity to run it.

3. FreeScout — the lightweight Help Scout alternative

What it is: A free, self-hosted shared-inbox help desk explicitly built as a privacy-friendly Help Scout / Zendesk alternative. It deliberately feels like email — a clean shared mailbox with assignments, notes, tags, saved replies, and a modular system for paid add-ons (live chat, Telegram, etc.). License: AGPL-3.0. Community: ~4.4k GitHub stars; Capterra ~4.2/5 (small sample). A genuinely active project with a paid module marketplace funding development. Self-host requirements: Pure PHP/Laravel + MySQL, designed to run even on shared hosting — one of the easiest modern tools to deploy after osTicket. Strengths & limits: Lightweight, fast, and the friendliest UX of the truly low-footprint options. The base app is intentionally lean; richer channels and features come via (sometimes paid) modules, so the "free" version is smaller than it first looks. Who it's for: Small teams that loved Help Scout's simplicity but want to self-host and control their data.

4. Chatwoot — the open-source live-chat & omnichannel platform

What it is: The most-starred tool on this list by a wide margin and the closest open-source analog to Intercom or Zendesk — a unified inbox spanning website live chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, and more, with a help center, automations, and AI-assisted replies. License: MIT for the core (note: Chatwoot has moved some newer/enterprise features into a separately-licensed edition, so "open-source" applies to the community core, not every feature). Community: ~33.1k GitHub stars and tens of thousands of self-hosted installs — by far the largest and most active community here. Real-user rating around G2 4.5/5 (small review count). Self-host requirements: Ruby on Rails + PostgreSQL + Redis, typically deployed via Docker. Heavier than the PHP tools; budget a real server, not shared hosting. Strengths & limits: The strongest live-chat and social-channel story in open source, with a permissive MIT core. The watch-outs: it leans chat/conversation-first rather than classic IT-style ticketing, and the community/enterprise feature split means some capabilities sit behind the paid edition. What users say: A Capterra reviewer who evaluated open-source options wrote that "Chatwoot's chat bots (and built-in natural language processing/NLP) was amazing and really put it above the alternatives in our evaluation." On the downside, G2 reviewers repeatedly flag the interface — several say the UI "could be improved" and isn't the most beginner-friendly for new agents. Who it's for: Product-led and customer-facing teams that want modern omnichannel chat without per-seat SaaS fees.

Update (June 2026): Salesforce has agreed to acquire Fin (formerly Intercom) for ~$3.6 billion and plans to fold it into Salesforce's Agentforce — the deal was announced June 15, 2026 and is expected to close around Q4 of Salesforce's FY2027, worth weighing in any long-term Intercom/Fin decision.

5. UVdesk — the ecommerce-focused help desk

What it is: A PHP/Symfony help desk built for ecommerce and marketplace support, with native connectors for Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Amazon, PrestaShop, and OpenCart that pull order context into the ticket. License: OSL-3.0 (Open Software License) for the community edition; a hosted SaaS PRO edition exists too. Community: A word of caution on the numbers here. The community-skeleton repo displays ~19.1k GitHub stars — but only ~563 forks. That ~34:1 star-to-fork ratio is wildly out of line with comparable projects (osTicket, Zammad and GLPI all sit in the low single digits), so the star count is a poor proxy for how big or active UVdesk's real contributor and user base is. Don't pick UVdesk for its star count; pick it for the one thing it does better than anything else on this list — ecommerce. Self-host requirements: PHP/Symfony + MySQL — a fairly standard LAMP-style deployment, heavier than osTicket but no exotic dependencies. Strengths & limits: Its real selling point is ecommerce fit: native connectors for Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Amazon, PrestaShop and OpenCart pull order and customer context straight into the ticket, which is genuinely useful if your support is order-driven. Outside ecommerce it's a less obvious pick, and the active ecosystem is smaller than the star count implies — meaningfully smaller than Chatwoot's or Zammad's. Who it's for: Online stores and marketplace sellers that want order-aware ticketing they can self-host.

6. Faveo — the budget service desk with an ITIL flavor

What it is: A Laravel-based help desk and service desk that leans toward structured, ITIL-style support — ticketing with SLAs, a knowledge base, and a service-desk edition for internal IT. License: OSL-3.0 for the Community edition; Faveo also sells hosted and self-hosted paid editions, so the free tier is the entry point, not the whole product. Community: ~1.2k GitHub stars — one of the smaller communities here, so weigh momentum and support availability accordingly. Self-host requirements: PHP/Laravel + MySQL, standard web-stack deployment. Strengths & limits: A capable, low-cost service desk for teams that want a bit more ITIL structure than osTicket without paying enterprise prices. The flip side is the smaller community and a clear nudge toward the paid editions for advanced features. Who it's for: Small IT or support teams wanting a structured, affordable service desk and comfortable with a smaller open-source community.

7. Peppermint — the lean, modern self-hosted newcomer

What it is: A newer, deliberately minimalist open-source ticket-management and help desk tool — think a clean, modern Zendesk/Jira-lite for internal staff and customer requests, popular in self-hosting and homelab circles. License: Mixed — and this is the watch-out. Peppermint is often described as "AGPL-3.0," but that's not accurate for the part that matters. Per the repo's own license file, all content under the main peppermint directory — i.e. the core application — is governed by a custom commercial license, and only content outside those directories is offered under AGPLv3. In practice, treat the core product as commercially licensed, not as a clean copyleft open-source app, and read the license terms before you build a business on it or redistribute it. Community: ~3.1k GitHub stars and growing — small but active, with a modern TypeScript codebase. Self-host requirements: Node/TypeScript + PostgreSQL, deployed via Docker. Straightforward for anyone comfortable with containers. Strengths & limits: Lightweight, modern, and pleasant to run; great for small teams and homelabs. As a younger project it has a narrower feature set and a smaller community than the established names — fine for simple queues, less so for complex enterprise workflows. The biggest caveat is the licensing above: if a genuinely OSI-style open-source license is a hard requirement for you, Peppermint's commercial core may be a dealbreaker. Who it's for: Small IT teams, developers, and homelabbers who want a clean, modern self-hosted ticket queue and are comfortable with its mixed/commercial licensing.

8. GLPI — the open-source ITSM and asset-management heavyweight

What it is: Not just a help desk — GLPI (Gestionnaire Libre de Parc Informatique) is a full open-source IT asset management + ITSM platform with a service desk on top: incident, problem, and change management, SLAs, a self-service portal, plus a CMDB tracking computers, peripherals, software, and licenses. License: GPL-3.0. Community: ~6.0k GitHub stars, a long history, and broad use in IT departments; Capterra ~4.3/5. Self-host requirements: PHP/MySQL — standard web stack, with optional inventory agents for asset discovery. Strengths & limits: Unmatched in this list for asset/inventory management married to ITIL-style ticketing — if you want one tool for both the help desk and the hardware/software inventory, GLPI is the answer. The trade-off is complexity: it's an ITSM platform, so it's heavier to configure than a pure ticketing tool and overkill if you only need a support inbox. Who it's for: Internal IT teams that need asset management and ITSM together, not just customer support tickets.

The honest part: open source isn't free

This is the section most roundups skip. A $0 license is real, but the total cost of ownership is not zero — and for small teams it can quietly exceed the SaaS you were avoiding.

When you self-host, you're paying in four currencies:

• Hosting. osTicket and FreeScout can run on a $5/month VPS or shared hosting. Zammad (with Elasticsearch and 4GB+ RAM) and Chatwoot (Rails + Postgres + Redis) need real servers — budget meaningfully more.
• Setup and labor. Someone installs it, configures channels, and learns its quirks. With Elasticsearch-dependent tools like Zammad, that someone needs real ops skill.
• Maintenance forever. Security patches, version upgrades, backups, and uptime are now your job. Zammad upgrades in particular can require Elasticsearch version bumps and hours-long index rebuilds.
• Your time, priced honestly. This is the line most teams forget. One published model puts a 15-agent Zammad instance at roughly $480/year in hosting plus ~6 hours/month of admin time (~$5,400/year in labor) — about $5,880/year all-in. The same analysis puts the break-even at around 7–8 agents: below that, commercial SaaS is often cheaper once you value your own time; above it, self-hosting starts to save real money. (Source: OpenMSP's open-source ticketing cost analysis — figures are illustrative and depend heavily on your labor rate.)

There's also the support question. If something breaks at 2am, there's no vendor SLA — you have the community forum, or you buy a commercial support contract. Zammad's, for example, run roughly €2,999–€9,999/year, which narrows the savings gap considerably.

None of this makes open source the wrong choice. Data ownership, privacy, no per-seat ceiling, and full customizability are genuine, durable advantages. Just go in with the real number, not the sticker price of $0.

Or: a managed cloud help desk (and an honest aside on AI)

If the maintenance burden above gives you pause, the pragmatic middle ground is a managed cloud version. Several projects here offer hosted editions (Zammad Cloud, Chatwoot's cloud, UVdesk PRO, Faveo hosted, GLPI via partners) so you keep most of the openness without owning the servers. And plenty of teams that thought they wanted to self-host end up happier on a low-cost commercial SaaS once they price their time — tools like Freshdesk and Help Scout exist precisely for teams that want zero infrastructure.

One honest aside, since we make it and you'll see Macha mentioned elsewhere on this site: Macha is not an open-source ticketing system. It's a proprietary AI agent layer that sits on top of a commercial help desk — specifically Zendesk and Freshdesk — to resolve routine tickets automatically inside your existing workflow. We mention it only to be clear about the category boundary: an AI layer like this works with a commercial SaaS help desk, not with a self-hosted open-source stack. If your plan is to own everything on your own servers, the eight projects above are your shortlist, not Macha. If you're instead on (or considering) Zendesk or Freshdesk and the gap you're feeling is automation, that's a different problem — see how the AI layer works on your help desk, or 7-day free trial, no credit card required. Either way, pick the tool that matches how you actually want to run support.

For the broader landscape beyond open source, our guides to the best free help desk software and the best help desk software cover the commercial and freemium options side by side.

How to choose the right open-source ticketing system

1. Decide why you're self-hosting. If it's data ownership or compliance, almost any tool here delivers. If it's purely to save money, run the TCO math first — below ~7–8 agents, SaaS often wins.
2. Match the channel mix. Email-first IT support? osTicket or FreeScout. Modern omnichannel? Zammad. Live chat and social? Chatwoot. Ecommerce orders? UVdesk. Assets + ITSM? GLPI.
3. Be honest about your ops capacity. No spare sysadmin time? Stay on the PHP-on-shared-hosting tools (osTicket, FreeScout) or pick a managed cloud edition. Don't deploy Elasticsearch-dependent Zammad without someone to own it.
4. Check the license fits your plans. Licenses genuinely differ here. AGPL (Zammad, FreeScout) has a network-use clause that matters if you'll modify and offer it as a service; MIT (Chatwoot core) and GPL (osTicket, GLPI) are more permissive for typical internal use; OSL-3.0 (UVdesk, Faveo community) is its own copyleft variant. Read Peppermint's terms especially carefully — its core app ships under a custom commercial license, not a clean open-source one, despite often being labelled AGPL.
5. Weigh community size. More stars and activity (Chatwoot, Zammad, GLPI) usually means faster fixes, more docs, and more integrations than smaller projects (Faveo, Peppermint).
6. Pilot on real tickets. Spin up a test instance, route a slice of live volume through it, and measure setup pain and day-two maintenance before you commit your whole queue.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best open-source ticketing system in 2026? There's no single winner — it depends on your use case. Zammad is the best modern omnichannel help desk; osTicket is the most dependable, lowest-cost classic; FreeScout is the lightweight Help Scout-style shared inbox; Chatwoot leads on live chat and has the biggest community; UVdesk wins for ecommerce; GLPI is the pick for IT asset management plus ITSM; and Peppermint is a lean, modern option for small teams and homelabs.

Is open-source ticketing software really free? The license is free, but running it is not. You pay in hosting, setup, ongoing maintenance, and your own time. One model puts a 15-agent Zammad instance near $5,880/year all-in once you price admin labor, with self-hosting only beating SaaS above roughly 7–8 agents. Open source wins on data ownership and no per-seat fees — just budget the real total cost.

Which open-source help desk is easiest to self-host? osTicket and FreeScout are the easiest — both are PHP/MySQL apps that run on cheap shared hosting or a $5 VPS. Zammad (Ruby + Elasticsearch + 4GB RAM) and Chatwoot (Rails + Postgres + Redis) are more powerful but need real servers and more operational skill.

What's the difference between an open-source help desk and a managed cloud one? With open source you host and maintain the software yourself, owning the data and infrastructure (and the upkeep). A managed cloud help desk — including hosted editions of Zammad, Chatwoot, or commercial tools like Freshdesk and Help Scout — runs the servers for you for a subscription fee, trading some control for far less maintenance.

Can I add AI to an open-source ticketing system? Some projects have native or community AI features (Chatwoot has AI-assisted replies, for example), but capabilities vary. Proprietary AI agent layers such as Macha attach to commercial help desks like Zendesk and Freshdesk rather than self-hosted open-source stacks — so if AI automation is your priority, factor it into your platform choice up front.

The bottom line

The best open-source ticketing system is the one that fits your channels, your license needs, and — crucially — your appetite for maintenance. osTicket and FreeScout are the easy, run-anywhere picks; Zammad is the modern omnichannel standout; Chatwoot owns live chat and community size; UVdesk suits ecommerce; GLPI is the ITSM-plus-assets heavyweight; and Faveo and Peppermint round out the budget and lean-modern ends. Just remember the honest truth running through this whole guide: open source is free to license, not free to run. Price your time, match the tool to your ops capacity, and pilot on real tickets before you migrate.

Projects, licenses, and GitHub star counts verified via each repository and web research, June 2026. Star counts and ratings move continually and are community-set — re-check on the source repos before you decide.