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Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

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Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#71
post #64

Another great open source helpdesk in this space is Zammad https://github.com/zammad/zammad

We have been using Zammad for over a year and are extremely satisfied! The developers have programmed OTRS and know what they are doing. The only thing we missed was a tool that asks the user if he was satisfied after a completed support ticket. Thanks to Zammad's API, we were able to easily program this ourselves.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#72

This is great! I'm using Intercom, but I know it's going to get very expensive over the next few years, so I will keep an eye on this project. I'm thinking about starting to run my own tools instead of relying on third-party software, e.g. * GitLab.com (free, ~$80/mo for CI) => Self-hosted GitLab * Sentry.io (free) => Self-hosted Sentry * Slack ($24/mo) => Mattermost * Google Analytics (free) => Matomo The main reaso…

Except for mattermost, I’ve run all those in a Kubernetes cluster. Good stuff.

On the own you’re own data theme, I would also throw in metabase, mautic & zammad.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A full demo or feature list would be nice. For comparison to other options out there.

Chatwoot Co-Founder here: We are working on the feature comparison and roadmap pages. It will be up on the website in a day or two.

just record a 1 to 2 minute demo of you walking thru standard use cases. it will only take a couple hours and is well worth it.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#74

Here's a blocklist for all these super annoying chat widgets: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bcye/Hello-Goodbye/master/... You can import this into uBlock origin so you never have to see these things again.

Too bad there is no way to make a blocklist to block all freeloaders from visiting websites. The person who actually owns anything at all (the website owner) is somehow expected to give everything for free to someone who doesn't own anything at all (the website visitor). Plus I have found that the same people who complain loudly on internet forums about chat widgets (and many similar marketing tools) don't stop using…

> the same people who complain...don't stop using the website itself

We do stop using the website. Instead of using the website, we use tools like https://archive.is/ and the Wayback Machine to view less user-hostile snapshots of the website.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#75
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand what you are saying. There has always existed straightforward methods of preventing “freeloaders” as you call them from accessing your content. If you don’t believe me, go to wsj.com and report back. TV Broadcasters don’t get to force you to watch their ads, in fact skipping ads on broadcast tv is a big and legal market. Furthermore, today’s ad blocking detection can be very good at detention, so t…

>>I am more than happy to leave their shitty website and never come back. Unfortunately, if this is actually true, then you are the exception which proves the rule. That's precisely why I call these people "freeloaders". If they actually stopped visiting my website and wasting my site's resources based on such principles, I would be ecstatic to see them leave. >>TV Broadcasters don’t get to force you to watch their a…

> That's because you already paid for it

This is not true for free over-the-air television.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#76

Here's a blocklist for all these super annoying chat widgets: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bcye/Hello-Goodbye/master/... You can import this into uBlock origin so you never have to see these things again.

Thanks for this; it'll keep my cookie-consent-, overlay-, and dickbar-blocking filters company.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#77
post #3

Founder here, Chatwoot is a customer support tool for instant messaging channels which can help businesses provide exceptional customer support through their websites or social media channels. This was a product we started building in 2017. It failed due to a couple of obvious reasons. We built on Vue.js and Rails. It was in an inactive mode for around 1 and a half years. Recently we thought of putting it out instead…

Congrats on the launch. As a fellow Ruby/Rails developer I love seeing great open-source Ruby/Rails apps in a world where everyone seems to be trending to what's "sexy" now instead of what's tired and true.

You'll never make everyone happy... For me the fact that it's RoR as opposed to, say Go or Elixir is a big turn off, because I know it will be slow and eat up lots of RAM. For me tried and true would be Java.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#78
post #55

This looks awesome, will watch for updates. I run a small nonprofit and we spend around 350/m on support services, would love to cut this cost!

Nithin, Co-founder of chatwoot here. We're so happy that ChatWoot will help you and 1000 other people who are spending a ton on these tools :) Also Feedbacks like this motivates and drives us. Keep supporting :)

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#79
post #68

Very nice to have more open source choice. Is there a flow builder with GUI included for bots?

Nithin co-founder here, Thanks a lot for the feedback :) At present we don't support bots, instead we have multiple agent based support solution.

Re: Show HN: Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Drift, Zendesk, FreshChat

#80

This is great! I'm using Intercom, but I know it's going to get very expensive over the next few years, so I will keep an eye on this project. I'm thinking about starting to run my own tools instead of relying on third-party software, e.g. * GitLab.com (free, ~$80/mo for CI) => Self-hosted GitLab * Sentry.io (free) => Self-hosted Sentry * Slack ($24/mo) => Mattermost * Google Analytics (free) => Matomo The main reaso…

Look into Zulip before you settle on Mattermost. I've used both, and vastly prefer Zulip's threaded model.
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