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Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

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Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#81

Post by _xnmw »

You know what I don't get about website live chat buttons like Intercom? The fact that you need to stay on the website to continue the conversation. Why not just provide a link to open a conversation in existing channels, like email, Twitter, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.? That way the customer can choose whichever channel they already have or prefer, and the conversation continues seamlessly after they've left your website.

Yes, I know Intercom offers the option to seamlessly switch to email, but at that point you could just build a simple 1990's email contact form in a fancy JS popup and it's effectively the same thing.

I understand Intercom made a billion dollar company out of their chat widget because businesses want to look savvy, but that doesn't mean it's actually a good experience for users. As a startup founder myself, I care more about a seamless experience for my customers than for me.

Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#82

Post by ac29 »

hanniabu wrote: post #73
pranav_rajs wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a hard decision to make. It would be considered on the basis of a couple of things. If it is derivate of already existing code, we would suggest not to do that. If it is an original work, then we would consider those. Having said that, we want to reduce such kind of conflicts happening in the community. So we would try to limit an entire module under EE License rather a part of it.

> So we would try to limit an entire module under EE License rather a part of it. As someone not familiar with this license, can you expand a little more into what it offers? Also another option for this is for you guys to maintain your own branch which would be used for the free hosted solutions so any enterprise feature PR's can be contained to the self-hosted option.

I think by EE license, they mean "Enterprise Edition" (aka commercial license, not sure if the code itself would be considered open, closed or "shared").

Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#83

Post by sojanofficial »

ac29 wrote: post #82
hanniabu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So we would try to limit an entire module under EE License rather a part of it. As someone not familiar with this license, can you expand a little more into what it offers? Also another option for this is for you guys to maintain your own branch which would be used for the free hosted solutions so any enterprise feature PR's can be contained to the self-hosted option.

I think by EE license, they mean "Enterprise Edition" (aka commercial license, not sure if the code itself would be considered open, closed or "shared").

That correct. The code can't considered open but rather source available.

Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#84

Post by sojanofficial »

_xnmw wrote: post #81

You know what I don't get about website live chat buttons like Intercom? The fact that you need to stay on the website to continue the conversation. Why not just provide a link to open a conversation in existing channels, like email, Twitter, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.? That way the customer can choose whichever channel they already have or prefer, and the conversation continues seamlessly after they've left your websi…

What we have seen is some customers prefer chat buttons especially when they prefer not to give out their personal information.

In Chatwoot the channels like email, twitter, Whatsapp etc are also considered primary conversation channels. So its helpful even when your primary support channel isn't chat.

Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#85

Post by shawticus »

_xnmw wrote: post #81

You know what I don't get about website live chat buttons like Intercom? The fact that you need to stay on the website to continue the conversation. Why not just provide a link to open a conversation in existing channels, like email, Twitter, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc.? That way the customer can choose whichever channel they already have or prefer, and the conversation continues seamlessly after they've left your websi…

Given the way you see the world, I'd say you odds of being successful in this industry are probably higher than most.

Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#86

Post by sojanofficial »

tnolet wrote: post #79

We use Intercom for support and sales, but also for email (drip style), mass emails like product updates and in-app notifications. Any plans for that?

Right now Chatwoot is suited primarily for support and sales use cases where its one on one conversations with the customer.

But we do have our eyes on marketing use cases(campaigns) in our future roadmap.

Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#87

Post by sojanofficial »

mariushn wrote: post #76
pranav_rajs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a enterprise edition in works. We will launch it soon. Whatever is MIT now, will stay as MIT.

Hope MIT core/features will continue to be improved, not abandoned. Adding new large features as enterprise only makes sense.

The community edition remains a core part of our vision and is also the base on which the enterprise features are build. So rest assured that we will keep working on improving them.

Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#88

Post by sojanofficial »

mariushn wrote: post #77
sojanofficial wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is correct. Our email channel is an implementation build on top of Rails Action mail box. It support ingresses for Mailgun, Mandrill, Postmark, and SendGrid. You can also handle inbound mails directly via the Exim, Postfix, and Qmail ingresses ref: https://guides.rubyonrails.org/action_mailbox_basics.html

Please consider adding Sparkpost support too.

We will definitely take a look if there is enough community interest. Feel free to raise issues on our Github if you have feature requests.

https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot/issues

Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#89

Post by relaunched »

I'm starting to feel some sorta way about open-core model as more of a marketing mechanism for lead gen. I can't put my finger on it and I'm not saying it's bad. It just kind of feels like it's like a free-trial that appeals to engineers, that helps jumpstart your marketing funnel top-end.

I'd love to hear Richard Stallman rant about this...he'd probably find a way to articulate, more elegantly, what I'm feeling.

Re: Launch HN: Chatwoot (YC W21) – Open-Source Alternative to Intercom, Zendesk

#90

Post by sojanofficial »

relaunched wrote: post #89

I'm starting to feel some sorta way about open-core model as more of a marketing mechanism for lead gen. I can't put my finger on it and I'm not saying it's bad. It just kind of feels like it's like a free-trial that appeals to engineers, that helps jumpstart your marketing funnel top-end. I'd love to hear Richard Stallman rant about this...he'd probably find a way to articulate, more elegantly, what I'm feeling.

In our case, open-sourcing Chatwoot was pretty accidental.

You could read the story behind how we ended up doing that over here

https://www.chatwoot.com/blog/woot-journals-one-year-since-o...

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