Open source alternatives to Freshdesk

What Freshdesk does

Freshdesk turns customer emails and other requests into tickets. They are assigned round robin, by workload or by agent skills, and tracked against SLA policies with business hours and agent shifts. It also has automations, ticket templates, collaborators who can help on single tickets, a self-service knowledge base with an approval workflow, custom dashboards and SAML single sign-on. Freddy AI adds an AI agent, an agent Copilot and insights. Live chat and messaging are sold in Freshdesk Omni and in Freshworks’ separate Freshchat product.

Why people look for an alternative

• Features tied to higher tiers. Freshdesk charges per agent across its Growth, Pro and Enterprise plans. Skill-based assignment, multiple SLA policies, a sandbox and audit logs are among the features on the upper tiers.
• Metered AI. Freddy AI Agent comes with a one-time allowance of sessions, after which sessions are bought in packs. Freddy AI Copilot is a separate per-agent add-on.
• A limited free option. The Free program covers up to two agents for six months. Accounts that are suspended for having too many agents are deleted after 90 days.
• Chat is a separate product. Live chat is not part of the Freshdesk plans themselves; teams that want it need Freshdesk Omni or Freshchat.
• Hosting region. You pick a data center (US, EEA, UAE, India or Australia) when you sign up, and the data stays with Freshworks.

What to compare in an alternative

1. Assignment and SLAs. Round robin, load balancing, skills, several SLA policies and business-hour calendars.
2. Knowledge base and portal. Article management, multiple languages and a customer view of open tickets.
3. Chat in the same tool. Whether email and live chat share one inbox.
4. Migration. A Freshdesk importer, or the Freshdesk API plus a CSV import.
5. Licensing and hosting. Which features are in the open source code, and whether a hosted service exists if you do not want to run servers.

Which one to choose

Zammad has an official Freshdesk migrator and covers SLAs, triggers, time accounting, a knowledge base and many channels, with a hosted option from its developers. Frappe Helpdesk has assignment rules, SLAs, saved replies and a knowledge base under AGPL with no paid edition, and Frappe Cloud does not charge per agent. osTicket and FreeScout are low-cost PHP options. osTicket includes help topics, SLA plans and a portal, while FreeScout keeps the core small and sells modules. UVdesk adds workflows and a branded support center. Chatwoot and Libredesk put email and live chat in one inbox, which covers what Freshdesk Omni adds. Znuny and Request Tracker suit organizations that need detailed processes or also run IT support.