11 Best Open-Source Ticketing System In 2023
Welcome to our insightful list of the best open-source ticketing system solutions.
Effective and efficient customer support is more crucial than ever in the world we live in today.
Whether you’re a growing startup, a non-profit organization, or a large enterprise, the way you handle customer inquiries and issues can make a huge difference in your success.
That’s where open-source ticketing systems come into play.
In this article, we’ll dive into the exciting field of these systems, which are powerful tools for managing customer interactions and hubs of innovation and customization.
We’ll uncover the key features that make open-source ticketing systems a go-to choice for many organizations.
So, if you’re looking to optimize your customer support strategy, you’re in the right place.
This post covers:
The Best Open-Source Ticketing System
Selecting the ideal open-source ticketing system is essential, akin to finding the perfect gear for a journey.
It’s the backbone of stellar customer support, crucial for efficiently handling inquiries and ensuring a smooth experience.
This choice impacts the management of customer interactions and your team’s and clientele’s overall satisfaction.
Key elements include a user-friendly interface for easy navigation, customization options to tailor the system to your unique needs, and robust reporting features for insightful data analysis.
The right system is more than a problem-solver; it enhances your customer support experience.
And any of the tools below will take care of that!
1. UVdesk
UVdesk stands out as an exceptional open-source ticketing system for several reasons. Its efficient administration transforms customer queries into organized tickets, streamlining support.
With task management features, complex issues are easily handled. Plus, its email management solution converts support emails into standard tickets for better assistance.
The platform also offers multi-channel support (including eCommerce), consolidating queries from various sources in one place. Its customizable knowledge base resolves common customer questions, reducing support load.
UVdesk allows for extensive customization, letting you tailor the theme to match your brand and enhance the user experience.
Moreover, the workflow automation and adjustable company settings improve the management of incoming tickets. And its commitment to security ensures your data is protected against threats.
Additional features include a File Viewer and Form Builder App for enhanced customer interaction, tools to assess agent performance, a user-friendly Progressive Web App (PWA), and efficient ticket formation.
Key Features of UVdesk:
- Integration with various channels, centralizing customer queries from different platforms into a single, manageable interface.
- It efficiently converts support query emails into standardized tickets. This streamlines the process of tracking and responding to customer issues.
- The system includes a comprehensive knowledge base you can tailor to address common customer queries and provide detailed explanations, reducing the overall volume of support tickets.
- Automating workflows, enabling the helpdesk to automatically perform actions based on defined triggers or events, enhances efficiency.
- Tools for examining agent performance and tracking customer satisfaction metrics. Get insights that help in continuously improving the quality of customer support.
Best for:
UVdesk is ideal for businesses seeking a customizable and scalable customer support solution. Its multi-channel support and email management features make it perfect for organizations handling a high volume of customer interactions across various platforms.
Companies looking for an efficient, security-focused system with robust reporting capabilities will find UVdesk particularly beneficial.
Pricing: UVdesk is a free and open-source solution. But you can also opt for any of the two paid plans, starting at $22/month.
2. FreeScout
FreeScout is an open-source ticketing system, perfect for those needing a professional, cost-effective customer support solution.
It’s a breeze to set up, even on shared hosting, and supports unlimited agents, tickets, and mailboxes, all within a 100% mobile-friendly interface.
FreeScout features seamless email integration, multilingual support, starred conversations, and push notifications. It enhances teamwork with collision detection and conversation management tools, including merging, forwarding, and moving conversations between mailboxes.
Additionally, it offers satisfaction ratings (our favorite!), a spam filter, LDAP integration, and a comprehensive knowledge base.
FreeScout also integrates with major platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Telegram, and provides advanced features like GDPR readiness, API, dark mode, and customizable workflows.
This makes it an ideal, versatile solution for elevating your customer support, catering to a global audience while keeping user-friendliness and efficiency at its core.
Key Features of FreeScout:
- Unlimited number of support agents, tickets, and mailboxes, allowing for scalable customer support management.
- It offers extensive language support, including English, Spanish, French, German, and others, catering to a diverse global user base.
- 100% mobile-friendly, ensuring easy access and management of customer support tasks from mobile devices.
- Collision detection alerts agents when multiple users view or respond to the same ticket. This prevents overlaps in customer support responses.
- Custom workflows and automation rules for automatic ticket routing, categorization, and responses based on predefined criteria.
Best for:
FreeScout is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses and organizations looking for a cost-effective yet comprehensive customer support solution.
Its simplicity and ease of use make it perfect for teams with limited technical resources requiring robust functionality.
But with its scalability, multilingual support, and customization options, it’s also well-suited for growing businesses with diverse customer bases and evolving support needs.
Pricing: FreeScout is a free and open-source solution.
3. Faveo
Faveo is a standout open-source ticketing system, perfect for startups, SMEs, and enterprises looking for an easy-to-use, cost-effective support solution.
It’s highly customizable, allowing extensive tailoring to fit specific business needs. And it offers a comprehensive knowledge base app to share valuable information with staff and customers.
Faveo’s omnichannel integration makes it unique, seamlessly consolidating inquiries from emails and social media. It offers a perpetual license, ensuring affordability in the long term.
Plus, with options for company branding, you can tweak the system to reflect your brand identity.
Faveo also ensures top-notch customer service with dedicated account managers for priority support. It’s designed for unlimited agent usability, making it a budget-friendly option.
Whether you choose a self-hosted or cloud-based setup, Faveo provides flexibility to suit your operational preferences.
Key Features of Faveo:
- Easy-to-install and user-friendly platform, ideal for effective ticket management across various business sizes.
- It includes an app for creating a comprehensive knowledge base, allowing organizations to share information with staff and customers.
- Faveo provides flexibility with its hosting options, offering both self-hosted solutions for those who want control over their data and cloud-based options for ease of use and maintenance.
- Unlimited number of agents to scale your customer support team without additional costs.
Best for:
Faveo is great for startups, SMEs, and enterprises seeking a cost-effective, customizable, and comprehensive customer support solution.
Its user-friendly design and unlimited agent usability suit businesses scaling their customer service operations.
With its omnichannel integration and self-service options, Faveo is perfect for organizations that value efficient, multi-platform customer engagement and self-managed hosting flexibility.
Pricing: Faveo is a free and open-source solution. But you can also opt for paid self-hosted and cloud-based plans, starting at $15/month.
4. OpenSupports
OpenSupports is not just a tool; it’s a community-driven solution that revolutionizes customer support.
It thrives on its open-source nature, with all its code available on GitHub. You can actively contribute to its evolution by reporting bugs, proposing features, or helping with translations.
File attachments in OpenSupports are a game-changer. Both staff and customers can attach files to tickets, with control over the maximum file size. Plus, importing users is a breeze with its CSV import feature.
The system also boasts a comprehensive notification log, keeping you updated on all actions on your OpenSupports site. And including reCAPTCHA support enhances your site’s security, adding an extra layer of protection.
Customization is at the heart of OpenSupports. It’s all about making the system your own, from tailoring email templates to reflect your company’s style to creating custom responses for everyday inquiries.
What’s also really cool about OpenSupports is the support for multiple languages, like English, Spanish, German, French, etc.
OpenSupports doesn’t stop there. It offers articles and topics to address FAQs, a responsive design that looks great on any device, and detailed statistics to track your ticket system’s performance.
Key Features of OpenSupports:
- Capability to create custom response templates for recurring inquiries, streamlining the ticket response process.
- Statistics to track and analyze ticket system data, offering insights into performance and customer support trends.
- Creation of different departments. You can then assign staff members to specific departments they will oversee, enhancing ticket categorization and response efficiency.
- Both staff and customers can attach files to ticket comments. Plus, you can set limits on file size for efficient management.
Best for:
OpenSupports is ideal for businesses and organizations of all sizes looking for a customizable and community-supported open-source ticketing system.
Its multilingual support and ability to manage departments and staff make it suitable for companies with diverse and global customer bases.
Pricing: OpenSupports is a free and open-source solution.
5. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is a blend of simplicity and power, designed to make ticketing easy and productive.
It’s team inbox is a game-changer, allowing you to track and manage support tickets from multiple channels in one place. This, coupled with agent collision detection, ensures that your team works efficiently without overlapping on the same ticket.
SLA management is another key feature. It lets you set response and resolution deadlines based on business hours or categories, keeping your team on track.
To ease ticket management, Freshdesk includes a ticket field suggester to categorize, prioritize, and route incoming tickets automatically. Plus, it’s smart enough to prevent ticket reopening with a thank you detector.
Collaboration is a breeze with Freshdesk. It allows team members to work together seamlessly, even bringing in external experts to resolve complex issues faster.
Freshdesk’s omnichannel support is robust, managing communications from email, phone, chat, social media, and your website, all on a single platform.
In terms of analytics, it offers curated reports, customer satisfaction ratings, customizable dashboards, and the option to schedule and customize reports.
Last but not least, Freshdesk has you covered with portal customization, custom agent roles, ticket forms, and more.
Note: While this is a proprietary cloud-based solution, we still wanted to include it because of its awesomeness.
Key Features of Freshdesk:
- Tickets are automatically categorized, prioritized, and routed to the appropriate agents or departments.
- Businesses can create custom ticket statuses to reflect different stages of the support process accurately.
- Automation of routine tasks and scenarios allows agents to perform multiple actions on a ticket with a single click.
- In-depth analytics and reporting tools provide insights into helpdesk performance, customer satisfaction, and agent productivity.
Best for:
Freshdesk is ideal for businesses of any size looking for a comprehensive, multi-channel customer support solution.
Its user-friendly interface and robust automation tools cater well to teams prioritizing efficient, streamlined customer service.
Pricing: Freshdesk offers a free plan that supports up to ten agents, but it also has three paid solutions for growing businesses.
6. osTicket
With osTicket, customizing the data you collect from users when they submit a ticket is a breeze. You can create custom fields, forms, and lists that help you get to the heart of the issue, ensuring efficiency and precision.
The platform’s custom columns and queues are super handy. They allow you to create personalized views of tickets with the criteria you specify.
Plus, the ticket filters feature is super handy, automatically routing incoming tickets to the correct department or agent and triggering specific actions based on your rules.
osTicket’s auto-responder system sends tailored replies when a new ticket is opened, adding a personal touch to automated responses.
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) in osTicket help keep track of tickets and due dates, ensuring prompt responses and priority management.
The customer portal archives all support requests and responses, giving users easy access to their history and a rich knowledge base for self-service.
Finally (not really), the advanced search feature is a time-saver, allowing you to quickly find exactly what you’re looking for, including custom field searches.
Key Features of osTicket:
- Allows you to customize the data collected from users when they submit tickets. This helps you to identify and address the issue quickly.
- Define rules to automatically route incoming tickets to the appropriate department or agent and trigger specific actions.
- Set up configurable automatic replies for new tickets or messages (for each department).
- Create personalized views of tickets based on custom criteria, along with custom columns for additional ticket information.
Best for:
osTicket is best suited for small to medium-sized businesses and organizations needing a customizable, cost-effective customer support solution.
Its open-source framework is ideal for those with technical skills to tailor the system to specific needs.
Pricing: osTicket is a free and open-source solution. But there’s also a cloud-hosted option that goes for $12/month per agent.
7. DiamanteDesk
DiamanteDesk is a free, easy-to-use help-desk solution that stands out for its flexibility and adaptability to unique business needs.
It’s built on a modern technology stack (including PHP 5, Symfony2, Oro Platform, Bootstrap) that ensures reliability, scalability, and easy customization.
This means (thanks to the open-source nature) you can tailor it to fit your business’s requirements, whether specific integrations or unique workflows.
Its customer front-end is customizable, too, with adjustable columns in the ticket grid and social network integrations for easy user access.
Plus, its ability to integrate deeply with various CRM systems, eCommerce platforms, and project management tools makes it a versatile choice for any business model.
DiamanteDesk offers a wealth of features, including attachments, customizable fields, and comprehensive permissions settings at both branch and ticket levels.
DiamanteDesk is a powerful, customizable solution that adapts to your business’s unique needs and grows with you.
Key Features of DiamanteDesk:
- Provides full control over the system and its code base, allowing for easy customization and extra development.
- Seamless integration with various CRM systems, including OroCRM, Salesforce, SugarCRM, and more.
- Compatibility with eCommerce platforms such as Magento, Prestashop, Shopify, eBay, Amazon, and others.
- Offers customizable fields for tickets and branch-level as well as ticket-level permissions for better control and management.
Best for:
DiamanteDesk is ideal for businesses needing a customizable open-source ticketing system, especially those requiring specific CRM and eCommerce integrations.
Its advanced features and technical flexibility make it suitable for companies with the capacity to tailor their support solutions.
Pricing: DiamanteDesk is a free and open-source solution.
8. Zammad
Zammad brings a plethora of practicality and fantastic integration to take your ticketing system to the next level.
One of the coolest things about Zammad is its audit-proof historization of changes. This feature is convenient, especially in environments like banks, where tracking every change made to a ticket is crucial.
Plus, Zammad boasts an extensive knowledge base, ensuring agents and customers have all the info they need, potentially in multiple languages.
The flexibility of Zammad is incredible, thanks to its REST API, allowing for seamless integration and real-time updates across all channels. It also features individual fields for tickets, users, and organizations, making it adaptable to your business needs.
Moreover, Zammad’s immediate changes feature prevents duplicate work and keeps everyone in the loop. Its smart chat feature dramatically speeds up customer query resolution, and the platform supports 40+ languages, making it incredibly accessible.
You can personalize Zammad with your company’s branding and incorporate multitasking with multiple task handling and autosave features.
Key Features of Zammad:
- The system allows creating individual fields for tickets, users, and organizations, enhancing customization to meet specific business needs.
- Administrators can set individual overviews and lists for different teams, customizing numbers, names, columns, properties, and permissions.
- The smart chat feature enables the support team to resolve customer queries much faster than conventional email.
- Any work in progress is automatically saved. This ensures that agents’ latest work isn’t lost and can be accessed and edited from other devices,
Best for:
Zammad is perfect for businesses needing a customizable and efficient open-source ticketing system, especially those requiring detailed audit trails and diverse language support.
Its multitasking capabilities and API integrations suit fast-paced, growing environments that prioritize streamlined customer support and workflow management.
Pricing: While Zammad doesn’t have a free solution, it offers a 30-day free trial. From there, you can choose either a hosted ($5.40/month+) or a self-hosted solution ($2,700/year+).
9. Support Genix
Genix stands out with its capacity for unlimited tickets, agents, and customers. It’s epically scalable!
Managing your team is a breeze with Genix’s agent control features, allowing for easy oversight of your team’s capabilities. Plus, transferring tickets between agents or departments adds flexibility and efficiency to your workflow.
Email Piping automatically transforms customer emails into support tickets, and integrations with platforms like Envato and Elite Licenser simplify your support process, particularly for digital products.
Genix also saves time for busy agents with pre-saved messages for common responses.
With brand color settings to match your company’s style and WooCommerce integration for eCommerce businesses, Genix is flexible and customizable to your heart’s content.
Plus, features like WhatsApp notifications and detailed reports make Genix even more powerful.
Genix is a comprehensive, scalable, and customizable solution that’s perfect for any business looking to elevate its customer support experience.
Note: Genix specializes in offering a top-notch ticketing solution for WordPress users.
Key Features of Support Genix:
- Create and manage unlimited tickets, accommodating businesses of any size. Plus, add as many support agents as needed.
- Agents can create tickets for users, enhancing the support process and customer service experience.
- It includes a feature to transfer tickets between agents or departments, facilitating better handling and specialization of customer queries.
- The system includes controlled file upload settings to increase security, ensuring that customers can only upload specific types of files.
Best for:
Genix is best suited for growing businesses needing a scalable, open-source ticketing system with the capacity for unlimited tickets, agents, and customers.
Its features cater to teams prioritizing efficient, streamlined customer support and communication. The system’s flexibility and ease of management make it ideal for diverse and expanding customer service needs.
Pricing: While you can use Genix for free, it also comes with three pricing plans, starting at $99/lifetime for a single website.
10. HESK
HESK is an open-source ticketing system to efficiently organize, track, and resolve customer issues, so your team stays on top of everything.
With HESK, 86% of users have noticed a significant decrease in support requests, thanks to its integrated knowledge base that helps customers find answers quickly.
Keeping customers happy is a breeze when your team has the correct data at their fingertips. Plus, setting up is a snap with HESK’s cloud service – get your help desk running in minutes without any technical headaches.
HESK is about giving control back to you. Prioritize and categorize tickets, set up staff accounts with specific access and functionality, and track who’s working on what.
Each ticket is a hub of information, allowing for seamless customer communication.
Your team will love the canned responses, ticket templates, custom data fields, and 100+ options that make their life easier.
And your customers? They’ll appreciate how quickly and efficiently their issues are resolved.
Key Features of HESK:
- A built-in knowledgebase significantly reduces the number of support requests.
- The system is designed to provide quick access to the right data for faster responses.
- HESK offers a cloud service option, allowing for quick and hassle-free setup of the help desk system.
- It allows you to prioritize tickets by urgency, organize them into categories, and filter them in various convenient ways.
- You can set up staff accounts, restrict their access and functionality, and monitor who is working on what.
Best for:
HESK is perfect for businesses seeking a user-friendly, open-source ticketing system to streamline customer support.
Its features, like integrated knowledge base and customizable ticket management, are ideal for teams aiming to improve efficiency and response times.
Pricing: HESK is a free and open-source solution. But it also comes with additional cloud plans, starting at $29.99/month.
11. Spiceworks
If you’re juggling user requests, drowning in emails, and working with a tight budget, Spiceworks Cloud Help Desk is here to rescue your day.
(Remember, this tool isn’t open-source but has so many perks we just needed to add it.)
Whether running a small business or a bustling enterprise, Spiceworks is your one-stop solution to effortlessly track, prioritize, and manage all your projects and user requests. Plus, Spiceworks is super easy to use, with no server procurement, setup, or maintenance required.
Say goodbye to cluttered inboxes and hello to a streamlined, paperless experience.
Spiceworks doesn’t just organize your tasks; it helps you quantify them with in-depth reports on your daily and monthly activities. And because they host it for you and take care of backups and maintenance, you can focus solely on solving user issues.
Declutter, organize, and prioritize your workflow with customizable web portals, automatic ticket routing, and mobile apps for iOS and Android. Save time with automated responses, custom ticket views, and efficient ticket rules.
Key Features of Spiceworks:
- Easily manage daily projects and user requests with tools to track, prioritize, and organize them effectively.
- Offers in-depth reporting capabilities to quantify tasks and provide insights on daily and monthly activities.
- Access to the Spiceworks Community includes 8+ million experts ready to offer help and support.
- Native mobile apps for Android and iOS allow for management of tickets and tasks on the go.
Best for:
Spiceworks, while not an open-source system but a proprietary free-to-use software, is ideal for small to medium-sized businesses. Perfect for those seeking an easy-to-use, comprehensive solution for managing customer support tasks.
Pricing: Spiceworks is a free cloud-based ticketing system.
What Is The Best Open-Source Ticketing System
While every solution we covered offers unique perks, we find UVdesk, FreeScout and Faveo the ultimate solutions.
Here’s why:
- UVdesk is an open-source ticketing system offering robust customer support and ticket management. Its key features include email integration, a knowledge base, and multi-channel support, making it a versatile choice for small and large businesses seeking a user-friendly and flexible solution.
- FreeScout is a straightforward yet feature-rich open-source ticketing system. Its user-friendly interface, collision detection, and email integration make it an ideal match for small to medium businesses needing an efficient and easy-to-use support system.
- Faveo excels with its emphasis on automation and customization. Tailored for businesses needing scalable support solutions, it offers efficient ticket management, a customizable knowledge base, and diverse integration options, streamlining the customer support process.
| CMS | Starting price | Free plan | |
|---|---|---|---|
| UVdesk | $22/month | Yes | VISIT |
| FreeScout | Free | Yes | VISIT |
| Faveo | $15/month | Yes | VISIT |
| OpenSupports | Free | Yes | VISIT |
| Freshdesk | Free | Yes | VISIT |
| osTicket | $12/month | Yes | VISIT |
| DiamanteDesk | Free | Yes | VISIT |
| Zammad | $5.40/month | No | VISIT |
| Support Genix | $99/lifetime | Yes | VISIT |
| HESK | $29.99/month | Yes | VISIT |
| Spiceworks | Free | Yes | VISIT |
How To Get Started With UVdesk
Here’s a quick and easy step-by-step guide on how you can start benefitting from UVdesk:
- Download and install UVdesk: Visit the UVdesk official website and download the community edition. You can install it on your server following the provided instructions.
- Set up your account: After installation, access the UVdesk dashboard and set up your account. Create an admin account by providing necessary details like email and password.
- Configure settings: Navigate to the settings section to configure your helpdesk. Set up general settings such as time zone, default language, and support email.
- Create departments and agents: Under the “Team” section, create departments (like Support, Sales, etc.) and add agents (support staff) to these departments, assigning roles and permissions.
- Set up email integration: Configure email settings to enable ticket creation from emails. This ensures emails sent to your support address are converted into support tickets.
- Customize ticket workflow: Set up ticket workflows, including status, priority levels, and predefined responses (canned responses) for efficiency.
- Create a knowledge base (optional): To reduce ticket volume, create a knowledge base with FAQs and helpful articles for customer self-service.
- Test your setup: Before going live, test the system by sending test emails and creating test tickets to ensure everything works as expected.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is an open-source ticketing system?
It’s a software tool used to manage and track customer service requests and issues, where the source code is freely available for customization and improvement.
How does an open-source ticketing system differ from a proprietary one?
Open-source ticketing systems offer enhanced customization and integration options at generally lower costs, but they demand more technical expertise for setup and maintenance. In contrast, proprietary systems are typically more user-friendly and include dedicated support services.
Can open-source ticketing systems be integrated with other software?
Yes, most open-source ticketing systems can be integrated with various software tools like CRM systems, email platforms, and databases. However, the ease of integration depends on the specific system and its community support.
Is an open-source ticketing system secure?
Open-source systems can be very secure, but it depends on the active community and developers continuously updating and patching the software. Regular updates and proper configuration are key.
Are open-source ticketing systems free?
The software itself is usually free, but there might be costs associated with hosting, customization, and maintenance.
What kind of support is available for open-source ticketing systems?
Support usually comes from community forums, user groups, or hired 3rd-party vendors, unlike proprietary systems that offer dedicated support teams.
How customizable are open-source ticketing systems?
Highly customizable. Users can modify almost every aspect of the software, from the user interface to the functionality, provided they have the required technical skills.
What should I consider when choosing an open-source ticketing system?
Consider ease of use, customization needs, security features, integration capabilities, community support, and scalability to match your organization’s size and growth.
Can non-technical users manage an open-source ticketing system?
Basic management is often user-friendly, but deeper customization and system integration might require technical expertise.
Can open-source ticketing systems be scaled for large organizations?
Yes, many open-source ticketing systems are highly scalable and capable of handling the growing needs of large organizations. Note: This may require a more sophisticated setup and infrastructure.
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