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CommunicationAlternative to IntercomAlternative to Zendesk

Chatwoot

Open-source customer engagement suite and live chat alternative to Intercom and Zendesk.

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LicenseMIT
GitHub stars36.1k
Last commit1 weeks ago
Tags6 topics
Live ChatRuby On RailsOmnichannelSelf HostedCustomer SupportHelpdesk
Overview

Why consider Chatwoot?

Chatwoot is an omnichannel customer support platform that unites website live chat, email, WhatsApp, and social channels into a single collaborative agent inbox.

Guided learning

Learn Chatwoot by building

Practical setup notes, real use cases, and copy-ready examples in one focused guide.

3 min read 10 sections
In this guide10 sections

What is Chatwoot?

Chatwoot is an open-source customer communication platform and live-chat suite built with Ruby on Rails and Vue.js. It operates as a customer engagement alternative to proprietary customer service platforms like Intercom, Zendesk, and Crisp.

Chatwoot consolidates multiple customer conversation channels—website live chat widgets, email support desks, WhatsApp Business API, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, and SMS—into a single collaborative inbox with agent collision detection, canned responses, and conversation routing.

Who Is It For?

  • Customer Support Teams: Managing multi-channel customer inquiries in a unified ticketing queue with private internal agent notes.
  • SaaS & E-Commerce Businesses: Engaging website visitors with customizable live chat widgets and automated onboarding messages.
  • Privacy-Conscious Organizations: Maintaining full control over customer conversation logs and chat histories on private servers.

Key Features

  • Omnichannel inbox supporting Website Live Chat, Email, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, and Social Media channels.
  • Embeddable website live chat widget with custom branding, proactive messages, and pre-chat lead capture forms.
  • Agent productivity tools: Canned responses, private internal agent notes, conversation labels, and auto-assignment rules.
  • Interactive live customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys automatically sent upon conversation resolution.
  • Native mobile applications for iOS and Android allowing support agents to respond to customer inquiries on the go.

Deploying Chatwoot with Docker Compose

yaml
1version: '3'
2
3services:
4 base: &base
5 image: chatwoot/chatwoot:latest
6 env_file: .env
7 volumes:
8 - ./storage:/app/storage
9 depends_on:
10 - postgres
11 - redis
12
13 rails:
14 <<: *base
15 container_name: chatwoot_rails
16 command: ['bundle', 'exec', 'rails', 's', '-p', '3000', '-b', '0.0.0.0']
17 ports:
18 - '3000:3000'
19 restart: unless-stopped
20
21 sidekiq:
22 <<: *base
23 container_name: chatwoot_sidekiq
24 command: ['bundle', 'exec', 'sidekiq', '-C', 'config/sidekiq.yml']
25 restart: unless-stopped
26
27 postgres:
28 image: postgres:15-alpine
29 container_name: chatwoot_postgres
30 restart: unless-stopped
31 volumes:
32 - ./pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data
33 environment:
34 - POSTGRES_DB=chatwoot_production
35 - POSTGRES_USER=postgres
36 - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secure_postgres_pass
37
38 redis:
39 image: redis:7-alpine
40 container_name: chatwoot_redis
41 restart: unless-stopped

Prepare the database and start the services:

bash
1docker compose run --rm rails bundle exec rails db:chatwoot_prepare
2docker compose up -d

Navigate to http://localhost:3000 in your browser to complete administrator onboarding and configure your first website live chat inbox.

Practical Use Cases

1. Website Live Chat and Lead Capture

A SaaS company embeds the Chatwoot JavaScript widget on its marketing landing page, collecting visitor email addresses and providing real-time sales chat.

2. WhatsApp Customer Support Desk

An online retailer integrates the official WhatsApp Business Cloud API into Chatwoot, allowing 10 support agents to answer WhatsApp customer orders from a single dashboard.

3. Multi-Channel Support Ticketing

A tech company routes incoming support emails (support@example.com) and live website chats into a unified queue with automatic round-robin agent assignment.

Troubleshooting and Limitations

  • Sidekiq Background Queue Requirement: Chatwoot relies heavily on Sidekiq workers for dispatching emails and webhook notifications; ensure the sidekiq container runs continuously.
  • ActionCable WebSocket Reverse Proxy: When deploying behind Nginx or Cloudflare, configure WebSocket headers (Upgrade and Connection) to ensure real-time chat typing indicators function properly.

Official Resources

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Chatwoot FAQs

Chatwoot is listed as a Communication tool on TiloBox. Review the overview, features, and official documentation on this page to decide whether it solves your specific workflow.

Start with the project's GitHub repository and official website for supported installation and deployment instructions. Test the setup with representative data or a small project before rolling it out more widely.

Chatwoot is listed under the MIT license. Read the complete license text and the project's notices before using, modifying, or distributing the software.

Production readiness depends on your requirements. Review maintenance activity, security practices, documentation, backup and upgrade procedures, and compatibility with your stack; then validate it in a non-production environment.

Chatwoot is listed as an alternative to Intercom. Compare the core workflow, deployment model, integrations, and licensing against your must-have requirements before switching.