head to head · open source
Chatwoot vs bytedesk
Chatwoot has 39,901 GitHub stars, 9,701 forks, 1,377 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. bytedesk has 539 stars, 145 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Chatwoot leads on adoption by 7,303% (39,901 vs 539 stars). Chatwoot is written in Ruby under a custom or non-standard licence; bytedesk is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0. Chatwoot has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, bytedesk 27%. bytedesk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (chat-widget, customer-support, intercom, livechat), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Chatwoot | bytedesk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 539 |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-13 | 2026-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.7K | ⑂ 145 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Chatwoot if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick bytedesk if
- You want the bytedesk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and bytedesk fits your workflow better
About Chatwoot
Chatwoot The modern customer support platform, an open source alternative to Intercom, Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud etc. Chatwoot is the modern, open source, and self hosted customer support platform designed to help businesses deliver exceptional customer support experience. Built for scale and flexibility, Chatwoot gives you full control over your customer data while providing powerful tools to manage conversations across channels. ✨ Captain – AI Agent for Support Supercharge your support with Captain, Chatwoot’s AI agent. Captain helps automate responses, handle common queries, and reduce agent…
read the full Chatwoot overview →
About bytedesk
Bytedesk Chat as a Service AI powered Omnichannel customer service With Team IM Language: English 中文 Demo Admin Dashboard Admin Chat Admin LLM+Agent Admin Channel Agent Introduction TeamIM Multi level organizational structure Role management Permission management ... Customer Service Support multiple channels multiple routing strategies, and detailed assessment indicators Seating workbench ... Knowledge Base Internal Docs HelpCenter FAQ Ticket Ticket management Ticket SLA management Ticket statistics and reports ... AI Agent Chat with Ollama/DeepSeek/ZhipuAI/... Chat with Knowledge base(RAG) Function calling Mcp…
read the full bytedesk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Chatwoot or bytedesk more popular?
Chatwoot has 39,901 GitHub stars and bytedesk has 539. Chatwoot has the larger community by that measure.
Are Chatwoot and bytedesk free?
Both are open source. Chatwoot has no licence declared in this registry, and bytedesk is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Chatwoot and bytedesk?
Chatwoot is written in Ruby and bytedesk in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Chatwoot or bytedesk?
Choose Chatwoot if you want the larger community (39,901 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose bytedesk if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.