head to head · open source
Chatwoot vs Frappe Helpdesk
Chatwoot has 36,913 GitHub stars, 8,958 forks, 1,377 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Frappe Helpdesk has 3,382 stars, 944 forks, 159 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Chatwoot leads on adoption by 991% (36,913 vs 3,382 stars). Chatwoot is written in Ruby under a custom or non-standard licence; Frappe Helpdesk is written in Vue under AGPL-3.0. Chatwoot has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, Frappe Helpdesk 28%. Chatwoot was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (customer-support, javascript), 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 | Frappe Helpdesk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Vue |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 944 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Chatwoot if
- You weight community size — 37K 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 Frappe Helpdesk if
- You want the Frappe Helpdesk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You evaluated both and Frappe Helpdesk fits your workflow better
About Chatwoot
Chatwoot is a Ruby based, open source, self hosted customer support platform that consolidates live chat, email, and social messaging into one omnichannel inbox, positioned as an open alternative to Intercom, Twilio, Zendesk, and Salesforce Service Cloud.
read the full Chatwoot overview →
About Frappe Helpdesk
Frappe Helpdesk is an open source ticketing system for customer support. It lives in the Frappe ecosystem, using the Frappe Framework in Python and JavaScript, the Frappe UI library, and Vue3. The project is licensed under AGPL 3.0 and provides agent and customer portals, issue tracking, knowledge base articles, SLAs, assignment rules, and saved replies.
read the full Frappe Helpdesk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Chatwoot or Frappe Helpdesk more popular?
Chatwoot has 36,913 GitHub stars and Frappe Helpdesk has 3,382. Chatwoot has the larger community by that measure.
Are Chatwoot and Frappe Helpdesk free?
Both are open source. Chatwoot has no licence declared in this registry, and Frappe Helpdesk is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Chatwoot and Frappe Helpdesk?
Chatwoot is written in Ruby and Frappe Helpdesk in Vue. 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 Frappe Helpdesk?
Choose Chatwoot if you want the larger community (36,913 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Frappe Helpdesk if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.