head to head · open source
Chatwoot vs Znuny
Chatwoot has 36,913 GitHub stars, 8,958 forks, 1,377 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Znuny has 595 stars, 122 forks, 120 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Chatwoot leads on adoption by 6,104% (36,913 vs 595 stars). Chatwoot is written in Ruby under a custom or non-standard licence; Znuny is written in Perl under GPL-3.0. Chatwoot has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, Znuny 21%. 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Chatwoot | Znuny | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 595 |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Perl |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.0K | ⑂ 122 |
| 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 Znuny if
- You want the Znuny feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Perl
- You evaluated both and Znuny 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 Znuny
Znuny is a free, open source, web based ticketing system under GPL 3.0, written in Perl, for teams running customer service, help desk, and IT service management who need a maintained ticket platform they can self host and tailor.
read the full Znuny overview →
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More Customer Support & Success projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Customer Support & Success field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Chatwoot or Znuny more popular?
Chatwoot has 36,913 GitHub stars and Znuny has 595. Chatwoot has the larger community by that measure.
Are Chatwoot and Znuny free?
Both are open source. Chatwoot has no licence declared in this registry, and Znuny is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Chatwoot and Znuny?
Chatwoot is written in Ruby and Znuny in Perl. 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 Znuny?
Choose Chatwoot if you want the larger community (36,913 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Znuny if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.