head to head · open source
Freescout vs Keila
Freescout has 4,628 GitHub stars, 741 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Keila has 2,259 stars, 177 forks, 76 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Freescout leads on adoption by 105% (4,628 vs 2,259 stars). Freescout is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; Keila is written in Elixir under AGPL-3.0. Freescout has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, Keila 8%. Freescout was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Freescout | Keila | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.6K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 741 | ⑂ 177 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Freescout if
- You weight community size — 4.6K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Keila if
- You want the Keila feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You evaluated both and Keila fits your workflow better
About Freescout
Free Self Hosted Zendesk & Help Scout Alternative FreeScout is the super lightweight and powerful free open source help desk and shared inbox built with PHP (Laravel framework). Now you can enjoy free Zendesk & Help Scout without giving up privacy or locking yourself into a service you don't control. FreeScout has been developed from scratch and does not use any copyrighted Help Scout or Zendesk materials. If you want to support the project feel free to star this repository . It helps to increase the visibility of the project and let people know that it is valuable. Thanks for your support! Table of Contents…
read the full Freescout overview →
About Keila
Keila An Open Source Newsletter Tool Keila is an Open Source alternative to newsletter tools like Mailchimp or Sendinblue. With Keila you can easily send out newsletter campaigns and create sign up forms. For smaller newsletters, you can use your own email inbox to send out campaigns. For larger newsletter projects, AWS SES, Sendgrid, Mailgun, and Postmark are supported in addition to SMTP. Give Keila a Try! You can give a hosted version of Keila a try on app.keila.io. More information about the pricing of Keila Cloud here. If you want to deploy Keila on your own server, you can use the official Docker image…
read the full Keila overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Freescout or Keila more popular?
Freescout has 4,628 GitHub stars and Keila has 2,259. Freescout has the larger community by that measure.
Are Freescout and Keila free?
Both are open source. Freescout is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Keila under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Freescout and Keila?
Freescout is written in PHP and Keila in Elixir. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Freescout or Keila?
Choose Freescout if you want the larger community (4,628 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Keila if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.