head to head · open source
goflylivechat vs rt
goflylivechat has 2,591 GitHub stars, 729 forks, 39 open issues and last shipped 1.1 years ago. rt has 1,162 stars, 298 forks, 82 open issues and last shipped yesterday. goflylivechat leads on adoption by 123% (2,591 vs 1,162 stars). goflylivechat is written in HTML under Apache-2.0; rt is written in Perl under GPL-2.0. goflylivechat has attracted 28% as many forks as stars, rt 26%. rt was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (customer-support), 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
| goflylivechat | rt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 2.6K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | HTML | Perl |
| Last push | 2025-09-04 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 729 | ⑂ 298 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick goflylivechat if
- You weight community size — 2.6K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick rt if
- You want the rt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Perl
- You evaluated both and rt fits your workflow better
About goflylivechat
GOFLY LIVE CHAT is an open source live chat support system written in Go for self hosted customer service workloads. It belongs to the Go web application ecosystem and targets private cloud deployments where an organization runs its own messaging backend, database, and web frontend instead of relying on a hosted support platform.
read the full goflylivechat overview →
About rt
Request Tracker (RT) is an open source, enterprise grade issue and ticket tracking system written in Perl for organizations that need to track what needs to get done, who is working on which tasks, what has already been done, and when tasks were or were not completed.
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Frequently asked questions
Is goflylivechat or rt more popular?
goflylivechat has 2,591 GitHub stars and rt has 1,162. goflylivechat has the larger community by that measure.
Are goflylivechat and rt free?
Both are open source. goflylivechat is licensed under Apache-2.0 and rt under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between goflylivechat and rt?
goflylivechat is written in HTML and rt 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, goflylivechat or rt?
Choose goflylivechat if you want the larger community (2,591 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose rt if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.