head to head · open source
Zammad vs iTop
Zammad has 5,924 GitHub stars, 1,056 forks, 451 open issues and last shipped yesterday. iTop has 1,181 stars, 297 forks, 63 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zammad leads on adoption by 402% (5,924 vs 1,181 stars). Zammad is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; iTop is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. Zammad has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, iTop 25%. Zammad was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (helpdesk), 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
| Zammad | iTop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.9K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 297 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zammad if
- You weight community size — 5.9K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick iTop if
- You want the iTop feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and iTop fits your workflow better
About Zammad
Zammad is a web based, open source helpdesk and customer support platform, released under the GNU AGPLv3 and written primarily in Ruby on the Rails framework. The source code lives on GitHub and is owned by the Zammad Foundation, an entity that the README describes as independent of commercial providers such as Zammad GmbH. Development is carried out by the team at Zammad GmbH together with the community, and the project states that the software is and will stay open source.
read the full Zammad overview →
About iTop
iTop, short for IT Operations Portal, is an open source, web based IT service management platform that is sponsored, led, and supported by Combodo. It bundles a fully customizable configuration management database, a helpdesk and ticketing system, and a document management tool into one application. The project is written in PHP and released under the AGPL 3.0 license, and it has been developed in public for roughly eight years with community contributions tracked on GitHub.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zammad or iTop more popular?
Zammad has 5,924 GitHub stars and iTop has 1,181. Zammad has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zammad and iTop free?
Both are open source. Zammad is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and iTop under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zammad and iTop?
Zammad is written in Ruby and iTop in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Zammad or iTop?
Choose Zammad if you want the larger community (5,924 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose iTop if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.