head to head · open source
Zammad vs rt
Zammad has 6,067 GitHub stars, 1,093 forks, 451 open issues and last shipped yesterday. rt has 1,167 stars, 299 forks, 82 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zammad leads on adoption by 420% (6,067 vs 1,167 stars). Zammad is written in Ruby under AGPL-3.0; rt is written in Perl under GPL-2.0. Zammad has attracted 18% 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 3 topic tags (customer-support, helpdesk, 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
| Zammad | rt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.1K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Perl |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 299 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zammad if
- You weight community size — 6.1K 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 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 Zammad
Welcome to Zammad Are you juggling countless customer inquiries across multiple channels? Struggling to keep your support team on the same page? Or spending more time managing your helpdesk than delivering exceptional support to your customers? Zammad is your Swiss Army knife a web based, open source helpdesk and customer support platform packed with features to streamline customer communication across channels like email, chat, telephone and social media. The Software The Zammad software is and will stay open source. It is licensed under the GNU AGPLv3. The source code is available on GitHub and owned by the…
read the full Zammad overview →
About rt
Request Tracker (RT) RT is an open source, enterprise grade issue and ticket tracking system. Explore RT docs » Release Notes · Community Forum · Public Wiki · Blog · Hosting & Support RT allows organizations to keep track of what needs to get done, who is working on which tasks, what's already been done, and when tasks were (or weren't) completed. RT doesn't cost anything to use, no matter how much you use it; it is freely available under the terms of Version 2 of the GNU General Public License. RT is commercially supported software. To purchase hosting, support, training, custom development, or professional…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zammad or rt more popular?
Zammad has 6,067 GitHub stars and rt has 1,167. Zammad has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zammad and rt free?
Both are open source. Zammad is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and rt under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zammad and rt?
Zammad is written in Ruby 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, Zammad or rt?
Choose Zammad if you want the larger community (6,067 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose rt if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.