[opensourcedex]

Freescout is a free, open source email & communication project written in PHP and released under AGPL-3.0. It has 4,541 GitHub stars, 717 forks and 29 open issues, and was last pushed 34 hours ago. On this registry it ranks #5 of 13 tracked projects in Email & Communication, with 5 head-to-head comparisons available. It gained 8 stars over the last 6 tracked days.

What is Freescout?

What it is

FreeScout is an open-source helpdesk and shared inbox for customer support teams. It lives in the PHP and Laravel ecosystem and is licensed under AGPL-3.0. The project presents itself as a free self-hosted alternative to Zendesk and Help Scout, and its topics place it among helpdesk ticketing systems and OSTicket alternatives.

The problem it solves is the need to centralize support conversations, assign them to agents, and keep them tied to mailboxes and channels. Support teams receive messages through email, live chat, social channels, and phone, and they need shared visibility, internal notes, collision detection, and notification control. FreeScout provides a ticketing and conversation management interface that can be installed on a team's own server and connected to existing mail systems.

Key capabilities

  • Omnichannel handling centralizes conversations received by email, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Slack, Live Chat, and more.
  • Shared inbox workflow supports unlimited agents, tickets, mailboxes, internal notes, starred conversations, following, auto replies, forwarding, merging, and moving.
  • Email integration works through SMTP, IMAP, POP3, and OAuth authentication for Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace.
  • Collaboration tools include collision detection, automatic conversation list refreshing, push notifications, flexible agent notifications, and open tracking.
  • Search and media handling provide search and clipboard screenshot pasting into the reply area.
  • Accessibility and localization include screen reader support and multilingual interfaces.
  • Deployment and extension include a web installer, updater, mobile apps, modules, and integrations.

Who uses it and how

  • Support teams use FreeScout as a self-hosted helpdesk to manage customer conversations from a shared inbox instead of separate email clients.
  • Multi-channel teams use it to bring email, live chat, and messaging conversations into one ticketing workflow.
  • Administrators use the web installer and updater to deploy and maintain the application, while agents use mobile-friendly interfaces and push notifications.

Getting started

Typical methods include the installation guide, Docker image, Ubuntu script, and one-click or managed options such as Pikapods, Zenith, Softaculous, Fantastico, and Cloudron. The README requires Nginx, Apache, or IIS; PHP 7.4 to 8.x; and MySQL 5.0+, MariaDB 5.0+, or PostgreSQL.

When to use it — and when not to

FreeScout suits teams that want an open-source, self-hosted helpdesk replacing paid Zendesk or Help Scout workflows while retaining control over data and infrastructure. The self-hoster must operate the web server, PHP runtime, database, mail connections, updates, modules, and channel integrations. The provided metadata lists 0 contributors and 29 open issues, so teams needing enterprise controls, SLA management, advanced reporting, or vendor support should verify capacity and features separately.

project readme (upstream, from github) — read inline

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!

FreeScout

Table of Contents

Demo

Live Demo

Features

  • Omnichannel — it centralizes in one place all customer conversations received by email, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Slack, Live Chat and more.
  • AI-powered and super efficient.
  • Unlimited support agents, tickets, mailboxes, etc.
  • Secure by design.
  • Mobile-friendly.
  • Multilingual — English, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Slovak, Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian.
  • Seamless email integration (via SMTP, IMAP, POP3, etc).
  • Modern OAuth authentication for Microsoft Office 365 and Google Workspace.
  • Fully supports screen readers (for visually impaired).
  • Web installer & updater.
  • Starred conversations.
  • Push notifications.
  • Following conversations.
  • Auto replies.
  • Internal notes.
  • Forwarding / Merging / Moving conversations.
  • Phone conversations.
  • Sending new conversations to multiple recipients at once.
  • Collision detection – notice is shown when two agents open the same conversation.
  • Automatic refreshing of the conversations list without the need to reload the page.
  • Pasting screenshots from the clipboard into the reply area.
  • Flexible notifications for user agents.
  • Open tracking.
  • Powerful Search.

A full list of features is available here.

Need anything else? Suggest features.

Mobile Apps

Mobile apps support the same functionality and modules as the web version of your FreeScout installation. Both support agents and administrators can use mobile apps.

Android App iOS App

MacOS Menu Bar App

Requirements

FreeScout is a pure PHP/MySQL application, so it can be easily deployed even on a shared hosting.

  • Nginx / Apache / IIS
  • PHP 7.4 - 8.x
  • MySQL 5.0+ / MariaDB 5.0+ / PostgreSQL

There are no minimum system requirements (CPU / RAM) – FreeScout will run on any system.

Installation

Installation Guide

Images & One-Click Installs

More one-click installs…

Modules

Tools & Integrations

News & Updates

Don't miss news, updates and new modules!

Email Newsletter | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Telegram | RSS

Contributing

Screenshots

Dashboard:

Dashboard

Conversation:

Conversation

Mailbox connection settings page:

Mailbox connection settings page

Notifications:

Notifications

Push notification:

Push notification

Web installer:

Web installer

Login page:

Login page

Frequently asked questions

Is Freescout free to use?

Freescout is open source under the AGPL-3.0 licence. There is no licence fee and no seat count — you can self-host it or, where the project offers one, pay a vendor for a managed version instead.

What does Freescout do?

Open-source helpdesk for seamless customer support

What is Freescout written in?

Freescout is primarily written in PHP. Its source is publicly available at https://github.com/freescout-helpdesk/freescout, and it has 4,541 GitHub stars.