Znuny is a free, open-source, web-based ticketing system under GPL-3.0, written in Perl, for teams running customer service, help desk, and IT service management who need a maintained ticket platform they can self-host and tailor.
What it is
Znuny is a continuation of the ((OTRS)) Community Edition, taken up from version 6.0.30 after that edition was declared end of life at the end of December 2020. It lives in the Perl and OTRS ecosystem and carries the same otrs topic lineage, with JavaScript on the front end, and it is designed for transparency and long-term sustainability while remaining highly tailorable to an organization's needs. The project source is public on GitHub, documentation sits at doc.znuny.org, and development is mainly funded by Znuny GmbH in Berlin.
The concrete thing it replaces is the abandoned ((OTRS)) Community Edition 6.0.30 itself. Organizations that built processes on that ticketing system faced a choice between running an unmaintained codebase and migrating to different software, so Znuny provides a maintained and stable version of the same well-known ticket system, plus new features, and it aims to reestablish a connection to the community around it.
Key capabilities
- Web-based ticketing covering Customer Service, Help Desk, and IT Service Management workflows.
- Maintained continuation of ((OTRS)) Community Edition 6.0.30, so existing OTRS-based processes keep a supported path.
- Runs on Linux, with Debian or Red Hat preferred, and Perl 5.16.0 or higher.
- Served through Apache 2 with mod_perl2 or higher as the recommended setup; CGI support exists but is not recommended.
- Database backends include MySQL 8.0 or higher, MariaDB 10.3 or higher, PostgreSQL 12.0 or higher, and Oracle 19c or higher.
- Distributed under the GNU General Public License v3, with license text in the
COPYING file.
- Front-end components written in JavaScript, and configuration tailorable to an organization's own processes.
Who uses it and how
- Help desk and customer support teams that need a self-hosted ticket queue instead of a SaaS seat-based tool.
- IT service management groups running service management processes on a platform they control.
- Organizations still on ((OTRS)) Community Edition 6.0.30 that need a maintained, stable version of the same system.
- Debian and Red Hat Linux shops, since those are the preferred operating systems, with MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or Oracle behind the application.
- Teams that want community contact points alongside the software: project website, community forum, and Discord server.
Getting started
Install from the public source on GitHub and run it on Linux under Apache 2 with mod_perl2 against a supported database such as MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, or Oracle. Setup and configuration guidance lives in the documentation at doc.znuny.org, and commercial services and consulting are available from Znuny GmbH through znuny.com.
How it compares
The facts name one comparable system directly: ((OTRS)) Community Edition 6.0.30, which Znuny continues rather than competes with, so the practical contrast is between an abandoned codebase and a maintained one under the same GPL-3.0 license. No list of paid products this project replaces is given in the facts, so no licence, hosting, data ownership, or cost comparison against commercial vendors can be drawn.
When to use it — and when not to
A self-hoster must operate a Linux host, Apache with mod_perl2, Perl 5.16.0 or higher, and one of MySQL 8.0+, MariaDB 10.3+, PostgreSQL 12.0+, or Oracle 19c+ — a real stack to keep patched, and the README lists no Docker image, compose file, or hosted option to lighten that. Teams without Linux and database administration capacity, or groups wanting a managed service with no server to run, should look elsewhere. The README is also thin on installation and upgrade procedure, so expect to lean on doc.znuny.org and the community forum, and note that browser support excludes Internet Explorer before version 11, Firefox before version 31, and Safari before version 6.
