Help desk and ticketing software in 2026

Narrower

• Live chat and customer messaging tools 17 LiveChat, Intercom and Tidio
• IT service management (ITSM) and PSA tools 12 ServiceNow IT Service Management, Jira Service Management and ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus

Commercial help desk and ticketing software

1. 1
   Salesforce Service Cloud Salesforce, Inc.

   Enable your team with customer service support software and solutions powered by AI to create connected, efficient, and scalable service that customers love.

   Complete system Production-ready A large contact centre needs complex routing and processes tied to Salesforce customer data.

   Commercial
2. 2
   LiveChat Text S.A.

   Text is live chat software for your website with an AI Agent that answers 24/7. Qualify leads and track sales from chats. Start your free 14-day trial.

   Complete system Production-ready An online shop or service business wants dedicated live chat on its website with staff answering in real time.

   522 readers a month Since 2002 Commercial
3. 3
   Zendesk Suite Zendesk

   Move beyond deflection with AI agents that resolve issues end-to-end. Improve service quality, speed, and scale. Start your free trial.

   Complete system Production-ready A support team handling volume across email, chat and phone wants the most widely integrated helpdesk.

   Commercial
4. 4
   ServiceNow IT Service Management ServiceNow

   Complete system Production-ready A large enterprise needs ITIL-aligned service management at scale and will fund a platform team.

   Commercial
5. 5
   Jira Service Management Atlassian

   Deliver exceptional service at scale with Jira Service Management. AI-powered ITSM for incident response, change management, and request fulfillment.

   Complete system Production-ready An IT or ops team whose engineers already work in Jira wants service requests linked to development work.

   Commercial
6. 6
   HubSpot Service Hub HubSpot, Inc.

   Transform your customer experience with HubSpot

   Complete system Production-ready A company already running sales and marketing on HubSpot wants support tickets on the same customer records.

   Commercial
7. 7
   Zoho Desk Zoho Corporation

   Zoho Desk is a unified help desk platform built for the smoothest AI-human collaboration. Deliver world-class support at scale. Get a flexible free trial.

   Complete system Production-ready A cost-conscious support team, particularly one already on Zoho CRM, wants a full helpdesk cheaply.

   Commercial
8. 8
   ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus Zoho Corporation

   Deliver smart service experiences with ServiceDesk Plus, the AI-driven service desk built on ITIL best practices. Unify ITSM, ITAM, and ESM on one platform. Try it for free.

   Complete system Production-ready An IT department wants a full-featured service desk it can host on its own servers at moderate cost.

   Commercial
9. 9
   Intercom Intercom, Inc.

   Complete system Production-ready A SaaS or app business wants in-product chat and AI-first support with handoff to human agents.

   Commercial
10. 10
    Kayako Kayako

    Automate 60% of support tickets with Kayako's AI-first customer support platform. Discover how companies save $500K yearly. Get your personalized demo today.

    Complete system Usable You already use Kayako and are weighing whether to stay.

    29 readers a month Since 2001 Commercial
11. 11
    Freshdesk Freshworks

    Boost agent productivity and deliver seamless customer experiences with Freshdesk, an AI-powered customer service solution with omnichannel ticketing and automated workflows.

    Complete system Production-ready A small or midsize support team wants Zendesk-like features at a lower price.

    Commercial
12. 12
    Freshservice Freshworks

    Deliver enterprise IT service with Freshservice, an AI-powered ITSM platform that's quick to deploy, easy to use, and drives productivity and business impact.

    Complete system Production-ready A midsize IT team wants ITIL processes without ServiceNow's cost or implementation time.

    Commercial
13. 13
    Help Scout Help Scout

    Help Scout delivers all the powerful, intuitive features you need to deliver exceptional support at a fraction of the cost of other customer service platforms.

    Complete system Production-ready A small support team wants customer email handled cleanly without the overhead of a ticketing system.

    25 readers a month Commercial
14. 14
    SysAid SysAid Technologies

    Stop managing a queue. SysAid

    Complete system Production-ready A small or midsize IT team wants a service desk with built-in asset discovery and automation.

    Commercial
15. 15
    Front Front

    Deliver exceptional service with Front, the platform where support, sales, operations, and AI agents come together to resolve complex customer work.

    Complete system Production-ready Operations, account management or support teams handle customer email together and want collaboration without a ticket portal.

    Commercial
16. 16
    Gorgias Gorgias

    Drive more sales and automate support with AI Agent, Helpdesk integrated to your stack, Chat, FAQ and more. Trusted by top 17,000 brands and counting.

    Complete system Production-ready A Shopify store handles a lot of 'where is my order' and return requests.

    Commercial
17. 17
    Gladly Gladly

    Gladly brings agentic commerce to your site for premium ecommerce support. See how it works.

    Complete system Production-ready A mid-to-large consumer brand wants service agents to see each customer's full history and help them shop.

    Commercial
18. 18
    Hiver Hiver

    More than 10,000 teams use Hiver to tackle complex support across channels with AI, cross-team collaboration, ticketing, and workflows.

    Complete system Production-ready A team on Google Workspace wants shared inbox workflows without leaving Gmail.

    Commercial
19. 19
    Tidio Tidio

    See what your customer conversations earn. Lyro resolves questions instantly and turns the rest into sales, leads, and bookings you can attribute.

    Complete system Production-ready A small e-commerce store wants a cheap chat widget that answers common questions automatically.

    Commercial
20. 20
    Crisp Crisp IM

    Complete system Production-ready A small startup wants chat and shared inbox for the whole team without per-seat pricing.

    Commercial
21. 21
    tawk.to tawk.to

    One free inbox for all your customer channels. Live chat, ticketing, knowledge base, AI assist, and CRM — all in one place. Trusted by 6M+ businesses.

    Complete system Production-ready A small business wants website chat at no cost and can live with tawk.to branding.

    Commercial
22. 22
    ConnectWise PSA ConnectWise

    Maximize revenue predictability with powerful MSP PSA software. Integrated help desk, sales & marketing, procurement, time tracking & billing. Start your free trial today!

    Complete system Production-ready An IT managed service provider needs to run tickets, agreements and billing in one MSP-specific system.

    Commercial
23. 23
    HaloITSM Halo Service Solutions

    Intuitive ITSM software for your Service Desk. Standardise your processes with a single, all-inclusive, unlimited IT service desk solution. Try for free!

    Complete system Production-ready A midsize IT team wants full ITSM features without module-based pricing.

    Commercial

New open-source projects

1. 1
   Opendesk useopendesk

   The open-source support inbox + live chat and inbox collaboration for teams

   Complete system Experimental You are evaluating new self-hosted helpdesks and are willing to adopt very early software.

   ★ 443 Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed 8 days ago
2. 2
   ResiMind 1105216375-alt

   Neuro-symbolic agents with verified memory. MCP math tools, an algebra repair Skill, and an open challenge. Verify solutions, learn checked rules, and reuse.

   Developer tool Experimental You research agent reasoning or verification and want to try a neuro-symbolic approach.

   ★ 294 MIT Python Active, pushed 18 days ago
3. 3
   NexusDesk GroundedCoreAI

   Open-source, self-hosted AI customer service platform built around ReAct agents. Agents retrieve knowledge, call tools, and prepare actions; humans confirm high-impact writes such as ticket creation. Apache-2.0, Postgres-only.

   Framework or platform Experimental You want to experiment with building support agents on an open platform you control.

   ★ 97 Apache-2.0 Python Active, pushed 12 days ago

Open-source help desk and ticketing software

Complete systems you can adopt 9

1. 1
   Community-skeleton uvdesk

   UVdesk Open Source Community Helpdesk is a comprehensive ticketing support system designed for everyone, offering robust features to streamline customer support and collaboration.

   Complete system Usable You want a free PHP helpdesk and can live with a slower release pace.

   ★ 20k OSL-3.0 CSS Active, pushed 26 days ago
2. 2
   GLPI glpi-project

   GLPI is a Free Asset and IT Management Software package, Data center management, ITIL Service Desk, licenses tracking and software auditing.

   Complete system Production-ready An IT department wants a free, self-hosted helpdesk and asset register and is comfortable with a PHP application.

   ★ 6.5k GPL-3.0 PHP Active, pushed yesterday
3. 3
   Zammad zammad

   Zammad is a web based open source helpdesk/customer support system.

   Complete system Production-ready A support team wants a mature, self-hostable alternative to Zendesk or Freshdesk.

   ★ 6k AGPL-3.0 Ruby Active, pushed 7 days ago
4. 4
   FreeScout freescout-help-desk

   FreeScout — Free self-hosted omnichannel AI-powered helpdesk & shared mailbox

   Complete system Production-ready A small team wants Help Scout-style email support on cheap PHP hosting.

   ★ 4.6k AGPL-3.0 PHP Active, pushed 8 days ago
5. 5
   Frappe Helpdesk frappe

   Modern, Streamlined, Free and Open Source Customer Service Software

   Complete system Usable You already run ERPNext or Frappe and want support tickets in the same system.

   ★ 3.4k AGPL-3.0 Vue Active, pushed 13 days ago
6. 6
   LibreDesk abhinavxd

   Open-source, self-hosted customer support desk in a single binary. A lightweight alternative to Intercom, Zendesk, Chatwoot.

   Complete system Usable A small team wants a lightweight self-hosted Intercom or Zendesk replacement that is easy to deploy.

   ★ 3.1k AGPL-3.0 Go Active, pushed 7 days ago
7. 7
   Faveo Helpdesk faveosuite

   Faveo Open source ticketing system build on Laravel framework

   Complete system Usable You want a basic self-hosted PHP helpdesk and accept that richer features are paid.

   ★ 1.3k OSL-3.0 PHP Active, pushed 7 days ago
8. 8
   iTop Combodo

   A simple, web based CMDB & IT Service Management tool

   Complete system Production-ready You need ITIL processes tied to a data model you can reshape, and want an open-source product with a commercial vendor behind it.

   ★ 1.2k AGPL-3.0 PHP Active, pushed today
9. 9
   RT bestpractical

   Request Tracker, an enterprise-grade issue tracking system

   Complete system Production-ready An organisation wants a deeply configurable ticket tracker with decades of production use and has Perl skills.

   ★ 1.2k GPL-2.0 Perl Active, pushed 3 days ago

Building blocks for your own system 1

1. 1
   Django-helpdesk django-helpdesk

   A Django application to manage tickets for an internal helpdesk. Formerly known as Jutda Helpdesk.

   Building block Production-ready You run a Django site and want a helpdesk inside it rather than a separate product.

   ★ 1.7k BSD-3-Clause Python Active, pushed 7 days ago

All 41 open-source help desk projects

Compared head to head

Looking for an alternative to

Open-source licenses

• Permissive: 23. Use it anywhere, including in closed products. You keep the copyright notice; Apache-2.0 also grants patent rights.
• Strong copyleft: 9. If you distribute the program or anything built on it, you must release the whole source under the same license.
• Network copyleft: 8. Like GPL, and running a changed version as a web service counts as distributing it, so its users get the source too.
• Weak copyleft: 1. Changes to the licensed files must be shared, but you can link them into a closed program.

Languages

PHP 11, Python 5, TypeScript 5, JavaScript 5, Go 4, CSS 2, Perl 2, Ruby 1, Vue 1, Dockerfile 1, Mustache 1, Swift 1, Elixir 1 and HTML 1.