Bytedesk vs Chatwoot
Bytedesk and Chatwoot are both live chat software. Bytedesk is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 530 GitHub stars. Chatwoot is open source under a license set out in its repository, with 39k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick Bytedesk when
- You want a self-hosted Intercom-style chat with AI agents and can operate a Java service.
- Pick Chatwoot when
- You want to self-host a shared inbox, especially one that handles WhatsApp or chat beside email.
Side by side
Team chat plus omnichannel customer service with live chat, email, tickets and LLM-based chatbots using RAG.
A customer messaging inbox for email, website chat, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS and social, with assignment, private notes, collision warnings, canned responses, rules, reports, contact profiles and mobile apps.
Chinese-first project and community, AGPL licence, and some features sit in a commercial edition.
Reply-time policies are in the paid Enterprise edition, and the chat-style screen handles long email threads less naturally than an email client.
Usable
Production-ready
Self-hosted server and cloud service
Self-hosted server, cloud service and mobile app
Java and JavaScript
Ruby, Rails, Vue, PostgreSQL and Redis
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Open source, license unclear on GitHub
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
GitHub could not read the license. Check it in the repository before reusing any code.
530 GitHub stars
39k GitHub stars
Established: started 3 years ago, latest release v5.0.0.
Established: started 7 years ago, latest release v4.19.1.
Other comparisons
More live chat and customer messaging tools
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from each project's README and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.