Chatwoot vs LiveChat
Chatwoot and LiveChat are both help desk software. Chatwoot is open source under a license set out in its repository, with 39k GitHub stars. LiveChat is a commercial product from Text S.A.
Which to pick
- Pick Chatwoot when
- You want to self-host a shared inbox, especially one that handles WhatsApp or chat beside email.
- Pick LiveChat when
- An online shop or service business wants dedicated live chat on its website with staff answering in real time.
Side by side
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.
Website live chat software with an AI agent, canned responses, chat routing and sales tracking.
Reply-time policies are in the paid Enterprise edition, and the chat-style screen handles long email threads less naturally than an email client.
Per-agent pricing is high for a single channel.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server, cloud service and mobile app
Cloud service, desktop app and mobile app
Ruby, Rails, Vue, PostgreSQL and Redis
Not published
Open source, license unclear on GitHub
Closed source, sold by Text S.A.
GitHub could not read the license. Check it in the repository before reusing any code.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
39k GitHub stars
522 Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Established: started 7 years ago, latest release v4.19.1.
Not known
Other comparisons
More help desk and ticketing software
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-06 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.