FreeScout vs Help Scout
FreeScout and Help Scout are both team inbox software. FreeScout is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 4.6k GitHub stars. Help Scout is a commercial product from Help Scout.
Which to pick
- Pick FreeScout when
- A small team wants Help Scout-style email support on cheap PHP hosting.
- Pick Help Scout when
- A small support team wants customer email handled cleanly without the overhead of a ticketing system.
Side by side
A shared inbox and helpdesk in PHP, modelled on Help Scout, with many add-on modules for channels and features.
Shared inbox helpdesk with a knowledge base, live chat beacon and simple customer profiles, designed to feel like email.
Many useful features are paid modules, and the AGPL licence matters if you modify and expose it.
Phone support and complex routing are limited.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server
Cloud service and mobile app
PHP, Laravel and MySQL
Not published
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Closed source, sold by Help Scout
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
4.6k GitHub stars
25 Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Established: started 8 years ago, latest release 1.8.249.
Not known
Other comparisons
More team inboxes and shared inbox tools
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.