FreeScout vs Zoho TeamInbox
FreeScout and Zoho TeamInbox are both team inbox software. FreeScout is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 4.6k GitHub stars. Zoho TeamInbox is a commercial product from Zoho.
Which to pick
- Pick FreeScout when
- A small team wants Help Scout-style email support on cheap PHP hosting.
- Pick Zoho TeamInbox when
- You already use Zoho apps and want a team inbox that fits beside them.
Side by side
A shared inbox and helpdesk in PHP, modelled on Help Scout, with many add-on modules for channels and features.
A shared inbox from Zoho with thread owners, internal discussions, snooze, templates, rules, shared drafts and a personal inbox for each user.
Many useful features are paid modules, and the AGPL licence matters if you modify and expose it.
Zoho shows a cost estimator rather than a plain price per user, and its feature page names no collision warning or reply-time targets.
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 Zoho
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
No Wikipedia article of its own
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.