Open-source alternatives to Zendesk
4 alternatives, ranked by a published maintenance score computed from live GitHub signals (fetched 2026-09-04). We flag unmaintained projects on both sides — including Zendesk itself when the data says so.
About Zendesk: Proprietary SaaS; per-agent pricing adds up quickly for support teams. It is closed-source, so the same public maintenance signals do not exist for it — we score only the alternatives below.
The alternatives
Chatwoot
Customer support inbox across email, chat and socials; self-hostable.
How this 90/100 was computed
| Last commit | today | 40/40 |
|---|---|---|
| Latest release | 8 days ago | 25/25 |
| Community size | GitHub stars | 15/15 |
| Open-issue trend | not enough history yet — needs snapshots 21+ days apart; neutral 10/20 awarded meanwhile | 10/20 |
| Total | 90/100 |
FreeScout
Lightweight help desk and shared mailbox, Help Scout-style.
How this 84/100 was computed
| Last commit | today | 40/40 |
|---|---|---|
| Latest release | today | 25/25 |
| Community size | GitHub stars | 9/15 |
| Open-issue trend | not enough history yet — needs snapshots 21+ days apart; neutral 10/20 awarded meanwhile | 10/20 |
| Total | 84/100 |
Frappe Helpdesk
Clean ticketing system from the ERPNext makers.
How this 84/100 was computed
| Last commit | yesterday | 40/40 |
|---|---|---|
| Latest release | yesterday | 25/25 |
| Community size | GitHub stars | 9/15 |
| Open-issue trend | not enough history yet — needs snapshots 21+ days apart; neutral 10/20 awarded meanwhile | 10/20 |
| Total | 84/100 |
UVdesk
PHP help desk with knowledge-base support.
How this 46/100 was computed
| Last commit | 11 months ago | 12/40 |
|---|---|---|
| Latest release | 11 months ago | 12/25 |
| Community size | GitHub stars | 12/15 |
| Open-issue trend | not enough history yet — needs snapshots 21+ days apart; neutral 10/20 awarded meanwhile | 10/20 |
| Total | 46/100 |