If your help desk software is giving you trouble, there are some open-source options available to help ease your pain – without the high cost.
In this installment of the CIO’s four open-source applications to watch we take a look at help desk software, which is the basis of incident response and IT service delivery.
This list presents fourth solutions that fit well for a small/medium Software Editor / IT Company. All the solutions are Web-based and license-free.
OTRS Community Edition
OTRS exists in two versions: a SAAS/On-Premise one, that is closed-source and the community edition. The community evolves slower than the commercial product but at the same time benefits from the Opensource community contributions.
![OTRS Screenshot](https://sylvainleroy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/OTRS_5_Wikimedia_en-1024x539.png)
OTRS (Open source Ticket Request System) has features to manage customer telephone calls and e-mails. The system is built to allow support, sales, pre-sales, billing, internal IT, and help desk functions to react quickly to inbound inquiries. OTRS is a Web-based help desk and ticket system that provides a set of features to help service organizations to manage requests more efficiently. As a framework, it is the basis of OTRS:: ITSM, an ITIL-compliant IT service management solution. It supports MySQL, MS SQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and DB2.
Pros: the biggest set of functionalities. Stable and mature.
Cons: Cumbersome and complex UI, looking old. The configuration and the settings require an important amount of time before being adapted to the company. Too many features for a small company. Java Stack, not so cost-effective for a cloud installation.
Zammad
Zammad is a web-based open source helpdesk/customer support system with many features to manage customer communication via several channels like telephone, Facebook, Twitter, chat and e-mails. It is distributed under version 3 of the GNU AFFERO General Public License (GNU AGPLv3).
![Zammad Screenshot](https://sylvainleroy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/dashboard-1024x634.png)
Pros: The solution is really easy to deploy (using Docker). The best UI/UX of the three solutions, user friendly. The search functionality is working fine. LDAP is supported.
Cons: The solution is resource consuming (thanks to Elasticsearch Database engine): expects a certain volume or RAM and Disk to launch the solution. Administration and backup are not easy to perform.
OSTicket
OS Ticket is an old and well-known stable open-source helpdesk solution.
Thousands of customers in over 190 countries trust and use osTicket for customer support.
- 5+ million osTicket users worldwide
- 15,000+ businesses use osTicket worldwide
- osTicket seamlessly routes inquiries created via email, web-forms, and API.
- Simple and easy-to-use web-based customer support platform.
- osTicket comes packed with more features and tools than most of the expensive (and complex) support ticket systems on the market.
- The best part is that osTicket is completely free.
Pros: popular, a big community. A huge set of functionalities and multiple communication channels supported. Cost-effective technology stack.
Cons: UI/UX is not attractive. The enterprise solution is keeping some interesting functionalities out of the open-source solution. The LDAP configuration is clunky / not so easy.
HESK
Hesk is a Free PHP Help Desk Software that runs with a MySQL database. It allows you to set up a web-based ticket support system (helpdesk) for your website. Once the Help Desk Software is installed your customers will be able to submit support tickets and staff will have an easy-to-use web interface to manage customer support requests.
The LAMP stack offers to a small company, an easy solution to deploy and administer. The main functionalities may be sufficient but as the company will grow, it will be faced with the lack of features offered by the paid version.
![Hesk : screenshot](https://sylvainleroy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/demo-v3-1024x576.png)
Pros: LAMP Stack, average UI/UX interface;
Cons: Lack of professional features, user community not so wide. The PAID version is stealing the best functionalities of the product (SysAid)
https://www.ampps.com/apps/customersupport/HESK
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