Top Free Alternatives to Intercom
Stop paying expensive subscriptions for Sales & CRM tools. Discover the best free and open-source replacements for Intercom.
Why switch from Intercom?
Intercom charges based on your active customer volume, resulting in massive monthly bills for consumer-facing apps. Open-source customer communication suites allow you to talk to millions of users without paying a per-contact tax.
Chatwoot
Free / Cloud Paid
Open-source customer engagement platform. An alternative to Intercom, Zendesk, and Salesforce Service Cloud.
Key Features
- Shared team inbox
- Live chat widget
- Omnichannel (Email, WhatsApp, FB, Twitter)
- Automation rules
Pros
- + Beautiful, modern React UI
- + Excellent mobile app support
- + Self-hostable in minutes via Docker
Cons
- - Premium reports are limited on the free tier
- - Some third-party channel integrations require paid API keys
Papercups
Free / Open Source
Open-source live customer chat widget and dashboard. Replaces Intercom.
Key Features
- Live chat widget
- Slack/Discord integrations
- Email responses support
- Elixir-powered backend
Pros
- + Extremely fast and lightweight
- + Integrates directly with your engineering Slack channels
- + Beautiful React chat widget
Cons
- - Fewer automated onboarding chatbots compared to Intercom
- - Project development has slowed
Chaskiq
Free / Open Source
Live chat widget
Key Features
- 100% data control
- Self-hostable
- No vendor lock-in
- Community-driven
Pros
- + Ownership of your data
- + Flexible and customisable
- + Cost-effective
Cons
- - Requires server setup
- - Smaller commercial support