opendesk
by useopendesk
opendesk is an open-source helpdesk that brings support email, live chat and a public help centre into one shared inbox for a team. It can be used as a hosted service or installed on your own Linux server.
- Stars
- 462 +24 a day, est.
- Licence
- Apache-2.0
- Runs on
- A small server
- Setup
- Moderate
- Language
- Go
- Age
- 19 days
What you can do with it
- Manage customer emails as tickets with assignees, priorities, tags and response-time targets
- Add a live chat widget to your website and answer visitors from the shared inbox
- Publish a help centre and let the built-in AI draft replies from your articles
Could replace
- Zendesk
Our suggestion based on what it does, not a feature-by-feature comparison.
Make money with it
A freelancer could set up and host opendesk for small businesses as a managed customer support service for a monthly fee.
An idea, not financial advice. Check the licence before charging for anything built on it.
Ways a business could use it
- Replace a paid helpdesk subscription with a self-hosted support inbox and avoid per-seat fees
- Offer customers live chat and a searchable help centre to cut repeat support questions
Can you use it commercially?
Free to use, change and sell, including in paid products. Keep the copyright notice.
Not legal advice. Read the project's licence file before building a product on it.
Getting it running
Run the one-line install script on a Linux server with Docker, a domain name and an email address for the TLS certificate. A hosted version is also available.
Follow the official instructions in the project README.
Things to check
- The AI features need an Anthropic or OpenAI-compatible provider, which may mean paid API keys unless you use a local model
- Losing the CREDENTIALS_KEY in the .env file makes stored mailbox credentials unreadable, so backups matter
- Setting up email forwarding and running your own server needs some technical care
Who's talking about it
- Open Saas Directory: Our first hello: a fresh look and open-source finds (27 Oct 2026) Featured in a roundup
Checked 30 Oct 2026. Summary drafted by AI from the project's README.
