3,562 stars · ⚠ NOT PLAIN OPEN SOURCE, and the path matters: /blob/main/LICENSE and /blob/main/LICENSE.md BOTH returned 404, and /blob/main/LICENSE.txt is AGPL-3.0 with a COMMONS CLAUSE PREPENDED — "The grant of rights under the License will not include, and the License does not grant to you, the right to Sell the Software", with Sell defined to include fees for hosting or consulting and support where the value derives substantially from the software. A paid commercial licence is offered alongside · 2.0.3 (2023-11-14 — THE YEAR TRAP: the GitHub page shows "14 Nov" with no year, which read forward would have made it 2025, and the ungh releases LIST settled it as 14 November 2023, nearly three years, after ungh's own /releases/latest returned 403 for this repo) · Track this in Scout
Self-hosted live chat, a shared support inbox, in-app messages, campaigns and help articles in one installation.
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install
What it is
Chaskiq is a Ruby on Rails and React application offering live chat, a shared inbox, in-app messages, campaigns and articles. It has been developed since May 2018 and is positioned against Intercom, Drift and Crisp.
What it is good for. A small team that wants to talk to visitors on its website and does not want a per-seat monthly bill or customer conversations held by a third party. The situation it fits is one where somebody is genuinely available to answer: an unattended chat bubble is worse than none.
- It covers an unusually wide range for one installation — chat, inbox, campaigns, in-app messages and articles together.
- Code was pushed on 30 June 2026, so the project is active.
- A paid commercial licence exists for anyone who needs to escape the restriction described below, which at least makes the position clear rather than ambiguous.
- The licence is not what a quick look suggests, and finding it took three attempts.
/blob/main/LICENSEand/blob/main/LICENSE.mdboth return not-found. The file is/blob/main/LICENSE.txt, and it is AGPL-3.0 with a Commons Clause added on top: "The grant of rights under the License will not include, and the License does not grant to you, the right to Sell the Software." "Sell" is defined to include charging a fee for hosting, consulting or support where the value comes substantially from the software. So you may run it; you may not build a business on running it for other people. This is the seventh time this archive has found a licence that a sidebar summary would have got wrong. - The newest release is nearly three years old and the published container images are two years old. Version 2.0.3 shows as "14 Nov" with no year on GitHub; the ungh mirror dated it 14 November 2023. The images on Docker Hub are tagged by commit, and
latestwas last updated on 17 October 2024. Running this means running from the main branch. - The README contains no install commands at all — they are in separate guides elsewhere. The stated requirements are Ruby 2.6 or newer, PostgreSQL 10 or newer and Redis 2.6 or newer, which are all very old floors with no upper bound given, and no memory figure is published for a four-part stack. 64 open issues, 18 open pull requests.
chatwoot/chatwootThe same idea, much larger and much more actively released, under a plain MIT licence with no selling restriction.
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freescout-help-desk/freescoutA shared inbox for a support address rather than a chat widget; lighter to install, with several features sold as paid modules.
Track this in Scout- papercups-io/papercups
The Elixir alternative people still recommend, but its own README declares maintenance mode and it has taken no code since 15 February 2024.
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git clone https://github.com/chaskiq/chaskiq.git cd chaskiq docker compose up -d
