36.6k stars · MIT · v4.17.1 (2026-08-27) · Track this in Scout
The little bubble that turns 'someone left' into 'someone asked something specific.'
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons
What it is
A Ruby-on-Rails omni-channel customer engagement platform: a live-chat widget for the site, plus email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger inboxes in one place. MIT — no strings.
What it is good for. Libredesk (Ed.5 #3) is the lighter alternative already in the ledger. Chatwoot is the heavier one — bigger stack, but a real JavaScript widget on a landing page. Someone confused by a screen types "what does this do?" and an email arrives. That is the highest-signal marketing data any tool in this ledger produces, and it needs no marketing plan. The Instagram and WhatsApp inboxes also matter for audiences that are not on email.
- MIT — one of the cleanest licences in the ledger
- Actual chat widget, plus every channel you might reasonably run
- Well-maintained: Chatwoot Inc. sells hosted, the OSS is not going away
- Ruby + Rails + Sidekiq + Postgres + Redis — a heavier install than a single Go binary
- Live chat you never answer is worse than none; a broken "reply within 24h" promise destroys trust
- Overlaps Libredesk (Ed.5 #3) — pick one, not both
Intercom, Crisp, and any per-seat live-chat subscription
Twenty, via an n8n webhook that turns a conversation into a lead
