Chatwoot

Chatwoot is a customer-support platform that combines a shared inbox, AI assistance, and self-service portals, with cloud and self-hosted editions. It is best suited to teams that need to coordinate support across several channels or want control over where the software runs. Its breadth is a strength, but small teams should weigh the free plan’s conversation and retention caps against per-agent charges on paid cloud plans.

Overview

Website chat, email, social and messaging services, voice, SMS, and API conversations can flow into one inbox. Agents can coordinate with private notes, assignments, tags, canned replies, mentions, typing indicators, and activity logs. That combination makes Chatwoot more than a website chat widget: it is aimed at teams managing ongoing support, sales, or customer engagement across channels.

Chatwoot also offers a customizable Help Center, including multilingual content and separate portals for different brands, products, or customer groups. Customers can use the hosted service or run it on their own infrastructure. Chatwoot says its cloud service runs on AWS servers in the United States and that more than 15,000 organizations use the product.

Key features

One inbox for many channels

The inbox brings together website chat, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, LINE, TikTok, X, SMS, voice, and API conversations. This is useful when a support team needs a single place to manage customer exchanges rather than splitting work across channel-specific queues. WhatsApp supports rich-content messages, and widget colors, language, text, and design can be customized.

AI and knowledge base

Captain can answer questions, suggest replies, summarize conversations, and use Help Center content. The knowledge base supports AI-powered search, multilingual material, and multiple portals, giving teams a way to pair agent support with self-service. AI credits are plan-limited: additional Captain credits cost $20 per 1,000. Teams relying heavily on AI should include that metered cost in their budget.

Customization and control

The REST API, webhooks, API channel, and Agent Bot API let teams connect custom platforms and bots, including those built with Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, LangChain, n8n, custom code, or Dialogflow. Self-hosting is available on cloud or on-premises infrastructure, with deployment methods including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, DigitalOcean, Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, and Heroku. This flexibility is valuable for teams with technical capacity; it is less compelling for organizations that want a simple, fully managed setup with minimal configuration.

Chatwoot states that it is SOC 2 Type II certified and GDPR compliant, and that data is encrypted at rest and in transit with AES-256 using AWS KMS hardware security modules. Cloud customers using a custom portal domain receive SSL certificates. Conversation, contact, and other data can be exported through the API.

Pricing

Chatwoot offers both hosted cloud plans and self-hosted editions. Cloud paid prices below are per agent per month, billed annually; the advertised starting price is not a flat team price.

Hacker is a practical starting point for a small team, but the two-agent ceiling, 500 monthly conversations, and 30-day retention are meaningful constraints. Startups removes the conversation cap subject to fair use and extends retention, while Business adds voice and Enterprise adds access controls and audit logs alongside the longest retention. The 15-day trial gives prospective users a limited window to assess the service. Cloud plans are refundable according to cancellation date and unused time.

For self-hosting, Community Edition is free forever and includes hosting on your infrastructure and community support, but excludes Captain AI, voice calls, and SSO/SAML. Premium Support is $19 a month at $19 /agent/month billed annually, adding Captain AI, voice calls, custom branding, agent capacity, and priority support. Enterprise Edition is $99 a month at $99 /agent/month billed annually, adding SSO/SAML, SLA policies, and priority support. Community support runs through Discord and GitHub; Enterprise includes phone support and developer office hours.

Platforms

Chatwoot supports Android, iOS, Linux, web, API access, and self-hosting. This mix suits teams working across mobile and desktop environments, as well as developers integrating support into their own services.

Who it's for

Chatwoot is a strong fit for support, sales, and engagement teams that handle multiple messaging channels and need shared ownership of conversations. Its Help Center and multiple portals also suit organizations serving distinct brands or customer groups. Technical teams that value deployment control and API-based customization have another reason to consider it.

It is a weaker fit for teams whose needs stop at a basic chat widget, or whose conversation volume quickly exceeds the free plan but cannot justify per-agent annual billing. Self-hosting offers control, but brings infrastructure responsibility; cloud offers a simpler route but runs on US-based AWS servers.

Pros and cons

• Pros: A broad set of messaging, social, voice, and API channels share one inbox, helping teams avoid fragmented customer conversations.
• Pros: Built-in collaboration tools and a customizable, multilingual Help Center cover both agent coordination and customer self-service.
• Pros: Cloud and self-hosted choices, plus APIs and bot integrations, give technically capable teams room to adapt the platform.
• Cons: The free cloud plan stops at two agents, 500 conversations monthly, and 30 days of retention, which can limit a growing support operation.
• Cons: Paid cloud pricing is per agent and billed annually, so team costs rise with staffing even when the base starting price appears modest.
• Cons: Captain AI credits are capped by plan and extra credits cost $20 per 1,000; Community Edition omits AI and voice.

Alternatives

Consider these live chat software options if you are comparing tools centered on customer chat, or help desk software for a broader category comparison. Teams focused on WhatsApp can also review WhatsApp Business API providers and WhatsApp customer service software; organizations prioritizing social-channel service can browse social media customer service software.

• Zoho SalesIQ is worth comparing if a free plan with 3 operator licenses, 100 chats per month, 10,000 visitors per month, and 30 days of chat history fits your expected volume.
• Freshchat is an option for teams looking for a free plan for up to 10 agents, with a web and mobile chat widget, shared inbox, and email.
• tawk.to may appeal to teams evaluating a free plan with 100 monthly message credits, one AI chat agent, and 100 crawled web pages.
• JivoChat is another freemium option, with a free plan for five agents.
• Crisp is worth considering if two seats, unlimited conversations, and 100 customer profiles on a free plan match your needs.
• Brevo Conversations offers a free-forever plan for one user with no credit card required and no time limit.
• MyLiveChat has a free plan for one agent with three years of chat history.

Verdict

Choose Chatwoot if your team needs a shared home for multichannel support, useful collaboration, and a customer-facing knowledge base, especially if you also value self-hosting or API customization. Look elsewhere if you need a larger free team allowance, do not want annual per-agent pricing, or cannot take responsibility for self-hosted infrastructure.