# Chatwoot

> Chatwoot (v4.19.0, October 2026) is a Ruby on Rails customer support platform you can self-host or use as Chatwoot Cloud. One shared inbox gathers website live chat, email, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS and more, with a built-in help center, canned replies, automation and reports. Most code is MIT; the enterprise/ folder is under a commercial licence. The Captain AI agent is not in the free Community Edition: self-hosted, it needs a paid Premium or Enterprise licence plus your own OpenAI key. Servers need at least 2 cores and 4 GB RAM.

- Repository: https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot
- Official docs: https://developers.chatwoot.com/self-hosted
- Checked: 2026-10-21

## What it replaces
- Intercom: Shared inbox for email, Live chat widget on your website, AI agent that answers customers from your docs, Help center articles (partial). Inbox, live chat widget and help center are free to self-host; the Captain AI agent needs a paid Premium or Enterprise licence and your own OpenAI key.
  - Use it instead of paying for Intercom? Personal use: Yes. Business: Partly (Commercial use with conditions: MIT core can be used commercially; enterprise/ code may only be used in production with a…).

## Used in these builds
- [Support bot from your documents](https://repoquarry.dev/builds/support-bot-from-docs.md): Inbox and chat widget

## Facts, with sources

| Question | Status | Answer | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Runs on my machine? | Confirmed | Self-hosted on your own server (Linux VM script, Docker, Kubernetes); Chatwoot Cloud also offered | https://developers.chatwoot.com/self-hosted | 2026-10-21 |
| Code licence | Partial | MIT for most code; the enterprise/ folder is under the Chatwoot Enterprise licence (production use needs a paid subscription) | https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot/blob/develop/LICENSE | 2026-10-21 |
| Model weights licence | Confirmed | No separate model weights | https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot#readme | 2026-10-21 |
| Commercial use | Partial | MIT core can be used commercially; enterprise/ code may only be used in production with a valid Chatwoot Enterprise licence | https://github.com/chatwoot/chatwoot/blob/develop/enterprise/LICENSE | 2026-10-21 |
| Paid services needed? | Partial | The core inbox is free to self-host; the Captain AI agent needs a paid Premium or Enterprise self-hosted licence and your own OpenAI key (an OpenAI-compatible endpoint for a self-hosted model is optional) | https://www.chatwoot.com/hc/user-guide/articles/1755284287-how-to-enable-captain-on-self_hosted-installations | 2026-10-21 |
| Hardware | Confirmed | Minimum 2 CPU cores, 4 GB RAM and 20 GB SSD; 4+ cores and 8 GB+ RAM recommended for production | https://developers.chatwoot.com/self-hosted | 2026-10-21 |
| Operating systems | Partial | Linux servers (Ubuntu install script, Docker, Kubernetes); running on Windows or macOS is not documented | https://developers.chatwoot.com/self-hosted | 2026-10-21 |
| Setup effort | Confirmed | Medium; install script on an Ubuntu server or Docker Compose, then set environment variables (mail, storage, domain) | https://developers.chatwoot.com/self-hosted/deployment/linux-vm | 2026-10-21 |

GitHub: 38072 stars, 9285 forks, last push 2026-10-22, archived: no.
---
Source: RepoQuarry (https://repoquarry.dev/projects/chatwoot). Data licence: CC BY 4.0. Quotes are from project documentation and belong to their authors.