Zammad review
Open source help desk and ticketing system for customer and IT support
Data refreshedMethodologyHow we testedChandan Kumar is a founder of Geekflare. He is a technology enthusiast and entrepreneur who loves to help businesses and people around the world. Chandan has worked at BNP Paribas, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Motorola, and HP. He’s got an in-depth understanding of business software and IT infrastructure.
Verdict
Zammad gives self-hosting teams every feature without a licence fee, including SAML and OpenID Connect sign-in and an admin audit log. It needs more memory than the PHP help desks, so plan for a server with at least 6 GB of RAM.
Best for
Support teams that want SSO, roles and audit logs without a paid tier
Not for
Small teams on shared hosting or a server with little RAM
Pros
- SAML, OpenID Connect and Microsoft sign-in in the free edition
- Email, web form, chat, SMS, Telegram, Facebook and WhatsApp channels
- Read-only admin audit log since version 7.2
- Built-in importers for Zendesk, Freshdesk, Kayako and OTRS
Cons
- Needs 6 GB of RAM at minimum, plus 4 GB more for Elasticsearch on the same server
- PostgreSQL is the only supported database
- The hosted Starter plan is capped at 5 agents
“Much cleaner, more modern and more intuitive”
Capterra, Jan 2026“The reporting and analytics features… lack detail”
Capterra, Jan 2026
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At a glance
- Type
- Help desk
- Stack
- Ruby 3.4 / Rails 8 / Vue
- Databases
- PostgreSQL
- SSO
- Free edition
- Roles and permissions
- Free edition
- Audit logs
- Free edition
Free vs paid editions
What you get when you self-host, and what needs a paid plan.
The self-hosted version is the same AGPL code as the hosted one, with no paid modules, so SSO, roles and the admin audit log are all included. Hosted plans cost €7, €16 or €25 per agent a month on yearly billing, excluding VAT. Starter allows up to 5 agents, and custom roles, chat and SLAs start with the €16 Professional plan. Zammad GmbH also sells support contracts for self-hosted installs from €2,999 a year.
Self-hosting Zammad
Zammad's docs ask for at least 2 CPU cores and 6 GB of RAM, plus 4 GB if Elasticsearch runs on the same server, with PostgreSQL 15+, Redis 7+ and Elasticsearch 8.15 or later, which is optional but recommended.
New cloud server to first screen
7 min 53 s
Memory in use at idle
2697 MB of 4 GB
Version tested
7.2.2 · Oct 17, 2026
- It took 7 min 53 s from an empty cloud Ubuntu 24.04 server (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM) until setup finished, with the official stack of PostgreSQL, Redis, Memcached and Elasticsearch 9, image downloads included. The web page answered after about 5 minutes, but the setup container was still running.
- At idle the stack used about 2.7 GB of our 4 GB. Elasticsearch took 1.4 GB, and the Rails server, scheduler and websocket server about 1 GB between them. Zammad asks for 6 GB plus 4 GB for Elasticsearch, so treat 4 GB as enough for a trial only.
- We logged a phone call as a ticket, picked the customer from the address book and added an internal note, which Zammad shows with a striped border.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/zammad/zammad-docker-compose
cd zammad-docker-compose
cat > .env <<'ENV'
NGINX_EXPOSE_PORT=127.0.0.1:8080
POSTGRES_PASS=change-me
ENV
docker compose up -d
# Wait for the zammad-init container to exit, then open the site and
# create the first admin in the setup wizard.
docker compose ps -a zammad-initWhat you can do with Zammad
Shared support inbox
Email from several addresses lands in groups, where agents assign, answer and close tickets.
Live chat on your website
A chat widget on your site starts a conversation that agents answer from the same ticket view.
Customer self-service
A built-in knowledge base publishes help articles, so customers can find answers before opening a ticket.
Phone support
Placetel, Sipgate and generic CTI integrations show who is calling and log each call against the customer.
Monitoring alerts as tickets
Alerts from Checkmk, Icinga, Monit or Nagios turn into tickets for the IT team to work on.
Moving off a hosted help desk
The migrator brings tickets, groups, organisations, agents and customers over from Zendesk, Freshdesk, Kayako or OTRS.
Zammad alternatives
FreeScoutSelf-hosted help desk and shared mailbox written in PHP
osTicketPHP ticketing system that turns email, web forms and phone requests into tickets
GLPIIT service management and asset inventory tool with a ticketing helpdesk
ChatwootCustomer support platform that puts website chat, email and messaging apps in one inbox
Frappe HelpdeskOpen source ticketing and customer support app built on the Frappe framework
OTOBOOpen source ticketing and IT service management system, forked from OTRS by Rother OSS