osTicket

Open-source help desk ticketing system. Routes emails, web forms, and phone requests into a unified agent workspace. Self-hosted, PHP, GPL-2.0.

Open source alternative to:

What is osTicket

osTicket is a widely-used open source support ticket system. It integrates inquiries created via email, phone, and web forms into a single multi-user web interface, so agents can manage, organise, and archive every support request and response in one place. Built in PHP and released under the GPL-2.0 license, it has been in active development for over a decade and is one of the most popular self-hosted alternatives to commercial help desk suites like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Help Scout.

Key features

Unified ticket queue: Every customer request — whether it arrives by email, web form, or API — lands in a ticket queue where agents can reply, add internal notes, transfer between departments, and see when another agent is already viewing the same ticket to avoid double answers.
Ticket filters and auto-responses: A rules engine lets you route tickets to specific departments and teams, set priorities, trigger canned auto-responses, and escalate issues without writing code.
Help topics and custom forms: Build per-department intake forms that capture the exact fields you need (product, version, environment, attachments) before a ticket is even opened.
SLA plans and reporting: Define service-level agreements with grace periods per department and priority, then measure response and resolution times with the built-in reports and exports.
Knowledge base, tasks, and collaboration: A public and internal knowledge base, lightweight agent tasks, canned responses, and a plugin and theme system for extending the interface.

Self-hosting and how it compares

osTicket runs on a standard LAMP-style stack: PHP 8.2–8.4 with the mysqli extension, MySQL 5.5 or later (MariaDB works), and Apache or IIS. Deployment is a git clone followed by php manage.php deploy --setup /path, with git pull and a redeploy for upgrades. There is no database abstraction layer to configure, and no official Docker image — community images exist.

Compared to Zendesk, Freshdesk, or Help Scout, you avoid per-agent monthly fees and keep full control of customer data, but you take on updates, backups, and uptime yourself, and you miss the AI assistants, chat widgets, and marketplace integrations those suites bundle. For teams that want a capable, battle-tested help desk without the SaaS price tag, osTicket is still the default open source choice.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the requirements to run osTicket?

osTicket needs PHP 8.2 to 8.4, with 8.4 recommended, the mysqli extension, MySQL 5.5 or later, and a web server such as Apache or IIS. The project also recommends the ctype, fileinfo, gd, gettext, iconv, imap, intl, mbstring, xml, xml-dom and zip extensions plus APCu or Zend OPcache. Deployment is a git clone followed by php manage.php deploy --setup /path/to/webroot.

Does osTicket have an API?

Yes. The API is XML or JSON over HTTP and currently supports ticket creation and tasks. Requests need an X-API-Key header, and each key is created in the admin panel under Manage, API keys and is bound to a source IP address that must match the caller. If osTicket sits behind a reverse proxy, the client IP is read from X-Forwarded-For.

How do customer requests get into osTicket?

Email is the main channel: osTicket can poll an IMAP or POP mailbox or accept piped mail, and each message becomes a ticket. You can also publish web forms built from help topics, with per-topic custom fields and required fields, and push tickets in through the HTTP API. Agents can open tickets manually for phone calls and walk-ins.

Does osTicket support SLAs, departments and teams?

Yes. Tickets are routed to departments, and agents can be grouped into cross-department teams. SLA plans define grace periods per department and priority, so overdue tickets are flagged against the target, and ticket filters apply routing, assignment, priority and auto-response rules automatically as tickets arrive.

Is the interface available in languages other than English?

Yes. The interface is fully translatable and the project manages translations on Crowdin. Language packs that reach full translation are published on the osTicket download page, and you can also translate in place using the project's translation site.

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