Eloqra alternatives: 3 open-source picks
Eloqra costs $4.99/mo — $59.88 a year. These 3 alternatives replace it for $0, led by Live Helper Chat, Chatwoot and Zammad. All 3 are open source. License, stars and last commit checked by hand on 2026-08-29. No trials, no crippled tiers.
Website chats can land in Telegram and replies go back; exact trick, decidedly non-trivial setup.
Open-source customer support platform with live chat, shared inbox, and omnichannel messaging
licenseMIT (+EE)
runsyour server
setupnot verified by us yet — check the repo README
facts verified 2026-08-29
Helpdesk and ticketing that pulls email, chat, phone, and socials into one agent workspace.
licenseAGPL-3.0
runsyour server
setupnot verified by us yet — check the repo README
facts verified 2026-08-29
What each one is, in full: Chatwoot · Zammad
last updated 2026-08-29 · no votes, no pay-to-list · just what's real
the usual suspects · recommended everywhere, rejected here
ChatwootIt speaks Telegram, but website chats stay in Chatwoot instead of landing in Telegram.
how to choose a Eloqra alternative
Most proven
Chatwoot, with 25,000 GitHub stars — the largest community of the 3, which usually means more answers when something breaks.
Needs real ops to self-host
Live Helper Chat is capable but expects someone to run a server, updates and backups. Budget for that before choosing it.
what you give up by leaving Eloqra
- a real operator inbox · the Mini App console with a combined thread list across sites, unread badges, typing indicators and deep links from a notification straight into the conversation · bot replies cover one chat at a time, not five at once
- the week you spend learning Telegram's webview rather than writing features · initData HMAC auth, sizing from viewportStableHeight because dvh overshoots, two safe-area insets to stay clear of the status bar in fullscreen, and text selection disabled so copying a message needs a hand-rolled long-press
- a free tier · you would be spending days plus a monthly VPS bill to replace something that costs nothing for one site
- everything that isn't the happy path · socket reconnects, duplicate sends, message ordering on flaky mobile networks, Telegram rate limits and retry queues, bot token rotation
- always-on hosting · your widget is dead whenever your box, your TLS cert, or your websocket is, and a chat that silently stops connecting reads to visitors as you ignoring them
None of the picks above covers all of it. The full verdict says which gaps matter.
Eloqra alternatives at a glance
| tool | license | running it | platforms | stars | active |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live Helper Chat | open source | self-host, real ops | web, self-hosted | 2,236 | 2026-08 |
| Chatwoot | MIT (+EE) | docker to self-host | self-hosted, web | 25,000 | 2026-08 |
| Zammad | AGPL-3.0 | docker to self-host | self-hosted, web | 5,000 | 2026-08 |
why people still pay for Eloqra
Mostly they don't · for one website there is nothing to pay. Free is forever, with unlimited conversations, the full Telegram inbox and mini-app, and every widget option; 4.99 buys an extra project slot for a second site and nothing more, and the 'powered by' badge appears on paid tiers too. So the usual death-list logic inverts here. You aren't weighing a weekend against a subscription, you're weighing a weekend plus a VPS, TLS renewals, reconnect logic, and Telegram retry handling against zero. Live chat is also a promise that someone is actually there, which makes it a bad thing to hang off a box you maintain between other work. The one honest reason to build your own: you want visitor conversations on your own hardware instead of someone else's. That is the entire argument, and it isn't a financial one. If none of that applies to you, any pick above saves $59.88 a year.
questions about switching from Eloqra
Is there an open-source alternative to Eloqra?
Yes: Live Helper Chat, Chatwoot, Zammad. Every tool on this page is open source: no trials, no crippled tiers.
Can open source really replace Eloqra?
Our verdict is YES. Chatwoot (25k stars), Zammad (5k stars), Live Helper Chat (2k stars) are mature open-source replacements for Eloqra — self-host with docker and stop paying $4.99/mo. The full verdict, and what you give up by switching, is at caniopensourceit.online/eloqra.
What is the most popular open-source Eloqra alternative?
By GitHub stars, Chatwoot (25,000). Zammad is next with 5,000.
