Managed hosting from
£45/month +VAT
Medium resource profile: 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 20 GB SSD storage. Typically suits support teams of up to 50 agents. Deployment, upgrades, daily backups, monitoring, SSL and UK hosting included, with no per-user fees. How our pricing works
A helpdesk you own, without paying by the agent.
Hosted helpdesks charge for every agent, every month, and they keep every customer conversation in their cloud under their terms. Zammad is the open source alternative: a complete customer support platform that unifies email, web, chat and social into one shared, tracked ticketing system, self-hosted so all of your customer and conversation history stays on infrastructure you control. Node deploys and manages Zammad as a production service hosted in the UK, with the deliverability, security and single sign-on engineering that makes a self-hosted helpdesk dependable.
What Zammad is
Zammad is an open source helpdesk and ticketing platform that gives a support team one place to receive, track and resolve every customer request, whatever channel it came in on.
Email, web forms, live chat, telephone notes and social messages all land as tickets in a shared queue, with full conversation history and a complete audit trail on each one. On top of that sit SLAs and escalations that keep responses on time, triggers and scheduled automation that route and triage work without manual sorting, a searchable knowledge base for customers and agents, and reporting on volumes, response times and performance. Agents work from a single, fast interface instead of switching between separate inboxes and tools.
The result is a full customer support capability with the day-to-day experience agents expect, and an ownership and cost model that does not charge you more for every person you add.
Why Zammad with Node
No per-agent subscription - hosted helpdesks charge for every seat, so the cost climbs as your support team grows. Zammad has no per-agent licence. A managed deployment is a predictable cost regardless of team size.
You own the customer relationship - tickets, conversation history and customer data live on UK infrastructure you control, in open formats, never trapped inside a platform you cannot leave cleanly.
Email and deliverability handled - support runs on email, so we configure SPF, DKIM and DMARC, manage sending reputation and monitor delivery, keeping both inbound capture and outbound replies reliable.
Single sign-on and audit - we integrate Zammad with your identity provider so agents log in centrally and leavers lose access immediately, and every ticket keeps a full audit trail for accountability and compliance.
Channels, SLAs and automation
Good support is fast, consistent and accountable, and Zammad is built to make all three the default rather than the exception.
One queue, every channel - email, web, chat, phone and social become tickets in the same place, so nothing is missed because it arrived through a different tool and agents never lose context switching between systems.
SLAs that hold - response and resolution targets are tracked per ticket with escalation when a deadline approaches, so commitments to customers are met rather than hoped for.
Automation and routing - triggers act on incoming tickets to categorise, assign and prioritise them, and scheduled jobs chase, close or escalate automatically, so agents spend their time resolving rather than sorting.
Knowledge base - common answers are published once and reused, deflecting repeat questions and giving new agents a reliable reference, all searchable from within the same platform.
How Zammad fits with the rest of your platform
Zammad works best as part of the wider open source platform Node manages for you. It sits alongside EspoCRM so support and sales share one view of the customer, draws on the same identity through Keycloak single sign-on so agents log in centrally, and stores knowledge-base attachments and documentation in your Nextcloud private cloud. The platform is watched continuously by our Zabbix and Grafana monitoring so queues, delivery and uptime are observed around the clock.
Open source Zendesk, Freshdesk and Intercom alternative
Zammad is the open source alternative to Zendesk, Freshdesk and Intercom. It provides the same core of modern customer support, shared inboxes, ticketing, SLAs, automation, a knowledge base and reporting across every channel, but self-hosted, so you own your customer data and you do not pay per agent.
| Zendesk / Freshdesk / Intercom | Zammad | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost model | Per-agent monthly subscription that rises as support grows | No per-agent licence, one predictable managed fee |
| Data location | Vendor cloud on their terms | UK infrastructure you control |
| Feature gating | Key features held back for higher-priced tiers | Full platform available, nothing gated |
| Customisation | Limited to what the vendor exposes | Open source, adaptable to your workflows |
| Lock-in | Export is awkward and data stays with the vendor | Open formats, your data leaves cleanly whenever you want |
The support bill that grows with your team - per-agent helpdesk pricing rises with every person you add to support exactly when growth makes you add them, and it keeps your customer conversations in a cloud you do not control. A managed Zammad platform from Node replaces that recurring per-agent cost with a predictable managed service, keeps your customer data on infrastructure you own, and gives your team a dependable, multi-channel helpdesk on UK infrastructure.
Adoption and community
5,700+ GitHub stars Zammad reports over 2,000 organisations and 50,000+ users worldwide, with published customer stories including De'Longhi, Amnesty International and the University of Oxford's St Edmund Hall.
“We have been using Zammad for over a year and are extremely satisfied! The developers have programmed OTRS and know what they are doing.”
Hacker News
“It's a modern alternative to OTRS, but it's so light and easy to use that you can push it to any kind of business or personal project.”
Hacker News
Quotes are from public community discussions, linked to their original sources.
Frequently asked questions
What is Zammad?
Zammad is an open source helpdesk and ticketing platform. It brings email, web forms, live chat, telephone and social channels into a single shared inbox, turns each request into a tracked ticket, and adds a knowledge base, reporting and automation. It can be self-hosted so all of your customer and conversation data stays on infrastructure you control. Node Digital deploys and manages Zammad for UK organisations.
Is Zammad a good alternative to Zendesk or Freshdesk?
Yes. Zammad covers the core of customer support - shared inboxes, ticketing, SLAs, automation, a knowledge base and reporting - without the per-agent monthly subscription those platforms charge. As your support team grows, hosted helpdesk pricing grows with it, while a managed Zammad platform from Node stays a predictable cost and keeps your customer data in your own hands.
Which channels can Zammad handle?
Zammad unifies email, web forms, live chat, telephone notes and social channels into one place, so every customer conversation becomes a ticket in a single queue regardless of how it arrived. Agents work from one interface rather than juggling separate inboxes and tools.
Does Zammad support SLAs, automation and a knowledge base?
Yes. Zammad applies SLA targets and escalations, automates triage and routing with triggers and scheduled jobs, and includes a searchable knowledge base for customers and agents. It also keeps a full audit trail of every ticket, which matters for accountability and compliance.
Who hosts and supports Zammad in the UK?
Node Digital runs Zammad as a managed service on UK infrastructure or in your own cloud, handling deployment, upgrades, security, backups, monitoring, email deliverability and single sign-on so your agents log in with your existing identity.
Is Zammad a good open source alternative to Zendesk, Freshdesk or Intercom?
Yes. Zammad is the leading open source alternative to Zendesk, Freshdesk and Intercom. It delivers shared inboxes, ticketing, SLAs, automation, a knowledge base and reporting across email, web, chat and social, without the per-agent monthly subscription those platforms charge, and it can be self-hosted so your customer data stays on infrastructure you control.
Can we migrate from Zendesk or Freshdesk to Zammad?
Yes. Zammad can import existing tickets, users and organisations, and Node Digital plans and runs the migration so your history, channels and workflows move across cleanly. Because Zammad stores data in open formats on infrastructure you own, you avoid the lock-in that makes leaving a hosted helpdesk difficult.
Talk to us about your helpdesk.
Drop us a line and our team will discuss your support channels, agent numbers and how a managed Zammad platform can replace your per-agent helpdesk subscription.
Our heritage
These projects were delivered by Tokyo Digital, acquired by Node in May 2023 and now a wholly owned subsidiary of Node DT Group. The same team builds and runs the Node platform today.