FreeScout is the super lightweight and powerful free open source help desk and shared inbox written in PHP (Laravel framework). Now you can enjoy free Zendesk & Help Scout without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
From a developer standpoint, it’s been a dream to work with FreeScout. We managed to get rid of our Salesforce account this summer, transitioning our support team to use FreeScout with some custom extensions to tie into our backend systems. Really nice developer experience and our team using it has really enjoyed it too. Not bloated, not overloaded with features, but very well thought out.
One aspect of Freescout which we appreciate very much coming from a very top heavy and overbuilt system is how light Freescout is on server and browser resources. Freescout is the only open source helpdesk written in PHP and simple enough to administer for a small business. The other open source solutions are either hideous and ugly or so overwrought that installing and maintaining a working install would almost require hiring another server admin with specialised knowledge.
