---
draft: false
title: "Freescout is the Wunder-Helpdesk!"
cateogry: productivity
date: 2026-06-27T00:00:00+08:00
---

# Meet FreeScout: The Help Desk You Own

If you're paying per-agent for Zendesk or Help Scout and quietly doing the math every time your team grows — there's a better way. FreeScout is a free, open-source help desk and shared inbox that gives you everything those platforms offer, without the monthly bill or the vendor lock-in.

It's been running strong for 8 years, and the community around it is active and growing.

## What It Is

FreeScout is a PHP/MySQL web application — lightweight, fast, and built to run on just about anything, including shared hosting. If you can deploy a WordPress site, you can deploy FreeScout. There's a web installer, one-click installs via Softaculous and Fantastico, Docker support, and managed hosting options through PikaPods, Cloudron, and Zeabur if you'd rather not touch the server at all.

The interface will feel immediately familiar if you've used Help Scout. Clean, organized, and built around the shared inbox model — all your customer emails in one place, with your whole team able to collaborate on them without anyone tripping over each other.

## No Artificial Limits

One of the first things you'll notice: no per-agent pricing. Unlimited agents, unlimited tickets, unlimited mailboxes. You're not punished for growing your team or adding a new support channel. Install it, run it, and scale it however you need.

## A Feature List That Rivals the Paid Alternatives

FreeScout out of the box covers everything you'd expect from a serious help desk: collision detection (so two agents don't reply to the same ticket simultaneously), internal notes, auto-replies, conversation merging, open tracking, saved replies, push notifications, and full-text search. It's 100% mobile-friendly, accessible for screen readers, and supports 30+ languages.

Through its module system, you can extend it with Kanban boards, a knowledge base, live chat, a customer portal, CRM, time tracking, custom fields, workflows and SLA rules, SAML SSO, LDAP integration, GDPR tools, S/MIME and PGP email signing, and real-time reports — among many others. There are also integrations for Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram, WooCommerce, Jira, Twilio SMS, and more. And if you need to connect it to anything else, Zapier and Make integrations are available.

Mobile apps for Android and iOS support the same functionality as the web version, and there's even a MacOS menu bar app.

## Migrating Is Straightforward

Already on another help desk? FreeScout has a migration path from any existing system, so you're not starting from scratch.

## The Bottom Line

If you're a technical team that's tired of paying Zendesk or Help Scout per agent per month, FreeScout is a serious, production-ready alternative that you fully control. Your data stays on your infrastructure, there are no surprise pricing changes, and the feature set is genuinely competitive. It's not a stripped-down imitation — it's a full help desk platform that happens to be free.

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Learn more at [federated.computer](https://federated.computer). Want to offer Freescout to your customers or partners? Check out [Federated Enterprise](https://enterprise.federated.computer).
