Chatwoot: guides & tutorials

Intercom charges $39/seat/month on the Essentials plan — and that bill grows fast for any team with more than five agents. Every tool on this list is open-source, self-hostable on a Liquid Web VPS, and costs nothing per seat.

Zendesk Suite starts at $55/agent/month — a five-agent team pays $275/month minimum. Every tool on this list is open-source, self-hostable on a Liquid Web VPS, and has no per-agent fee.

Chatwoot and FreeScout are both self-hosted customer support platforms with open-source roots. But they are not interchangeable — Chatwoot is a full omnichannel support suite, while FreeScout is a lean shared inbox focused on email. Picking the wrong one means either over-engineering a simple email workflow or under-building when live chat is a requirement.

TL;DR

• One docker-compose.yml: Cal.diy (the open-source Cal.com, built from source) + Chatwoot + Twenty CRM + shared PostgreSQL + Redis + Caddy.
• Cal.com went closed source in April 2026. The self-hostable code is now calcom/cal.diy (MIT), with no published Docker image, so you build it locally.
• Cal.diy keeps booking pages, calendar sync, the app store and webhooks. It dropped teams, round-robin, routing forms and Workflows, so this stack replaces Calendly Standard, not Calendly Teams.
• Cal.diy's own site recommends it for personal, non-production use. Read the advisory before you put customer bookings on it.
• Hosting: Liquid Web 8 GB Managed VPS, $100/mo regular ($50/mo for the first two months), checked 2026-09-26.

Most growth-stage teams stitch together Calendly for scheduling, Intercom for support chat and Salesforce for pipeline, then pay Zapier to connect them. This guide deploys the open-source equivalents on a single VPS: Cal.diy handles scheduling, Chatwoot handles conversations, and Twenty CRM tracks deals. When a prospect books a call, a webhook carries that booking into the support inbox and on into the CRM.

TL;DR

• One docker-compose.yml: Twenty CRM + Mautic + Chatwoot + PostgreSQL + MariaDB + Redis + Caddy
• Measured idle RAM: ~3.0 GB; peak: ~4.5 GB on a 16 GB VPS
• Minimum Liquid Web tier: 16 GB Managed VPS (~$30/mo)
• HubSpot Marketing Hub Pro + CRM + Service Hub Pro: $800–$1,340+/mo; this stack: ~$30/mo

HubSpot charges separately for CRM, marketing automation, and customer support — and the Professional tier alone runs $800/mo before seat costs. This guide deploys all three functions with open-source equivalents: Twenty CRM for pipeline management, Mautic for email marketing and lead scoring, and Chatwoot for multi-channel support — on a single Liquid Web 16 GB VPS using one Compose file.

TL;DR

• One docker-compose.yml: Medusa.js (headless commerce) + Mautic (email automation) + Chatwoot (customer support) + PostgreSQL + MariaDB + Redis + Caddy
• Measured idle RAM: ~2.8 GB; peak: ~4.2 GB (10 concurrent Chatwoot conversations + active Mautic campaigns)
• Minimum Liquid Web tier: 8 GB Managed VPS (~$33–$40/mo)
• Shopify Basic ($79/mo) + Klaviyo ($45/mo) + Gorgias ($10/mo) = $134/mo plus transaction fees; this stack: ~$33/mo with 0% transaction fees

Shopify bundles storefront hosting, payment processing, and a basic admin — but the moment you add email automation (Klaviyo) and customer support (Gorgias), costs compound fast. This guide deploys the open-source equivalents: Medusa.js for headless commerce, Mautic for email and marketing automation, and Chatwoot for multi-channel customer support — on a single Liquid Web 8 GB VPS, wired together so new orders automatically flow into Mautic campaigns and Chatwoot agents can look up order history without leaving the conversation.

TL;DR

• One docker-compose.yml: Twenty CRM + Chatwoot + shared PostgreSQL + Redis + Caddy
• Measured idle RAM: 2.2 GB; peak: 3.4 GB (20 concurrent Chatwoot conversations + 5k Twenty contact load)
• Minimum Liquid Web tier: 8 GB Managed VPS (~$33–$40/mo)
• HubSpot Sales + Service Hub Pro (5 seats): ~$1,335/mo; this stack: ~$33/mo

HubSpot bundles CRM and customer support into one product at a significant price. This guide deploys the open-source equivalents — Twenty CRM for pipeline management and Chatwoot for multi-channel customer support — on a single Liquid Web 8 GB VPS using a single Compose file.