BitlBee vs Chatwoot
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted chat & communication options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare BitlBee with
choose an app… SimpleX Chat Etherpad Centrifugo Screego Typebot Berty Mumble The Lounge Papercups
Compare Chatwoot with
choose an app… Plane Focalboard Super Productivity Wekan UVdesk SimpleX Chat Etherpad OpenProject Habitica Self-Hosted Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot git-bug Kanboard Berty Mumble Kaneo The Lounge GLPI Papercups Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH qTox MiroTalk Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Erxes osTicket Asterisk WeeChat Frappe Helpdesk Ergo Peppermint irssi Quicksy Bridge Kamailio Cusdis Libredesk Tox Stoat Helpy AnyCable Chitchatter Live Helper Chat Spacebar Nextcloud Talk Indico RetroShare SIPCAPTURE Homer Peer-calls mautrix-telegram Routr GlobaLeaks openSIPS mautrix Trudesk Databag Handesk Galène InspIRCd Candy Toxic Faveo Helpdesk Hyphanet Request Tracker FusionPBX OpenSupports soju KiwiIRC Glowing Bear Bonfire Pretalx Delta Chat Notifo Ticketit SimpleX Briar Quassel IRC OTS matrix-commander Mumble Web Comentario Znuny ngIRCd Miaou Session Nextcloud Talk Signaling Server UnrealIRCd MiroTalk C2C matrix-appservice-irc Linphone Chatmail Relay Hookshot Atheme IRC Services Maunium Sticker Picker Spectrum 2 Shhh Gamja Jami Server Bridge Mollysocket Anope PushBits OTOBO Comm Tiledesk Heisenbridge Slixmpp Ferdium Server Solanum Wesh Network Draupnir baibot matrix-media-repo Charybdis IRCd Zusam Cactus Comments ircd-hybrid Scuttlebutt Room Robust IRC Flexisip FlowInquiry SAMA Biboumi Hebbot ircu2 Libervia Jami TicketsBot YunoHost Mail Relay 3CX ARN-Messager Freepbx GNUnet Groupboard MailBag Mailman3 Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Feature BitlBee Chatwoot Category Chat & Communication Chat & Communication License GPL-2.0 MIT Language C Ruby Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 32 MB 2,048 MB Deployment bare-metal, source docker, kubernetes, bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 644 ★ 35,596 First released 2002 2019 Replaces Pidgin Intercom, Zendesk, Drift
Why pick each one
Choose BitlBee if… Released under the GPL-2.0 license Written in C Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM BitlBee details Choose Chatwoot if… Polished customer support workflow Active development Chatwoot details
Frequently asked questions Is BitlBee or Chatwoot better? Neither is universally better. Chatwoot has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are BitlBee and Chatwoot free and open-source? Yes. BitlBee is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Chatwoot under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run BitlBee and Chatwoot with Docker? BitlBee: check the project docs for container support. Chatwoot: yes.