Chatwoot vs Papercups
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted chat & communication options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Chatwoot
Open-source customer engagement and live-chat platform
VS
Papercups
Open-source live chat and customer messaging
| Feature | Chatwoot | Papercups |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 99 · Excellent | 22 · At risk |
| Category | Chat & Communication | Chat & Communication |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | Elixir |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, kubernetes, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 37,132 | ★ 6,114 |
| First released | 2019 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Intercom, Zendesk, Drift | Intercom, Drift |
What are Chatwoot and Papercups?
Chatwoot
Chatwoot is a self-hosted customer support platform that unifies live chat, email, social media, and messaging channels into a shared team inbox. It is an open alternative to Intercom and Zendesk.
- Omnichannel shared inbox
- Live chat widget for websites
- Automation and canned responses
- Integrates with many messaging channels
Papercups
Papercups is a self-hosted live chat tool that lets teams talk to customers from a shared dashboard. It can be embedded into websites and integrates with Slack and other channels.
- Embeddable live chat widget
- Shared team inbox
- Slack integration
- React-based chat components
Chatwoot vs Papercups: key differences
Chatwoot is written in Ruby, while Papercups is built with Elixir. Papercups is the lighter option, starting around 1,024 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for Chatwoot. Chatwoot has the considerably larger community, at 37,132 GitHub stars versus 6,114.
Why pick each one
Choose Chatwoot if…
- Polished customer support workflow
- Active development
Watch out for
- Resource-hungry
- Complex multi-service stack
Choose Papercups if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 6.1k GitHub stars
- Written in Elixir
Watch out for
- Development has slowed
- Fewer channels than Chatwoot
Frequently asked questions
Is Chatwoot or Papercups 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 Chatwoot and Papercups free and open-source?
Yes. Chatwoot is licensed under MIT and Papercups under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Chatwoot and Papercups with Docker?
Chatwoot: yes. Papercups: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Chatwoot or Papercups?
Papercups has the smaller minimum footprint at 1,024 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for Chatwoot. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.