Papercups vs Pretalx
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 Papercups with
choose an app… Plane Chatwoot Focalboard Super Productivity Wekan SimpleX Chat Etherpad OpenProject Habitica Self-Hosted Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot git-bug Kanboard Berty Mumble Kaneo The Lounge Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH qTox MiroTalk Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Erxes Asterisk WeeChat Ergo irssi Quicksy Bridge Kamailio Cusdis Libredesk Tox Stoat AnyCable Chitchatter Live Helper Chat Spacebar Nextcloud Talk Indico RetroShare SIPCAPTURE Homer Peer-calls mautrix-telegram Routr GlobaLeaks openSIPS mautrix Databag Galène InspIRCd Candy Toxic Hyphanet FusionPBX soju KiwiIRC Glowing Bear Bonfire Delta Chat Notifo SimpleX Briar Quassel IRC OTS matrix-commander Mumble Web Comentario BitlBee 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 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 SAMA Biboumi Hebbot ircu2 Libervia Jami YunoHost Mail Relay 3CX ARN-Messager Freepbx GNUnet Groupboard MailBag Mailman3 Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Compare Pretalx with
choose an app… Chatwoot SimpleX Chat Etherpad Centrifugo Screego Typebot Berty Mumble The Lounge Indico
Feature Papercups Pretalx Category Chat & Communication Chat & Communication License MIT Apache-2.0 Language Elixir Python Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 1,024 MB 50 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal, source bare-metal GitHub stars ★ 6,097 ★ 929 First released 2020 2025 Replaces Intercom, Drift Zoho Backstage
Why pick each one
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 Papercups details Choose Pretalx if… Released under the Apache-2.0 license Written in Python Tiny footprint — runs in 50 MB RAM Pretalx details
Frequently asked questions Is Papercups or Pretalx better? Neither is universally better. Papercups has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Papercups and Pretalx free and open-source? Yes. Papercups is licensed under MIT and Pretalx under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Papercups and Pretalx with Docker? Papercups: yes. Pretalx: check the project docs for container support.