Zendesk starts at $19/agent/month. Freshdesk, $15. For a 10-person support team, that's $150-190/mo. Self-hosted alternatives run on a single $12-19/mo VPS with no per-agent fees. Here are the best options.
Top Self-Hosted Ticketing Systems
Zammad
Modern, feature-rich helpdesk with email, chat, phone, and social media channels. Beautiful UI, full-text search powered by Elasticsearch. LDAP/Active Directory integration.
- VPS requirement: 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (Elasticsearch is hungry)
- Best for: Medium teams (10-50 agents) wanting a Zendesk replacement
- License: AGPL (free, open source)
osTicket
The classic. PHP-based, lightweight, battle-tested since 2003. Simple but covers 90% of support needs: tickets, SLAs, canned responses, knowledge base.
- VPS requirement: 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM
- Best for: Small teams, simple workflows, PHP hosting environments
- License: GPL v2 (free)
FreeScout
A Help Scout clone — shared inbox for email support. Clean, minimal interface. Perfect when you just need shared email management without complex ticketing.
- VPS requirement: 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM
- Best for: Small businesses, email-only support
- License: AGPL (free core, paid modules)
GLPI
IT asset management + helpdesk. Tracks hardware, software licenses, and support tickets in one system. Ideal for IT departments.
- VPS requirement: 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM
- Best for: IT departments, MSPs, ITIL workflows
- License: GPL v3 (free)
Comparison Table
| System | Multi-channel | Min RAM | SaaS equivalent |
|---|
| Zammad | Email, chat, phone, social | 8 GB | Zendesk ($49/agent) |
| osTicket | Email | 2 GB | Freshdesk ($15/agent) |
| FreeScout | Email | 2 GB | Help Scout ($20/user) |
| GLPI | Email, web portal | 4 GB | ServiceNow ($100/agent) |
Host Your Ticketing System
All systems above run great on Valebyte VPS:
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