osTicket vs Zammad: Free Help Desk Compared (2026)

This comparison is for a small IT or support team that wants a free, self-hosted help desk and is choosing between osTicket and Zammad. The short answer: pick osTicket if you want a light PHP and MySQL ticket system that runs on almost any web host, takes most of its tickets from email and web forms, and needs little hardware. Pick Zammad if you want more channels in one inbox (email, chat, SMS, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook and phone integrations), a full REST API and a modern interface, and you can give it a Linux server or Docker host with several gigabytes of RAM. Both are free and open source for self-hosting.

The facts below come from the projects’ own repositories and documentation, checked on 23 October 2026. Not tested yet: we have not installed either product ourselves, so this is a documentation-based comparison. Run both in a test VM with a copy of your real mail flow before you decide.

At a glance

What osTicket does well

osTicket describes itself as a support ticket system that turns email, phone and web-form requests into tickets in one multi-user web interface. Its feature page lists custom fields, ticket filters, help topics, agent collision avoidance, SLA plans, a customer portal and an auto-responder. The agent panel also has a tasks tab and a knowledgebase, and the user portal can publish knowledgebase articles to customers.

Mail is the main way in. You can pipe incoming mail straight into osTicket or let it fetch mail over POP3 or IMAP. Help topics route tickets to departments, and filters can set priority, department or an automatic canned reply based on the sender or subject.

Authentication and storage are extended through the official plugins repository. It includes plugins for LDAP (Active Directory), OAuth2, CAS, two-factor authentication, password policy, an audit log, and storing attachments on the file system or in S3.

The appeal is how little it needs. Any server with Apache or IIS, PHP and MySQL will do, which also makes it one of the few help desks that sit comfortably on Windows Server with IIS. The repository README describes a deployment from Git:

git clone https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket
cd osTicket
php manage.php deploy --setup /var/www/htdocs/osticket/

After the web installer finishes, delete the setup/ folder from the deployed copy. Later updates are a git pull followed by php manage.php deploy -v /var/www/htdocs/osticket/.

What Zammad does well

Zammad is a web-based open-source help desk built around one shared inbox for many channels. Its admin documentation lists web, form, email, Google email, Microsoft 365 email (Graph or IMAP), chat, SMS, Facebook, Telegram and WhatsApp channels. Phone systems connect through a generic CTI integration or the Placetel and sipgate integrations.

On the management side the documentation covers groups, roles, organizations, overviews, text modules, macros, templates, tags, checklists, calendars, SLAs, triggers, webhooks, a scheduler, report profiles, time accounting and a knowledge base. Integrations include LDAP / Active Directory, Exchange, PGP and S/MIME, GitHub and GitLab issue linking, the i-doit CMDB, and Checkmk for monitoring alerts. If you already run Checkmk Community, its alerts can open and close tickets without custom code.

Zammad’s REST API can do what the web interface does. The documentation recommends personal access tokens, supports OAuth2 for third-party apps and advises against basic authentication. For a quick test install the documented Docker Compose route is short:

sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144
git clone https://github.com/zammad/zammad-docker-compose.git
cd zammad-docker-compose
docker compose up -d

The vm.max_map_count setting is needed for the bundled Elasticsearch. Make it persistent in /etc/sysctl.conf or a file in /etc/sysctl.d/ on a host you keep.

Requirements that decide it for many teams

• Database. osTicket needs MySQL (5.5 or later). Zammad’s current prerequisites list PostgreSQL 15 or newer and do not list MySQL. If your team only operates MySQL or MariaDB, that matters.
• Search. Elasticsearch is optional for Zammad but the documentation calls it strongly recommended. Zammad 7.2 and later supports Elasticsearch from 8.15 up to, but not including, 10.
• Memory. Zammad’s minimum is 2 cores and 6 GB RAM, with 4 GB more if Elasticsearch shares the machine. Its example for up to 40 agents is 6 cores and 6 GB RAM, plus 6 GB for Elasticsearch on the same host. osTicket publishes no hardware figures; a small VM that runs PHP and MySQL is usually enough for a small team, but size it from your own ticket volume.
• Windows. osTicket supports IIS. Zammad’s packages target Linux distributions; on other systems the documented routes are Docker Compose or Kubernetes.

Whichever you pick, you maintain the database and attachments yourself. Back up both, and test a restore before go-live.

Which one fits which team

1. Tickets come mostly by email, and the server is shared hosting or Windows. Choose osTicket. It fits where a PHP app already runs.
2. Customers or staff contact you through chat, messaging apps or social channels. Choose Zammad; these channels are built in, while osTicket centres on email and web forms.
3. You want to automate the help desk from scripts or other tools. Zammad’s API covers tickets, users, organizations, groups and search. osTicket’s API only creates tickets.
4. Monitoring alerts should become tickets. Zammad has a documented Checkmk integration. With osTicket, the usual path is sending alert mail to the help desk mailbox.
5. You also track hardware and software. Neither is an asset manager. Pair the help desk with an inventory tool such as Open-AudIT (agentless discovery; the free edition is limited to 100 devices). Zammad’s i-doit integration links tickets to a CMDB.

Limitations to know before you choose

• osTicket’s API cannot read or update tickets, so integrations that need two-way sync are harder.
• osTicket 2.0 is in development according to the project’s public roadmap repository, but the roadmap states it is not a commitment to any date. Plan on the 1.18 line.
• Zammad needs more moving parts (PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch, and Memcached when running in containers) and more RAM.
• The Zammad documentation notes that OpenSSL 3.6.0 is not supported. Check your distribution before a package install.
• We have not run either product, so judgements about ease of use come from documentation, not hands-on work.

For the wider picture of free tools for tickets and assets, see our hub IT Asset Management and Help Desk Tools for Small IT Teams. If you are linking the help desk to user accounts and single sign-on, the hub Identity and Access Management Tools covers directories and SSO.

FAQ

Is osTicket better than Zammad?

Not in general. osTicket is lighter and runs on almost any PHP host, including Windows with IIS. Zammad covers more channels and has a fuller API, but needs a bigger Linux or Docker server. Choose by how requests reach you and what you can host.

Are osTicket and Zammad free?

Yes, both are free for self-hosting. osTicket is released under GPL-2.0 and Zammad under AGPL-3.0. Each vendor also sells a hosted service, which is commercial; you do not need it to run the software yourself.

Can I run osTicket or Zammad in Docker?

Zammad maintains an official Docker Compose repository (and Kubernetes support) and documents it as an install route. We did not find an official Docker image in the osTicket GitHub organisation; the documented install is a PHP web app on Apache or IIS.

Is osTicket 2.0 released?

No stable 2.0 release appears in the osTicket repository. The current stable releases are on the 1.18 line (v1.18.4 at the time of writing), and 2.0 is tracked on the public roadmap without a promised date.

Does osTicket have an API?

Yes, but its documentation says it currently supports creating tickets only, by posting JSON, XML or a raw email with an API key.

Does Zammad work with Active Directory?

Yes. Zammad has an LDAP / Active Directory integration, and osTicket offers an LDAP plugin in its official plugins repository.

Last updated: 23 October 2026 · AdminHub Plus editorial team. Licence, version and platform details are checked against each developer's official documentation.