Comparison
Salamandr vs Freshdesk
Two free tiers, two different kinds of free
Freshdesk (Freshworks) is a common first helpdesk for small teams, with a genuine free tier for a handful of agents. Salamandr's free tier is also capped by agent count — the difference is what you're not giving up to stay on it.
| Feature | Salamandr | Freshdesk |
|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted deployment | Yes — Community edition, self-hosted | No, cloud-only |
| Free tier | Community edition: every feature, self-hosted, up to 5 agents | Free plan, small agent count, reduced feature set |
| Free-tier feature set | Full product — every channel, SLA, bot flows, WASM plugins | Core ticketing; SLA, automation and channels mostly on paid tiers |
| Source code | AGPL-3.0, fully open (Community edition) | Closed source |
| Growth path | Self-hosted Enterprise — unlimited seats, from $3,000/yr, billed in agent bands | Per-agent SaaS tiers as you add features and agents |
| Business hours & SLA | Real working-time calendars, holidays, SLA pause states — Community included | Available on paid tiers |
| Native channels | Email, web chat, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Messenger, Line, portal — Community included | Email, chat, phone (add-on), social on paid tiers |
| Extensibility | Sandboxed WASM plugin SDK, self-authored or community | Freshworks marketplace apps |
Where Freshdesk wins on paper
Freshdesk’s free tier is a genuinely easy on-ramp, and the Freshworks suite (CRM, marketing) integrates tightly if you’re already using those products. Its UI has had years of SMB-focused polish.
Where it doesn’t fit
Both free tiers cap out by agent count — five on Salamandr Community. The difference is what the cap costs you underneath it. Freshdesk’s free plan holds back SLA policies, automation and most channels for paid tiers, so a small team on it is also a feature-limited team. Salamandr’s five agents get every channel, real SLA calendars, bot flows and the plugin system with no separate paywall inside Community itself — the one thing Enterprise adds beyond the seat cap is a short list of ready-made integrations this project builds and maintains (WooCommerce/Shopify, Slack/Teams, HubSpot-style CRM connectors — see Editions), not a second tier of the core product.
See it running before you decide
Docker Compose, one command, on your own machine.