14 Best Customer Support & Live Chat in 2026
Customer support software gives teams shared inboxes, live chat widgets, and ticketing to answer customer questions, used by support agents and small businesses.
Top customer support & live chat
| Tool | Best for | License | Price | Reviews | Likes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chatwoot | teams wanting a self-hostable, MIT-licensed alternative to Intercom or Zendesk with full ownership of customer conversation data | Open source | Free tier · paid from $19/mo | 0 | |
| Crisp | small support and sales teams that want a shared omnichannel inbox, live chat, and no-code AI automation billed as a flat per-workspace rate instead of per-agent | Freemium | Free tier · paid from $45/mo | 0 | |
| Dialpad | Distributed sales and support teams that want VoIP calling, video meetings, and AI-generated call transcripts/summaries in one app instead of stitching together a separate phone system, video tool, and call-recording add-on. | Paid | From $15/mo | 0 | |
| Drift | existing Drift customers evaluating migration timing, not recommended as a new purchase given the announced sunset | Paid | Custom pricing | 0 | |
| Freshdesk | mid-market and enterprise support teams who want AI-assisted ticket resolution and omnichannel routing without building automations from scratch | Paid | From $19/mo | 0 | |
| Front | B2B support, sales, and account management teams handling complex, multi-stakeholder customer conversations that a simple ticketing tool can't route well | Paid | From $25/mo | 0 | |
| Gorgias | Shopify and other ecommerce brands that want order and customer data inside every support ticket, with AI handling routine returns and order-status questions | Paid | Custom pricing | 0 | |
| Help Scout | small support teams under 10 agents who want a shared inbox that reads like email rather than a numbered-ticket queue | Freemium | Free tier · paid from $25/mo | 0 | |
| Intercom | growing support teams that want an AI agent embedded directly in the inbox to resolve routine conversations, and can budget for usage-based AI costs on top of per-seat fees | Paid | From $29/mo | 0 | |
| Lucky Orange | ecommerce and SaaS marketing teams under ~50,000 monthly sessions who want heatmaps, session recordings, and on-site surveys in one subscription instead of buying each separately | Paid | From $32/mo | 0 | |
| Nextiva | Small-to-mid-size businesses that want a single vendor for business phone lines, team messaging, video meetings, and a basic customer support/contact center in one subscription. | Paid | From $15/mo | 0 | |
| Tidio | small and mid-sized e-commerce and SaaS businesses that want AI-assisted live chat support without a large support team | Freemium | Free tier · paid from $24.17/mo | 0 | |
| Zammad | organizations that want a fully-featured, self-hostable open-source helpdesk under AGPLv3, or a GDPR-compliant hosted alternative to Zendesk priced per agent | Open source | Free | 0 | |
| Zendesk | mid-size and larger support teams that need omnichannel coverage (email, chat, phone) with AI-assisted ticket triage, and can standardize on per-agent-seat billing | Paid | From $19/mo | 0 |
Chatwoot
Crisp
Dialpad
Drift
Freshdesk
Front
Gorgias
Help Scout
Intercom
Lucky Orange
Nextiva
Tidio
Zammad
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Alternatives to Chatwoot5Alternatives to Crisp4Alternatives to Dialpad3Alternatives to Drift3Alternatives to Freshdesk4Alternatives to Front4Alternatives to Gorgias3Alternatives to Help Scout4Alternatives to Intercom6Alternatives to Lucky Orange5Alternatives to Nextiva3Alternatives to Tidio4Alternatives to Zammad4Alternatives to Zendesk3
Frequently asked questions
What is the best customer support & live chat tool right now?
- Chatwoot leads this list by user signals — it is best for teams wanting a self-hostable, mit-licensed alternative to intercom or zendesk with full ownership of customer conversation data. Crisp is the strongest runner-up.
Which customer support & live chat are free?
- 5 of the 14 tools here have a usable free tier or are fully free: Chatwoot, Crisp, Help Scout, Tidio, Zammad.
Are there open-source customer support & live chat?
- Yes — Chatwoot, Zammad are open source.