What is Helpy used for?

Helpy is a free, MIT-licensed, open-core helpdesk platform in Ruby on Rails, combining ticketing, a searchable knowledge base and public community support forums. It is a good fit for self-hosted customer support helpdesk and combining ticketing with a public knowledge base.

Is Helpy open source?

Yes. Helpy is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at helpyio/helpy and is written mainly in Ruby.

Yes. Helpy is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Helpy?

Yes. Helpy can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Helpy an alternative to?

Helpy is an open-source alternative to Zendesk, Help Scout, Freshservice and Freshdesk. Other open-source alternatives to Zendesk include Chatwoot, Zammad and Frappe Helpdesk.

Is Helpy actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Helpy was on 8 March 2023, and the latest release is 2.8.0, published on 28 February 2020. The project has 2.5k stars on GitHub.

Helpy: open-source alternative to Zendesk, Help Scout

About Helpy

Helpy is a help desk platform built with Ruby on Rails, aimed at businesses that want to run support ticketing, a knowledge base and a public community forum from one integrated system instead of stitching together separate tools. It is described as open-core: the core functionality is fully open source and even resellable under the MIT license, with optional paid support available.

It offers multichannel ticketing integrated with inbound email providers such as SendGrid, Mandrill and Mailgun, a full-text searchable and SEO-optimized knowledge base meant to help users self-serve answers, community support forums where both customers and agents can answer questions and vote on threads, and a lightweight embeddable JavaScript widget for contacting support from any page. The interface is mobile-friendly and the platform supports multiple languages, and each of these features can be disabled independently.

Because Helpy is a large system, the project asks organizations using it commercially to consider financially supporting development through Patreon or becoming an official sponsor. It is written in Ruby and released under the MIT license, so it can be self-hosted and modified freely.

Key features

Multichannel email-integrated ticketing
Searchable, SEO-optimized knowledge base
Public community support forums
Embeddable support widget
Mobile-friendly, multi-lingual interface

Good fit for

→Self-hosted customer support helpdesk
→Combining ticketing with a public knowledge base

Built with: Ruby
Tags: helpdesk; customer-support; knowledge-base; ruby-on-rails; ticketing; self-hosted; forum

Helpy: questions and answers

What is Helpy used for?: Helpy is a free, MIT-licensed, open-core helpdesk platform in Ruby on Rails, combining ticketing, a searchable knowledge base and public community support forums. It is a good fit for self-hosted customer support helpdesk and combining ticketing with a public knowledge base.
Is Helpy open source?: Yes. Helpy is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at helpyio/helpy and is written mainly in Ruby.
Is Helpy free?: Yes. Helpy is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Helpy?: Yes. Helpy can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Helpy an alternative to?: Helpy is an open-source alternative to Zendesk, Help Scout, Freshservice and Freshdesk. Other open-source alternatives to Zendesk include Chatwoot, Zammad and Frappe Helpdesk.
Is Helpy actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Helpy was on 8 March 2023, and the latest release is 2.8.0, published on 28 February 2020. The project has 2.5k stars on GitHub.