What is Znuny used for?

Znuny is an open-source web-based ticketing system for help desks, customer service and IT service management, continuing the OTRS Community Edition. It is a good fit for customer support ticketing and IT service desk operations.

Is Znuny open source?

Yes. Znuny is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at znuny/Znuny and is written mainly in Perl.

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

Can I self-host Znuny?

Yes. Znuny can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Znuny an alternative to?

Znuny is an open-source alternative to Zendesk, Freshservice, Jira Service Management and Freshdesk. Other open-source alternatives to Zendesk include Zammad, Frappe Helpdesk and Request Tracker.

Is Znuny actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Znuny was on 30 September 2026. The project has 599 stars on GitHub.

Znuny: open-source alternative to Zendesk, Freshservice

About Znuny

Znuny is a free, open-source web-based ticketing system for customer service, help desks and IT service management. It is a continuation of the ((OTRS)) Community Edition at version 6.0.30, which reached end of life at the end of December 2020, with the main goal of providing a maintained, stable version of the well-known ticket system and improving it with new features.

A second goal is to rebuild connections with the community. Technically it is written in Perl and JavaScript and designed to be highly tailorable. It runs on Linux, preferably Debian or Red Hat, with Perl 5.16 or newer, an Apache 2 web server with mod_perl2 recommended, and MySQL 8, MariaDB 10.3, PostgreSQL 12 or Oracle 19c databases. The project also lists unsupported old browser versions.

Znuny is distributed under the GPL v3 and its source is public on GitHub, with documentation, a community forum and a Discord server. The project is mainly funded by Znuny GmbH in Berlin, which offers commercial services such as professional support and consulting.

Key features

Ticketing for help desk and support teams
IT service management use cases
Continuation of OTRS Community Edition
Runs on Perl with Apache mod_perl
MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL and Oracle support
Highly tailorable to an organization

Good fit for

→Customer support ticketing
→IT service desk operations

Built with: Perl; JavaScript
Tags: ticketing; helpdesk; itsm; perl; otrs; customer-support; service-management; self-hosted

Znuny: questions and answers

What is Znuny used for?: Znuny is an open-source web-based ticketing system for help desks, customer service and IT service management, continuing the OTRS Community Edition. It is a good fit for customer support ticketing and IT service desk operations.
Is Znuny open source?: Yes. Znuny is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at znuny/Znuny and is written mainly in Perl.
Is Znuny free?: Yes. Znuny is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Znuny?: Yes. Znuny can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Znuny an alternative to?: Znuny is an open-source alternative to Zendesk, Freshservice, Jira Service Management and Freshdesk. Other open-source alternatives to Zendesk include Zammad, Frappe Helpdesk and Request Tracker.
Is Znuny actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Znuny was on 30 September 2026. The project has 599 stars on GitHub.