# Top 5 Open-Source Help Desk Software Tools Help desk software is one of the most critical parts of your ITSM tool stack. Enabling employees and other users to access service quickly and easily has an enormous impact on your wider operational efficiency. Today, we’re checking out some of the best options out there for open-source help desk software. This can be a particularly tricky market to navigate. Many businesses prioritize open-source solutions for their help desk for security reasons. However, not all open-source tools offer the same level of capabilities as their COTS equivalents. Therefore, we must carefully consider our options. Our goal today is to flag the top picks for open-source ticketing solutions, including their respective pros, cons, and ideal use cases. ## What does help desk software do? Help desk software is used to administer access to internal services, like IT support, customer service, facilities management, HR, and more. Usually, this is centered around ticketing. So, we’ll have functionality for service users to submit request tickets. For instance, relating to a support query, issue, incident, or other request. Help desk teams can then view, categorize, action, and respond to these tickets. Depending on the sophistication of your solution, many of the required tasks here, such as categorization, delegation, and scheduling, might be automated. ## Types of help desks Let’s think in a bit more detail about some specific types of help desk software. The example that will be most familiar to many of you will be IT service management. Most organizations over a certain size will provide an IT help desk for technical support, device rental, admin tasks, change requests, incident management, and other basic services. Help desk software is also indispensable for operations and facility management teams. For example, handling scheduled servicing, maintenance requests, facility rentals, health and safety, and more. HR, finance, and other teams often also provide services to colleagues via help desk and ticketing tools, especially around access to internal policies, submitting requests, managing personal information, handling complaints, and other key internal admin tasks. Last but not least, we have external-facing helpdesk tools. These relate to key tasks for customers, partners, and other stakeholders - including access after-sales support, managing accounts, and handling issues. ## Why opt for an open-source solution? Open-source technologies are a priority for many businesses, potentially for a number of different reasons. The most common, however, is security. The crux of this is the ability to audit and vet the source code of any platforms that will interact with mission-critical processes or internal data assets. This can make open-source tools preferable to their closed-source counterparts. Depending on their internal procurement processes, large organizations may be able to adopt open-source tools more quickly without necessarily needing to go through the same financial and legal approval processes as they would with commercial vendors. ## Top 5 open-source help desks Now that we have a firm grasp of what we’re looking for when it comes to open-source help desk software, it’s time to see how specific platforms stack up against one another. Our top picks are: 1. [Budibase](/content/blog/inside-it/open-source-help-desk-software/#1-budibase/index.html) 2. [GLPI](/content/blog/inside-it/open-source-help-desk-software/#2-glpi/index.html) 3. [REI3 Tickets](/content/blog/inside-it/open-source-help-desk-software/#3-rei3-tickets/index.html) 4. [ERPNext](/content/blog/inside-it/open-source-help-desk-software/#4-erpnext/index.html) 5. [osTicket](/content/blog/inside-it/open-source-help-desk-software/#5-osticket/index.html) ### 1. Budibase First up, we have Budibase, the open-source, low-code platform that empowers IT teams to turn data into action. Systems architects, solutions architects, data professionals, and other IT colleagues choose Budibase to ship professional tools quickly, with minimal custom code. Budibase offers unrivaled connectivity for existing databases and acts as a proxy, directly querying RDBMSs, NoSQL tools, REST APIs, Google Sheets, and more without storing the retrieved data. #### Use cases Budibase is the ideal solution for creating custom ticketing and help desk software in minutes. IT teams use Budibase to build all kinds of forms, approval apps, workflow tools, knowledge bases, and resource management solutions. #### Pricing Budibase empowers you to build unlimited applications for up to five users in the cloud or twenty users if you self-host. ### 2. GLPI Next up, we have GLPI. This is a ready-to-deploy suite of open-source help desk and ticketing tools trusted by a huge number of large enterprises and other household brands. #### Pros GLPI’s ticketing platform, which includes problem and change management, is particularly impressive, along with its strong administrative and governance capabilities. #### Cons One big point of detraction is GLPI’s data support, as it requires MySQL or MariaDB for installation, and has limited native integration options. #### Pricing Unlike many open-source tools, GLPI doesn’t offer a fully-functioning free tier, with per-user costs being relatively high. ### 3. REI3 Tickets Our next open-source help desk software tool is REI3 Tickets. #### Pros REI3 Tickets offers a flexible visual development tool for a range of use cases and includes features like automatic categorizations and email automations. #### Cons The UI builder itself and the end-user interfaces leave a lot to be desired compared to more modern platforms. #### Pricing REI3 Tickets is totally free to use commercially, with no limits on stored data, applications, or concurrent users. ### 4. ERPNext ERPNext is a popular open-source enterprise resource management platform that ships with highly flexible help desk tools. #### Pros The help desk tools offer extensive functionality, including issue reporting and SLA tracking, straight out of the box. #### Cons The installation process requires some familiarity with Linux/Unix systems. #### Pricing ERPNext offers a fully open-source free product with no usage limitations. ### 5. osTicket Lastly, we have osTicket. This is an open-source help desk and ticketing system that’s highly optimized for external-facing tasks. #### Pros osTicket offers impressive capabilities aimed at improving resolution rates and coordination within large help desk teams. #### Cons Compared to some other platforms, users complain that installing osTicket can be relatively difficult. #### Pricing osTicket is available as a fully open-source solution which is free, including unlimited users.