What Is Chatwoot?
Chatwoot is an open-source customer engagement platform. It unifies conversations from multiple channels — live chat, email, WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Twitter — into a single team inbox. Think Intercom or Zendesk, but self-hosted and free.
Supported Channels
| Channel | Description |
|---|---|
| Website Live Chat | Embeddable widget for your website |
| Forward support emails to Chatwoot | |
| Via WhatsApp Business API or Twilio | |
| Telegram | Connect your Telegram bot |
| Manage Facebook Messenger conversations | |
| Twitter/X | Respond to DMs and mentions |
| API | Build custom channel integrations |
Deploy on Panelica
Navigate to Docker → App Templates and deploy Chatwoot. The template includes the web application, Sidekiq worker, and PostgreSQL database.
Note: Chatwoot requires more resources than simpler apps. We recommend at least 2 GB RAM for the application container.
Initial Setup
- Access the Chatwoot admin panel at your deployment URL
- Create your admin account
- Set up your first Inbox (start with Website channel)
- Customize the chat widget appearance to match your brand
- Add team members and assign roles
Adding the Chat Widget
After creating a Website inbox, Chatwoot generates a JavaScript snippet. Add it to your website's HTML before the closing </body> tag. The widget will appear as a chat bubble in the bottom-right corner.
Key Features
- Canned responses — Pre-written replies for common questions
- Automation rules — Auto-assign conversations based on keywords or channels
- Labels and teams — Organize conversations by topic and route to specialists
- Customer profiles — Track conversation history across channels
- Reports — Response time, resolution time, and agent performance metrics
- Webhooks — Integrate with your existing tools
Summary
Chatwoot replaces expensive SaaS customer support tools with a fully self-hosted solution. Deploy it on Panelica, connect your communication channels, and manage all customer conversations from a single, unified inbox.