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Founder here, Chatwoot is a customer support tool for instant messaging channels which can help businesses provide exceptional customer support through their w

Founder here, Chatwoot is a customer support tool for instant messaging channels which can help businesses provide exceptional customer support through their websites or social media channels. This was a product we started building in 2017. It failed due to a couple of obvious reasons. We built on Vue.js and Rails. It was in an inactive mode for around 1 and a half years. Recently we thought of putting it out instead of letting the code to rust. Our idea is to make it something like Gitlab/Mattermost where people can host their own version and we will provide a hosted version for people who don't want to self-host. After we open-sourced, we received contributions from 30 developers all around the world. We believe bots alone can't solve all the questions and there is no context. On the other hand, having agents alone for customer support won't scale as your business grows. We intend to build a bot+agent platform which is fully opensource and supports most of the social media channels, email and websites.

joshmn 7y ago
Congrats on the launch. As a fellow Ruby/Rails developer I love seeing great open-source Ruby/Rails apps in a world where everyone seems to be trending to what's "sexy" now instead of what's tired and true.
- edoceo 7y ago
  Remember when folks called RoR "sexy" and CGI tried and true? Or swap any two nearly similar stacks. Stack don't matter, it's not the wand, it's the wizard and time makes fools of us all.
  - chimen 7y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZeZsZEEpno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZeZsZEEpno These two actually made me hate the language/framework which is why I never gave it a shot.
    - scrollaway 7y ago
      What's that last jar supposed to represent?
      - obituary_latte 7y ago
        Looks like gasoline/petrol which is sometimes used by people to huff (inhale) to get high.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    The whole "serverless" trend feels (felt? Did the fad die out?) like coming full circle back to (Fast)CGI.
- mushufasa 7y ago
  interesting spin on 'tried and true.' also works and made me smile.
  - frequentnapper 7y ago
    unless it was a typo.
- nickserv 7y ago
  You'll never make everyone happy... For me the fact that it's RoR as opposed to, say Go or Elixir is a big turn off, because I know it will be slow and eat up lots of RAM. For me tried and true would be Java.
ceohockey60 7y ago
Nice project! Curious: has any organization started using Chatwoot to provide customer support?
- pranavrajs 7y ago
  There are no other organizations which are using the project other than us. We use it on our homepage chatwoot.com and for our Facebook pages.
  - ron22 7y ago
    That will change soon. :) Awesome project!
    - sojanofficial 7y ago
      Chatwoot Co-founder here: Do let us know if you face any issues. Will be glad to help.
judge2020 7y ago
Would like to let you know the hamburger menu currently doesn't work on mobile (clicking it does nothing)
- pranavrajs 7y ago
  Hey, thanks for letting me know. I will fix it soon :) Looks like I forgot to add the action on the hamburger button.
  - dlhavema 7y ago
    Related, the chat window that pops up on android is off screen about 15 to 20% but still workable. I am very familiar with Intercom, and this looks comparable at first glance. Nice start.
jnathsf 7y ago
Amazing to see your vision coming to life by open sourcing the code and getting so many contributors! No small feat. And great to see the project is being done in Rails. I’ve spent hours looking for a a good product in this space for our company so will definitely give this a try. Two questions - do you have a way to author FAQs and is email an accepted channel? Thanks and can’t wait to see Chatwoot grow.
- pranavrajs 7y ago
  Thanks for the kind words. Please see my response below. > do you have a way to author FAQs Right now, we don't support it. We have FAQs and a documentation website in the pipeline. > is email an accepted channel? Honestly speaking, it is not completely done yet. Emails from support desk mail can be seen in the dashboard, but you cannot respond to it now from our dashboard. Hopefully, we would be able to complete it sooner.
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    Congratulations on the release. Wish you all the best with it, and will not hesitate to recommend it … but first, email 100% has to be supported. Should be as good as Intercom's user-facing email flow. Email and twitter DMs are IMO more important for people looking for a support channel than "live agent" chat boxes. Live agent boxes are often adblocked and can't ever be the sole point of contact for a company that cares about having a support channel.
    - sojanofficial 7y ago
      Chatwoot Co-Founder here: Thanks a lot for the support. Totally agree. email is currently our top priority item and the development is halfway through. We are also actively working on twitter DM as a channel. Stay posted for updates.
vicnov 7y ago
What were the reasons for failure? It would be great to learn more about your experience.
- pranavrajs 7y ago
  There are a couple of things which I can tell, most important is that we were naive and we were not patient enough to see the project grow organically and reach the users and find its USP. We wanted instant gratification which is not always available in the startup world.
  - King-Aaron 7y ago
    A lot of first-time entrepreneurs need to listen to this comment.
stanislavb 7y ago
Good job. I hope it gets traction. I've scheduled it to be featured on the homepage of SaaSHub for next Monday.
- sojanofficial 7y ago
  Chatwoot Co-Founder here: Just saw that its up on SaasHub. thanks a lot for featuring.
  - stanislavb 7y ago
    No worries. Just keep up the good work. I'd also suggest, asking some of your users to leave you a review on SH.
cvg 7y ago
Nice job! Have you done any load testing on it? Curious how much server to buy to run an instance with some usage.
- sojanofficial 7y ago
  Chatwoot Co-founder here: We haven't done a full-scale load testing yet. But we were able to handle the HN traffic using Heroku's free tier.
alexnewman 7y ago
omg I love you. I probably wont switch til you have a hosted version where I can pay you, sorry. Maybe you can launch one on heroku for me as a beta user and I'll pay you?
- sojanofficial 7y ago
  Chatwoot Co-founder here: Thanks a lot for the support. A hosted version will be up by end of this month. Meanwhile, you can deploy the repo easily to heroku. Will be happy to assist if you face any issues.
gremlinsinc 7y ago
A full demo or feature list would be nice. For comparison to other options out there.
- sojanofficial 7y ago
  Chatwoot Co-Founder here: We are working on the feature comparison and roadmap pages. It will be up on the website in a day or two.
  - mritchie712 7y ago
    just record a 1 to 2 minute demo of you walking thru standard use cases. it will only take a couple hours and is well worth it.
dominotw 7y ago
> It failed due to a couple of obvious reasons. We built on Vue.js and Rails I read it with a comma instead of fullstop between the sentences :D
- 8bithero 7y ago
  Haha! I did the exact same thing I was wondering what was wrong with either of those stacks
izolate 7y ago
> It failed due to a couple of obvious reasons. Would you mind elaborating? Would love to hear why. Seems like a good chat-focused alternative. Was the competition from Freskdesk too stiff (assuming you're based in Bangalore)? Anyway congrats on breathing new life into the project!
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

joshmn 7y ago

Congrats on the launch. As a fellow Ruby/Rails developer I love seeing great open-source Ruby/Rails apps in a world where everyone seems to be trending to what's "sexy" now instead of what's tired and true.

edoceo 7y ago
Remember when folks called RoR "sexy" and CGI tried and true? Or swap any two nearly similar stacks. Stack don't matter, it's not the wand, it's the wizard and time makes fools of us all.
- chimen 7y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZeZsZEEpno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZeZsZEEpno These two actually made me hate the language/framework which is why I never gave it a shot.
  - scrollaway 7y ago
    What's that last jar supposed to represent?
    - obituary_latte 7y ago
      Looks like gasoline/petrol which is sometimes used by people to huff (inhale) to get high.
- yellowapple 7y ago
  The whole "serverless" trend feels (felt? Did the fad die out?) like coming full circle back to (Fast)CGI.
mushufasa 7y ago
interesting spin on 'tried and true.' also works and made me smile.
- frequentnapper 7y ago
  unless it was a typo.
nickserv 7y ago
You'll never make everyone happy... For me the fact that it's RoR as opposed to, say Go or Elixir is a big turn off, because I know it will be slow and eat up lots of RAM. For me tried and true would be Java.

ceohockey60 7y ago

Nice project! Curious: has any organization started using Chatwoot to provide customer support?

pranavrajs 7y ago
There are no other organizations which are using the project other than us. We use it on our homepage chatwoot.com and for our Facebook pages.
- ron22 7y ago
  That will change soon. :) Awesome project!
  - sojanofficial 7y ago
    Chatwoot Co-founder here: Do let us know if you face any issues. Will be glad to help.

judge2020 7y ago

Would like to let you know the hamburger menu currently doesn't work on mobile (clicking it does nothing)

pranavrajs 7y ago
Hey, thanks for letting me know. I will fix it soon :) Looks like I forgot to add the action on the hamburger button.
- dlhavema 7y ago
  Related, the chat window that pops up on android is off screen about 15 to 20% but still workable. I am very familiar with Intercom, and this looks comparable at first glance. Nice start.

jnathsf 7y ago

Amazing to see your vision coming to life by open sourcing the code and getting so many contributors! No small feat. And great to see the project is being done in Rails. I’ve spent hours looking for a a good product in this space for our company so will definitely give this a try. Two questions - do you have a way to author FAQs and is email an accepted channel? Thanks and can’t wait to see Chatwoot grow.

pranavrajs 7y ago
Thanks for the kind words. Please see my response below. > do you have a way to author FAQs Right now, we don't support it. We have FAQs and a documentation website in the pipeline. > is email an accepted channel? Honestly speaking, it is not completely done yet. Emails from support desk mail can be seen in the dashboard, but you cannot respond to it now from our dashboard. Hopefully, we would be able to complete it sooner.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  Congratulations on the release. Wish you all the best with it, and will not hesitate to recommend it … but first, email 100% has to be supported. Should be as good as Intercom's user-facing email flow. Email and twitter DMs are IMO more important for people looking for a support channel than "live agent" chat boxes. Live agent boxes are often adblocked and can't ever be the sole point of contact for a company that cares about having a support channel.
  - sojanofficial 7y ago
    Chatwoot Co-Founder here: Thanks a lot for the support. Totally agree. email is currently our top priority item and the development is halfway through. We are also actively working on twitter DM as a channel. Stay posted for updates.

vicnov 7y ago

What were the reasons for failure? It would be great to learn more about your experience.

pranavrajs 7y ago
There are a couple of things which I can tell, most important is that we were naive and we were not patient enough to see the project grow organically and reach the users and find its USP. We wanted instant gratification which is not always available in the startup world.
- King-Aaron 7y ago
  A lot of first-time entrepreneurs need to listen to this comment.

stanislavb 7y ago

Good job. I hope it gets traction. I've scheduled it to be featured on the homepage of SaaSHub for next Monday.

sojanofficial 7y ago
Chatwoot Co-Founder here: Just saw that its up on SaasHub. thanks a lot for featuring.
- stanislavb 7y ago
  No worries. Just keep up the good work. I'd also suggest, asking some of your users to leave you a review on SH.

cvg 7y ago

Nice job! Have you done any load testing on it? Curious how much server to buy to run an instance with some usage.

sojanofficial 7y ago
Chatwoot Co-founder here: We haven't done a full-scale load testing yet. But we were able to handle the HN traffic using Heroku's free tier.

alexnewman 7y ago

omg I love you. I probably wont switch til you have a hosted version where I can pay you, sorry. Maybe you can launch one on heroku for me as a beta user and I'll pay you?

sojanofficial 7y ago
Chatwoot Co-founder here: Thanks a lot for the support. A hosted version will be up by end of this month. Meanwhile, you can deploy the repo easily to heroku. Will be happy to assist if you face any issues.

gremlinsinc 7y ago

A full demo or feature list would be nice. For comparison to other options out there.

sojanofficial 7y ago
Chatwoot Co-Founder here: We are working on the feature comparison and roadmap pages. It will be up on the website in a day or two.
- mritchie712 7y ago
  just record a 1 to 2 minute demo of you walking thru standard use cases. it will only take a couple hours and is well worth it.

dominotw 7y ago

> It failed due to a couple of obvious reasons. We built on Vue.js and Rails I read it with a comma instead of fullstop between the sentences :D

8bithero 7y ago
Haha! I did the exact same thing I was wondering what was wrong with either of those stacks

izolate 7y ago

> It failed due to a couple of obvious reasons. Would you mind elaborating? Would love to hear why. Seems like a good chat-focused alternative. Was the competition from Freskdesk too stiff (assuming you're based in Bangalore)? Anyway congrats on breathing new life into the project!

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]