osTicket review

osTicket is web-based customer support and ticketing software, with a free self-hosted option and paid hosted plans. The homepage says it routes inquiries from email, web forms and APIs into a help desk. Teams can use ticket filters to send requests to departments, manage configurable help topics, and give customers a support portal. A dashboard reports help desk statistics, while service agreements let teams set business hours for service-level agreements.

The free Open Source plan is for self-hosted teams and includes community support; its seat limit is not published. The pricing page lists three hosted plans billed per agent per month: Basic at $12, Standard at $16 and Premium at $24. Their main listed difference is the attachment-size limit. A Virtual Appliance option has custom pricing. So the choice is not simply free versus paid: it is also whether your team wants to host and maintain the software or pay for a hosted plan.

The clearest case for osTicket is a team that wants ticketing without a per-agent software bill and can run its own deployment. The Open Source plan costs $0 per month and is self-hosted, with community support. The pricing page does not publish a seat limit for this plan, so teams should confirm capacity and support expectations before treating it as a fit for a larger help desk.

The hosted plans list unlimited tickets, users and email addresses. That gives teams room to handle incoming volume and connect multiple email addresses without a stated cap on those items. The plans differ on attachment limits: Basic allows 2 MB, Standard 8 MB and Premium 16 MB. Prices are $12, $16 and $24 per agent per month, respectively, according to the pricing page.

The feature set covers everyday ticket routing and management: email, web forms and APIs feed requests into the system; filters route tickets to departments; and help topics can be added, edited or deleted. Dashboard reports, a customer support portal and service agreements round out the listed tools. A Reddit commenter described osTicket as easy to set up and customize, though that is one user’s account, not a guarantee for every environment.

The hosted plans put a hard ceiling on attachment size: 2 MB on Basic, 8 MB on Standard and 16 MB on Premium. Teams that regularly exchange larger files will need another workflow or the more expensive tier. Basic starts at $12 per agent per month, rising to $16 for Standard and $24 for Premium. The pricing page lists monthly prices; annual-billing prices are not published. Commercial support is a substantial extra cost: Premium Business is listed at $12,500 per year and Enterprise On-Call at $25,000 per year.

The free option shifts hosting responsibility to the customer and includes community support. Its seat limit is not published, making it harder to assess the total cost and suitability for a growing team. The pricing page also lists a 30-day free trial, but does not publish annual prices.

Presentation is another concern raised by users, not a measured product finding. In one Reddit thread, a commenter called osTicket visually dated, while another described it as clunky and ugly. That may matter when staff adoption or a polished customer-facing experience is a priority. A separate commenter raised deployment prerequisites as a concern, but the published product information does not specify them.

osTicket’s Open Source edition costs $0 per month and is self-hosted, with community support. Seat limits are not published, so confirm capacity needs before treating it as a no-cost fit for a larger team.

Hosted plans charge per agent each month: Basic is $12, Standard is $16, and Premium is $24. The jump is $4 from Basic to Standard, then $8 to Premium. The main listed difference is attachment size: 2 MB, 8 MB, and 16 MB, respectively. All three list unlimited tickets, users, and email addresses.

Commercial support costs extra: Premium Business is $12,500 per year, while Enterprise On-Call is $25,000 per year. Virtual Appliance pricing is custom and not published. The pricing information lists a 30-day free trial, but does not specify its plan coverage. Monthly prices are listed; annual-billing prices are not published.

The published product and pricing information does not describe a migration tool, implementation service, or data-export process. Before switching, confirm how tickets, attachments, users, and settings can be moved in or out; export capabilities are not published in the material we have. That uncertainty matters if you expect to change platforms later.

Map your current intake channels and routing rules before moving. osTicket lists email, web forms, and APIs as inquiry sources, plus ticket filters, help topics, service agreements, and a customer portal. Recreating those workflows may take planning, but the sources do not quantify migration effort. The Open Source plan is self-hosted; the paid plans are hosted, so decide which deployment model you need before comparing costs. Seat limits for Open Source are not published.

We do not have Reddit posts or comments in the published published material, so we can’t reliably say what users report as their reasons for leaving osTicket.