The short answer
- Choose Zammad if you need a mature open-source helpdesk now: many channels (email, chat, Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp, SMS, phone), SLAs, a knowledge base, and a released Freshdesk migrator.
- Choose Colliedesk if your team is 3 to 10 agents and you want one flat price instead of per-agent fees, AI without a per-call fee on top, and an import that proves nothing was lost. Colliedesk is alpha; read the status table first.
Price, side by side
Zammad hosted prices are in euros, per agent per month, excluding VAT, as published on 16 October 2026. The lower figure is billed annually.
| Zammad | Colliedesk | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosted plans | Starter €7–9 (max 5 agents), Professional €16–18 (max 35), Plus €25–27 (unlimited) per agent per month | Cloud Team: $49 per workspace per month, or $490 per year, up to 10 agents, 100 GB of attachments. Team 25: $99 per month, or $990 per year, up to 25 agents, 250 GB. No per-agent fees. Founding customers: $100 per year, locked for life. |
| AI | Optional on Professional and Plus, €0.03 per AI call | Included (coming after beta). LLM cost +30% on our key, or bring your own key. |
| Self-host | Free; paid support from €2,999 per year | Self-host free, every feature. Cloud: 14-day free trial, no card. |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | Open source, AGPL-3.0. Self-host or use Cloud. |
What five agents pay
| Team | Zammad Professional (hosted) | Colliedesk Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| 5 agents | 5 × €16–18 = €80–90 per month + €0.03 per AI call | $49 per month + AI usage |
| 10 agents | 10 × €16–18 = €160–180 per month + €0.03 per AI call | $49 per month + AI usage |
Moving from Freshdesk
Zammad is ahead here, and we say so.
| Zammad migrator | Colliedesk importer (Available now) | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Released, self-serve wizard or console | Available now, alpha |
| Imports | Groups, organizations, users, tickets | Tickets (archived ones included), replies, notes, attachments, tags, contacts, companies, time entries |
| Into an existing instance | No: "Migrations are only possible on new instances" | Into one workspace |
| Catch-up after the first run | No: "Differential migrations are not supported" | Yes, --since |
| Proof that nothing was lost | Not described | Reconcile report: counts per record type and a SHA-256 checksum per attachment |
| Done for you | Paid migration workshop, price on request | Free for founding customers |
What Colliedesk does today
| Capability | Colliedesk |
|---|---|
| Shared inbox: replies, private notes, status, priority, assignee, tags, search, bulk actions | Available now (alpha) |
| Email channel (inbound and outbound, threading) | Available now (alpha) |
| Freshdesk importer with reconcile report | Available now (alpha) |
| Saved replies, attachments, live updates and browser notifications | Available now (alpha) |
| Passwordless sign-in, revocable sessions, isolated workspaces, full export | Available now (alpha) |
| One-command install and published container image | Available now |
| Colliedesk Cloud with a 14-day free trial, then Team or Founding | Available now (alpha) |
| Cc on replies, new conversation from the inbox, contact history | Beta (0.1.0) |
| Upgrade guide, upgrades tested on real data | Beta (0.1.0) |
| AI draft replies, triage, auto-answer with a human in the loop | Coming after beta |
| Knowledge base and public help center | Coming after beta |
| Automations, macros, SLA, business hours, CSAT and reports | Coming later |
| Zendesk and Help Scout importers, live chat widget | Coming later |
Sources
Read on 16 October 2026. Prices change; check the vendor page before you decide.
- Zammad pricing: zammad.com/en/pricing
- Freshdesk migration: docs.zammad.org migration/freshdesk
- Migration overview: docs.zammad.org migration
- Software requirements: docs.zammad.org prerequisites
- Licence: github.com/zammad/zammad
Questions people ask
Is Colliedesk or Zammad better for leaving Freshdesk today?
Zammad, today. Its Freshdesk migrator is released and self-serve. The Colliedesk Freshdesk importer is available now, in alpha, so its interface may still change. Choose Colliedesk if you can accept alpha software and want a flat price, AI at model cost and a reconcile report that proves every record arrived.
How much does hosted Zammad cost?
On the Zammad pricing page read on 16 October 2026: Starter €7–9 per agent per month (up to 5 agents), Professional €16–18 (up to 35 agents), Plus €25–27 (unlimited agents), depending on annual or monthly billing. AI features cost €0.03 per AI call.
Are Zammad and Colliedesk both open source?
Yes. Both are licensed AGPL-3.0 and free to self-host. Zammad is a Ruby on Rails application that runs on PostgreSQL, with Elasticsearch strongly recommended. Colliedesk is one server container plus PostgreSQL.