Nowadays small and large companies have started to move towards IT automation to improve productivity. Help desk enabled IT support has become a dire need for almost every office that has an IT infrastructure. It may include PCs, Servers, Databases, Mobile devices, Network switches , IP telephones etc. Usually IT support is underrated in small and medium sized companies. But that’s where they are wrong; IT support always plays a vital role in the productivity of any organization.
While it may not appear that IT department has a direct influence on the organizational goals but actually it matters a lot. Those companies who invest on IT resources including monitoring systems, helpdesk ticketing systems and security systems are rewarded heavily in the long term. It has to be understood that one critical mistake whether it’s file corruption, data loss, leakage or lack of backups can disrupt the core operations of an organization.
Therefore, we are going to share some free help desk ticketing software that you can deploy in your organization and increase the efficiency of support services.
List of Free Help Desk Software
We have found a few free and open source help desk management software that can be deployed in any office environment. Most of these software are web based and you won’t have to install any executable files on the OS. If you know how to configure a web server then it will be a piece of cake for you.
Here’s the list of some free Help Desk software:
- osTicket
- SpiceWorks
- Hesk
- Faveo Help Desk
- Liberium Help Desk
- Help Desk Z
- Solarwinds Web Help Desk
Here are details on each of them:
osTicket
osTicket is one of the best and fully featured help desk ticketing system that is meant for both beginner and advanced use. You can even build your Help topics based on previous complaints to avoid repetition. It also provides Rich Text html editor along with functionality to create custom fields. Here are some of the salient features of osTicket:
osTicket Features:
- Create custom fields
- Rich text html editor
- Ticket filters and sorting
- Help topics
- Assign and Transfer tickets between departments
- Automatic replies on ticket creation
- Internal notes
- Customer portal
- Detailed dashboard reports
Follow this Step-by-step guide to install osTicket.
SpiceWorks
SpiceWorks is an excellent open source help desk ticketing system that is very user-friendly and installs on simple clicks. It provides the functionality to integrate it with Active Directory. You won’t have to create users and departments separately. You can also install the mobile apps on both Android and iOS platforms and manage the software from there. In addition it provides the option to create a knowledge base to educate employees. Here are some of the main features:
SpiceWorks Features:
- Private ticket replies and comments
- Custom reports
- Knowledge base
- Active Directory integration
- Multi-site support in case of multiple clients
- IT Asset management
Follow this Step-by-step guide to install SpiceWorks
HESK
Hesk is a PHP based open source help desk management system. It is a very easy-to-install and compact software that you can deploy within minutes. The GUI is very simple and intuitive and it allows you to create and assign tickets quickly. If you want to impress the top management and showoff your IT skills but without any hassle then go for Hesk. It provides both Staff and Customer interfaces with their respective functionality. Here are it’s most distinguished features:
Hesk Features:
- Very small in size and deploys within minutes
- Knowledge base
- Team / Department creation
- Granular permissions for staff
- Detailed Reports
Follow this Step-by-step guide to install HESK
Faveo Help Desk
Faveo help desk is an advanced ticketing software that comes in both free and paid editions. The free version has a few limitations including no support for installation & maintenance and plugins. Otherwise the free version has all features that any advanced ticketing software should have. The GUI is especially very attractive and gives you a nice overall feel when interacting with it. It’s Demo is also available HERE. Here are its main features:
Faveo Features
- Advanced Ticket search
- Sorting articles based on categories
- Comments on articles
- SEO friendly links
- Dashboard reports
- Priority management
- Built-in knowledge base
- Daily notifications / reports
- Auto-replies
- Ticket ratings
- E-mail templates
- Custom forms
- Ban list
- Ticket Workflow
Follow this Step-by-step guide to install Faveo Help Desk
Liberum Help Desk
Liberum is an HTML and ASP based help desk software that is completely free to use. It has a very simple GUI that gives you the basic functionality of a good help desk system. It’s major strength is the ability to integrate with Active Directory. If you’re looking for a simple and neat ticketing system then Liberum is the best option for you. It’s salient features are:
Liberum Features
- Active Directory integration
- Configurable email notifications
- Send sms messages for the most critical tickets
- Detailed reports
- Fully customizable software
Follow this Step-by-step guide to install Liberum
HelpDesk Z
HelpDesk Z is yet another free and open source help desk management system. You can create support tickets and respond to them in an effective and efficient manner. Furthermore it allows you to create groups and assign agents to them. It also offer an additional feature called “News”. With News feature you can inform your clients about new events. You can check the Demo HERE. Here are it’s different features:
HelpDesk Z Features
- Creation of groups
- Canned responses
- Custom fields
- Knowledge base
- News
- Email piping
- Template customization
Follow this Step-by-step guide to install HelpDesk Z
BONUS SOFTWARE: SolarWinds Web Help Desk
The popular Network monitoring solutions company Solarwinds has recently rolled out its new Web Help Desk software. And it’s completely free to download. The free edition has great features with excellent GUI like other paid software. Furthermore, the software is very user friendly and you can install it in your office environment in a few minutes. Its features include:
Solarwinds Web Help Desk Features
- Intuitive Service request interface for users
- Help desk performance reporting
- Built-in knowledge base
- LDAP synchronization and account management
- SLA management
Follow this Step-by-step guide to install Solarwinds Web Help Desk
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Checked on 3/21, Solarwinds in not a free service..
The Solarwinds Helpdesk solution has a free version that you can use with a limited number of users.