TrustRadius Insights for osTicket are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Easy Setup: Many users have found the setup process of OSTicket to be extremely easy and straightforward. They were able to configure most features within half a day, making it quick and hassle-free.
Intuitive Interface: The intuitive interface of OSTicket has received widespread praise from both customers and agents. Its user-friendly design makes it easy for everyone to navigate and use the platform without any confusion or difficulties.
Knowledge Base Feature: Users highly appreciate the knowledge base feature in OSTicket as it allows agents and customers to quickly access commonly asked questions or information. This feature greatly improves overall efficiency by providing instant access to valuable resources.
osTicket is being used as the ticketing management tool, for customer and internal activities to be accomplished by each member of the company or department.
Pros
Merging duplicated tickets that are related to the same topic
Ticket view permissions
Ticket follow up via customer portal
Ticket activity resumed dashboard
Cons
Language package should permit also the translation of the templates
It should not require the user to enter his details when creating a new ticket. This should be filled automatically
Improve the layout of the ticket messages to facilitate reading and interpretation.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is well suited for scenarios where you want to manage both tickets from customers or users and internal activities of the company or department, without spending much money on a paid ticketing tool, because osTicket is free and does well the ticketing management job. It would not be well suited in a big size company where customers should use the portal to open and follow up tickets, because although it has good features, the UI makes it feels like it's unfinished.
Initially used by the IT support team to replace a "cloud" based service that we ended up have a few issues. Slowly other departments within our organization have also adopted osTicket to assist in supporting their various end-users to great success. I'm sure I don't need to spell out why an IT department would need such a tool, osTicket may not be the prettiest but it's functional, self-hosted, and does all the core things well enough.
Pros
Simple to set up (we're running via PHP on IIS).
Single hosting for multiple and separate departments.
Self hosted option (important to us with previous issues experienced elsewhere).
Support forums and git-hub often have answers to the odd question (not had to rely on that too much thankfully).
Continues to be developed with features and security fixes—some open source projects can stagnate.
Cons
Interface is fixed width and could stand to be re-written in a modern responsive style.
The automation could be improved, there are filters and rules but no strict automation.
Likelihood to Recommend
osTicket has so far met the needs of the IT team to lend support to a few hundred end-users. The success of which has been picked up for other departments such that they have also been set up to assist in managing workflow and supporting their respective end-users. I have to say we have only used this internally and via email as a ticketing solution, but it does work very well for us. Being self-hosted was quite an important feature as we had issues with a previous cloud-based solution, so we can now keep this in-house which works well.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
We are currently using osTicket across our office-based staff. Previously technical issues and hardware requests [were] all completed on paper, this often caused problems with requests being lost or misplaced which added time to technical/hardware issues. All [requests] are now logged via email to osTicket to a line manager who then will assign tickets to the correct member of the IT Team. We have found a significant increase in response times.
Pros
Email to ticket creation
Report tracking completion tasks/tickets
Reminders on stale tickets
Cons
The issue we have experienced was slow logon times but this was down to a server configuration issue
Likelihood to Recommend
<div>I find osTicket to be useful for a small to midsize company with office staff across one site. The lack of built-in remote support and real-time chat would limit this in a larger organization with multiple sites, however, the cost being free one cannot complain.</div><div>
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VU
Verified User
Technician in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
osTicket is being used at the company as their main incident registration tool. Connections to various mailboxes have been as to automate ticket creation directly from emails. This used to be a manual task and sometimes emails we answered directly from the mailbox and sometimes this was forgotten. Currently, no questions from customers are missed anymore. Aside from this the customer portal also provides our customers a way to manage their own tickets as well as create new ones which [are] appreciated by the customers.
Pros
Easy of setup. Up and running in a matter of minutes and within half a day most of the features are configured and set up.
Intuitive interface for both customer and agent.
[The] knowledge base is a welcome feature. To be able to refer agents and customers to common knowledge items is very helpful.
Cons
Setting up outgoing email can be a thing. Without some creative thinking, this might be not so straightforward and documentation sometimes lacks the necessary hints/tips.
No support for custom workflows for working on tickets.
Likelihood to Recommend
For beginning smaller companies that are in need of partially automating their incoming requests this product is easy to set up and will assist in structuring these request[s]. These requests can come in via email/phone or web portal. For companies that are beginning to streamline their support procedures, this tool can be a first step into automating part of these processes. This is also how user[s] should see it. It is merely a tool that can assist in structuring the incoming request flow the rest still has to be fit into business processes.
osTicket is an open-source ticket system. Our IT department used it for tickets as well as a Knowledgebase system. The company did not have a suitable ticket system when I arrived. By moving to osTicket, we gained a web-based ticket system that was easily accessible to staff, users, and the public. The whole organization used osTicket to report issues, get support, and review our help documentation. We still use it for our KB's today.
Pros
Web based, so available from any web browser
Free - no cost to the organization to buy
Runs on linux - solid, secure, free
Cons
No mobile app for on the go access
No time tracking for issues
Hard to see staff tickets by staff member, needed to write a php page for this feature
Likelihood to Recommend
osTicket is a free, open-source system that is solid and just works. It may run on Windows but we ran it on Linux. It is simple to set up, and once running it is solid. We needed a central documentation system for our department. With osTicket, we were able to generate documentation for our systems which is easily accessible to both users and customers. We can easily share out some of our public documentation via email for users to help themselves. The system also allows our staff to share their knowledge, to allow team members to collaborate and help one another even if they have never performed a task before.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
OsTicket is used by our IT Services area to provide support for our college departments and offices. It is our primary support system for service request ticketing, help topics, and ticket tracking. Utilized alone by over 1500 faculty, staff, paid students /researchers (RA, TA, GA, TF, etc.). We really like osTicket because it's easy to use for our end users, it's open source, it's free (without limiting any features), and we can host it internally. I would recommend osTicket to any small to medium sized organization that wants a simple to use support system that's both fully featured and completely free.
Pros
osTicket is extremely user friendly for end users and support agents. It's very easy for new end users to put in a service request. This aspect of simplicity is important because we don't have to train new users on how to put in service requests.
Feature wise osTicket has everything you need without being overly complicated or cluttered. This is important for us because it allows for faster support times and happier end users.
Lightweight and very reliable, osTicket uses PHP and MySQL. Setup is easy and it can be hosted internally or externally web hosed. Also, since it relies on PHP it gives you flexibility to use Apache, Nginx , Lighttpd , IIS, etc.
Thriving community: the community behind osTicket is feature-wise. Which is very helpful if you have any questions.
Best of all, osTicket is completely free and open source. While they do offer pair tier cloud-hosting and enterprise support. The free version offers all the features of the paid tiers (minus hosing and support).
Cons
Our biggest issue with osTicket is that ticket analytics is a little basic. It would be nice if there was some expanded statistics metrics like some of the other paid systems.
A minor complaint would be the basic user interface. When compared to other support systems it looks a little dated. However, I still prefer a solid easy to use and reliable system over a fancy interface.
Another minor complaint is the Framework, osTicket is built on PHP. While PHP is still very popular and widely developed for. There are some in the osTicket community that would like to see osTicket move to something more modern. Personally, I prefer osTicket's reliability over the implementation of the newest web programming languages.
Likelihood to Recommend
osTicket is very well suited for small to medium environments where the budget might be tight or a complex system isn't desired. The basic pillars of osTicket being that it is simple, lightweight, reliable, open source, and best of all free really make osTicket a great alternative to higher-cost customer support systems.
While osTicket does have shortfalls which would be bad for some environments—like not offering social media integration, lacking a flashy user interface, no detailed analytics (satisfaction, performance, etc.), no live chat/messaging, and any detailed customization requires PHP knowledge—osTicket is a great free and simple support system without the extra features and costs the alternatives offer.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)
osTicket is being used at our institution as a Research Request Ticketing System. While we began with a hosted subscription, we quickly migrated to the open source version since we realized the SaaS version would prevent us from customizing to the extent we envisioned. We have built this ticketing technology to assign, track, manage and process all institutional data requests that stem from our division of the institution. The entire institution uses the system, however our department develops the technology in a way that presents a tracking system for data needs.
Pros
In the open source version of this software, you can essentially customize the product in endless ways while you're saving capital by not having this hosted for you.
The fact that this company has created an OS version and made it available to eager developers says a lot about the company. It says that they recognize businesses' need to customize software and allow them the ability to do so.
osTicket's community forum is constantly evolving with new ideas and from osTicket releases. This means that almost every idea that comes to you as a user, as far as improvements, ends up being heard.
Cons
osTicket's hosted version is expensive and customization is kind of hard to come by. So, unless you have programming-proficient developers on hand (we do!) you will need to accept the options that you are paying for.
osTicket's community forum has had some bugs recently as they have rolled out a new platform for it. For people who rely on the community forum extensively, this is a set back. Again, this is more of an issue for those using open source and not the SaaS version.
Likelihood to Recommend
osTicket has so many uses. While it's designed to be a help ticketing application, it really can be used for just about anything you would want to track and maintain. The hosted version is definitely geared toward help ticketing with the language on the buttons, etc., but all of this can be modified if you are using the open source version. You can actually make modifications to the hosted version (for a price) so even if you don't have development staff, you can still customize (if you are willing to pay their price, that is).
VU
Verified User
Project Manager in Research & Development (201-500 employees)
At this moment it is used by two departments until recently it was used only by one (IT). It helped us streamline communication, hold people accountable and keep track of our work. After two years we cannot image work without it anymore.
Pros
It is free and open-source
Easy to use
Easy to install and maintain
Many good features are delivered
Cons
More plugins, especially one for SAML authentication
Preserve styling on upgrade (colors)
Allow more dynamic ways of asking questions to users
Likelihood to Recommend
It works well for organizations that do not need fancy features and for organizations that have a small budget as there is not much maintenance involved, we basically installed the system and next time we touch the system is when we upgrade.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
OsTicket used to be the main customer service platform before we implemented a new CS system. However, due to its well-implemented functionality as well as user-friendliness, OSTicket stayed as one of the main customer support (and apparently not only) platforms in our company. Now it's used solely for a distributor and other inquiries excluding end-user tickets. Coming from the nature of the support department's dense cooperation with other departments, OsTicket is literally used across the whole company in the support, sales, technical, and logistics departments. Thus, the accounts on OSTicket are distributed throughout the corresponding departments. Its user-friendly and easy to manipulate interface gives the possibility to adapt it to most of the company process requirements. Using it, the departments' cooperation between each other is much easier than communicating with emails. Distributing tickets and assigning them to the responsible persons is one of the handiest and most used functions which helps us deal with every day clients' inquiries.
Pros
The main advantage of the OSTicket system is its functionality. For the average CS system, OSTicket supports everything that is needed for small to medium sized companies to provide the complete customer service solutions to their users. Unlimited agents, unlimited departments, unlimited number of tickets, hosted system's free license as well as custom tickets functionalities such as canned responses and assigning tickets to different agents/departments - all this makes it one of the best freeware customer support platforms out there.
Another advantage and the strength of OSTicket is its user-friendliness and easy to use interface for admins as well as agents. It basically takes me only a few hours to train the new employee on how to use the system fully. Even from their side, it takes not more than a day to fully understand the whole functionality and the principles of working with it.
What's more, OSTicket is totally FREE. I guess they have some cloud-hosted paid service, but as far as the downloadable free license does basically everything that is needed for CS. I can say huge thanks to the developers who released such a well-built and equipped system for free.
Cons
Tha lack of social media integration. One of the main reasons for migrating to another CS system was that the OsTicket lacks the functionality to be merged with social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter. It would be an additional great benefit to this system.
Another flaw of the system and the most important one is the lack of the statistical tools to measure the overall performance of the system as well as agents. It basically just has one page of some really hard to understand chart/graphics that gives only very basic information about the overall performance. In short, it can be hardly used for any kind of reporting purposes.
It might not be important stuff, but what could also be improved is the design of the overall system UI. I understand that it's good that it is solid and without any excessive colours and stuff, but sometimes as it's said - 'visual means a lot.'
Likelihood to Recommend
This is the perfect customer service platform for startup companies that do not want or do not have enough funds to invest in paid CS platforms. All you have to buy is simple web hosting and install the free license on it. It will surely be able to maintain all the CS department's needs. This is also a good platform to be used as a secondary one, say, for internal or special clients.
