Awesome Support – WordPress HelpDesk & Support Plugin vs Zupportly – WordPress Helpdesk & Customer Support Ticket System

Live Demo Awesome Support is the most versatile and feature-rich support plugin for WordPress. It is the only helpdesk & support ticketing plugin that can match the feature set of an SAAS solution such as Zendesk or Helpscout. And your customers can be using it in just 5 mins! After installing and activating the plugin, just answer a few questions in the startup wizard and your helpdesk will be ready for your customers. Take a product tour in the video below where you can see the extensive list of free and premium features that will be available on your new helpdesk! You can also go hands-on with the Live Demo or scroll down to the bottom of this page for screen shots. Product Tour For premium one-on-one support or pre-sales questions please visit the official site. What does it do? Check out the user-friendly features of this awesome plugin: Ticketing: users can submit tickets from the front-end, and your agents respond to them from the WordPress back-end Import: Import tickets from Zendesk, Helpscout and Ticksy using our free importer add-on – makes for a seamless transition to your new helpdesk E-mail notifications: relevant parties are notified of certain actions by e-mail, and all e-mails are customizable Restricted access: all correspondence is private between the client and the agents (unless the PUBLIC TICKETS premium add-on is installed and configured) File upload: you control when files can be uploaded, how many files, and how large they are Multiple products: provide support for as many products as you want; synchronize product lists with popular e-commerce platforms such as WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) Multiple departments: provide support for multiple departments Custom fields: easily set up additional custom fields on your ticket forms (and our premium Custom Fields add-on offers even more convenience) Terms & conditions: ask users to agree to your your terms and conditions before they open a ticket Old tickets: identify old tickets quickly with tags; limit your viewable ticket list to only show old tickets Tickets waiting on you: Quickly see all tickets still waiting for a reply Agent Collaboration: multiple agents can work on the same ticket and tickets can be transferred between agents; assign primary, secondary and tertiary agents to tickets while retaining the flexibility to transfer a ticket to any other agent. Sorting And Filtering: includes an amazing flexible sorting, filtering and tagging system for your tickets Security: assign just the right capabilities to each of your agents including just the ability to see their own tickets or expand to see everyone’s tickets – your choice! Tracking: easily track where a ticket originated (support form, email, facebook, phone call etc.) Prioritize your way: create your own priority scheme – you don’t have to get locked into a 1-5 priority scheme! Time Tracking: basic time tracking is included! Admins can even adjust time and all time changes are logged directly in the ticket. Custom Labels: sign up for our email newsletter and get our Custom Status plugin for free – unlimited color coded, customized statuses and ticket labels at your fingertips! WordPress UI: Uses the familiar WordPress administration user interface so there is almost no learning curve! REST API: We love it when developers use our products. The REST API is very developer friendly – push and pull Awesome Support ticket data with ease! GDPR READY: Our registration screen can be easily configured to show GDPR related information GUTENBERG AWARE: Compatible with the new WordPress editor known as Gutenberg WOOCOMMERCE INTEGRATION: Includes integration into the WooCommerce dashboard along with a premium option for advanced integration Features Awesome Support is the result of three+ years of work, research, and improvement. It is probably the most powerful helpdesk and support ticketing plugin on the planet. Whether you’re a startup that needs just the basics or a major corporation with multiple departments requiring service level agreements and sophisticated ticket routing, we have the functions you need! Seriously – just take a look at all the features you can get (some free, some premium) View the full list of features on our website Premium Extensions Now that you’ve seen our list of awesome features above, you already know that Awesome Support is packed with features; so if you want to supercharge your support and make it even more awesome, make sure you pick up our premium add-ons so you can extend the plugin’s functionality even further! All of our add-ons are extremely affordable (they’re a fraction of the cost of a web-based application). To check them out, visit our official site at getawesomesupport.com. Extensions E-Mail Piping – reply to tickets and collaborate on tickets using just e-mail. Includes built-in options to control how to handle unrecognized email addresses, responses to closed tickets and much more! Custom Fields – a visual helper for adding custom fields to your tickets. Add unlimited fields and choose from 13 different field types! Paid Support – charge users for using your support services. Create subscriptions by time (monthly for example) or number of tickets or bill for every individual ticket. WooCommerce – this is a must-have bridge between your WooCommerce store and Awesome Support Powerpack – Adds 30+ powerful additional functions to Awesome Support. Merge/split/lock tickets. Use new template tags in your outgoing emails. Add private notes for each customer. Fine tune your security and so much more! Canned Responses – preconfigure replies to common questions, and access them in one click when replying to a ticket Gravity Forms – create custom ticket forms with this very popular WordPress forms builder Private Notes – insert notes into tickets that only agents and admins can view FAQs – Powerful FAQ management make your agents more productive Notifications – get notified of important events in slack and via pushbullet. Notify third parties of important ticket events via email. Custom Status and Labels – create unlimited custom labels that give you new levels of organization for your tickets Advanced Reports and Statistics – create hundreds of custom charts and tables from a base of 6 core reports Admin Report Widgets – More than a dozen customizable widgets with key statistics on your WordPress dashboard! Advanced Time Tracking – Track and record time down to the reply level using automatic or manual timers. Export data for invoicing. View critical time and billing reports. Auto Close – Close tickets automatically based on defined rules. This is especially useful in managing abandoned tickets. Private Credentials – Adds another security layer to your tickets so that users can securely enter passwords and other sensitive credentials onto a ticket Satisfaction Survey – Conduct suveys to see how your agents are performing. Extremely customizable with multiple survey types and methods! Public Tickets – Use your tickets to create a searchable archive of solutions. Assign public/private control over tickets and replies to customers, agents! Guest Tickets – Allow new users to enter their first ticket without the separate step of creating an account. Combine this with Email Support, Powerpack and Satisfaction Survey to create a solution where customers never have to log into your ticket system! Smart Agent Assignment – Have multiple agents with multiple departments and/or multiple products? Use this to automatically route new tickets to the correct agent using a choice of 5 sophisticated algorithms! Documentation – A powerful documentation add-on that integrates tightly with your Awesome Support ticketing system. Includes a beautiful layout and automatically suggests relevant topcis as users fill out a new ticket! Remote Tickets – Adds a pop-up ticket form to one or more remote websites. Quickly and easily funnel tickets from all your websites to one core support site! Smart Replies – Automatically respond to messages received from Facebook Messenger, Custom Site Chat and New Tickets. Service Level Agreements – Calculate ticket due dates automatically using rules set for each customer. This will take into account holidays, weekends, working hours and more. Issue Tracking – Easily manage multiple related tickets. Very useful for product recalls, bug tracking, system-down situations and more. Custom FAQ – Use any WordPress custom post type as your FAQ source. Tightly integrates your selected CPT with Awesome Support and uses it to automatically offer topic suggestions to users as they fill out a new ticket form. Business Rules Engine With Zapier Integration – Powerful rules engine for your tickets. Automatically respond to tickets, change status, close tickets and more! Company Profiles – Allow multiple users from the same company to manage a single pool of tickets. Scheduled Tickets – Create recurring tickets on daily/weekly/monthly/annual schedules Agent Front End – Allow untrusted agents to manage their tickets without access to wp-admin Bundles Purchase one of our bundles and get up to an 80% discount compared to purchasing individual add-ons. Startup Bundle – A 50% discount on the 5 most common add-ons for unlimited sites Standard Bundle – A discount of 20%-60% on the 8 most common add-ons Professional Bundle – A discount of 45%-70% on the add-ons most useful for e-commerce sites Enterprise Bundle – A discount of 50%-70% on the most common add-ons used in larger businesses. Agency Bundle – A discount of 55%-80% on a bundle of almost all our add-ons. You get an even bigger discount if you purchase this package without the option for technical support! Roadmap Want to know what’s next for Awesome Support? Check out the roadmap. You can also vote for the ideas you like best! Add-Ons Need to extend Awesome Support’s features? We have lots of add-ons to help you setup the perfect support site. Check out our add-ons page. Team Even though the plugin has been developed and is maintained by the Awesome Support development team, we’ve had help from various developers around the world. You can see all the contributors on the team page. Many thanks to them all! Our key core developers on the Awesome Support Development Team in 2018 include: Ante Laca Muhammad Tahir Nazir Nigel Bahadur With contributions from customers such as: Rolly Bueno Naveen Giri Nathan Moinvaziri Translators Here is a list of users who voluntarily contributed the most translations to our POEDITOR project in 2017/2021: Miquel Martínez – Catalan Samer Haddad – Arabic Paul Hecko – Portuguese Thiago Rocon Kuwabara – Portuguese Denison Carlos – Portuguese (Brazil) Davey Hurkmans – Dutch We had over 25 users contribute to the various language projects but these were the top 6 with the most translation activity. On behalf of all our users we would like to publicly offer a heart-felt Thank You for their hard work and contribution to the Free Awesome Support core project! Related Companies Disclosure Awesome Support now manages the newly released Simple-Press Forums Plugin as well.

Zupportly is a powerful, free, and self-hosted ticketing solution that eliminates monthly fees and per-agent costs. It features Unified Agent Management, Automated Ticket Routing, and Role-Based Access Control to securely manage unlimited departments while providing customers a polished frontend portal to track requests. Built with a privacy-first architecture, Zupportly is GDPR-ready, ensuring all support data stays securely on your own server with 100% ownership and no external tracking. Key features : Unified Agent System (WP User-Based) Front-end Customer Support Portal Intelligent Ticket Auto-Assignment Department-Specific Routing Read / Unread tracking with ticket count badge on admin menu Custom Short Code For New Ticket Page Floating Support Chat Bubble Auto-refresh on open ticket view — polls every 15 seconds for new replies; shows a pulsing “New reply!” button when updates arrive. Priority levels — Low / Medium / High / Urgent (set by agents only) Custom Agent Avatars & Display Names Live Agent Online Indicator Threaded Chat-Style Conversations Universal Ticket Transfer System Unique Ticket ID Tracking (ZT-XXXXXXXX) Automated Email Notification Engine Modern Card-Style Admin Dashboard Multi-Status Ticket Lifecycle Management Integrated Image Attachment Support Shortcode-Powered Ticket Lookup ([zupportly_tickets]) Inline Ticket Submission Form ([zupportly_ticket_form]) — embed on any page Full Admin Oversight & Team Stats Self-Hosted Data Security (No External APIs) Responsive UI Agent & Department Management – Agents are standard WordPress users with the Ticket Agent role — create them from Users → Add New. – Each agent gets a custom Chat Bubble Display Name (e.g. “Billing Dept”, “Sales Team”) shown to customers in the chat bubble — completely separate from their WordPress display name. – Upload a custom avatar per agent via the Settings page using the WordPress Media Library. – Avatars and department names appear in the chat bubble, ticket list, ticket detail view, and the frontend customer portal. Chat Bubble – A floating chat bubble appears on every page of your site, letting customers open a new support ticket in seconds. – The bubble header shows stacked agent avatars and a live green online indicator next to the “Support” label. – Customers choose a department/agent from a dropdown that shows the custom bubble display names. – The close (×) button reliably dismisses the form. Ticket Lifecycle – Every ticket gets a unique ID (e.g. ZT-XXXXXXXX) for easy reference and lookup. – Statuses: New (blue), In Progress (orange), Solved (green), Closed (grey). – Unlimited back-and-forth conversation with image attachments in every reply. – Both agents/admins and customers can close tickets; closed tickets disable further replies. Agent Assignment & Transfer – Tickets submitted via the chat bubble are automatically assigned to the chosen agent. – Agents see all tickets assigned to them plus all unassigned tickets in their list. – When an agent replies to an unassigned ticket, it is automatically assigned to them. – Any agent or admin can transfer a ticket to another agent at any time via the Assignment meta box. – Once transferred, only the new assignee and admins can reply. Admin Interface – Dashboard — stats overview (total, new, in progress, solved, closed), recent tickets table, and team overview with open ticket counts per agent. – All Tickets — beautifully styled ticket list with card rows, colour-coded status border accents, ticket number chips, stacked customer info, agent avatars, and inline row actions. – Ticket Detail — structured details panel, chat-bubble conversation thread (agent right/blue, customer left/green), and a clean reply composer with image attachment support. – Create Ticket — agents and admins can create tickets on a customer’s behalf with an agent picker showing avatars. – Settings — unified agent table pulling directly from WordPress users; set the Chat Bubble Display Name and avatar per agent; configure the frontend Ticket View Page URL. Frontend Customer Portal & Shortcodes – Shortcode [zupportly_tickets] places a ticket lookup portal on any page. Customers enter their email to see all their tickets, or enter their email and ticket number to jump straight to a specific conversation. – Shortcode [zupportly_ticket_form] embeds the full ticket submission form directly on any page — great when the floating chat bubble is turned off or you want a dedicated contact/support page. – Modern card design with a gradient header, status pill, chat-style bubbles with agent avatars, and an inline reply input. – The ticket view is wider and fully responsive for mobile. Email Notifications – Agent notified on new ticket assignment with ticket details. – Customer receives confirmation on submission with their ticket number and a link to the view page. – Both parties notified on new replies (with image links if attached). – Ticket view page URL included in all notification emails. Security & Performance – All inputs sanitized and escaped. Nonces on every AJAX action. – Agents only access their own tickets plus unassigned ones — proper capability checks throughout. – All data stored in your own WordPress database — nothing leaves your server. ⭐ Zupportly Pro — Take Your Helpdesk Further Get Zupportly Pro → Upgrade to Zupportly Pro and unlock a complete professional helpdesk suite built on top of everything you already have in the free version. No migration, no data loss — just more power. 🧩 Custom Form Fields Add unlimited custom fields to your ticket form — short text, long text, dropdown, checkbox, number, and URL types. Drag and drop to reorder every field (including built-in fields like Name, Email, Subject) in any order you want. Rename any field label and set custom placeholder text. Custom field values are saved with every ticket and displayed in the admin ticket view. 📚 Knowledge Base Create a full Knowledge Base with categorised articles and a professional article layout. A smart suggestion popup appears directly below the Subject field as customers type — showing matching articles before they submit, reducing your ticket volume. Helpful vote counters (👍 Yes / 👎 No) track article usefulness. Agents can search KB articles from inside any ticket. Mark any WordPress Page or Post as a KB article with one click. ⚡ Canned Responses Speed up replies with one-click pre-written responses. Agents can insert responses from a searchable modal filtered by category. Agents can also save their own personal responses directly from the reply composer — just write a reply and click “💾 Save Current Reply.” 🛒 WooCommerce Integration Link WooCommerce orders and products to support tickets. Customers can search by Order ID when submitting a ticket. Agents see full order details, purchase history, and linked products in the ticket sidebar. Configurable agent access permissions — restrict order data to admins only if needed. ✉️ Branded HTML Emails Replace plain-text notification emails with beautifully designed HTML emails. Upload your logo, choose a brand colour, customise the “From” name and footer text. Includes a live browser preview. ⏱ Ticket Auto-Close Automatically close tickets that have been inactive for a configurable number of days. Sends a reminder email before closure. Choose which ticket statuses to apply auto-close to. 🔒 Private Notes Agents can add internal-only notes to any ticket. Private notes are stored separately from the conversation thread and are never shown to customers. ⭐ CSAT Surveys Automatically send a 1–5 star satisfaction survey when a ticket closes — via email and as an inline widget in the customer portal. Results appear in a WP Dashboard widget showing average score and per-star breakdown. 🔔 Auto-Refresh & Live Updates Configurable auto-refresh keeps the dashboard and ticket list current. A Refresh button with a live unread count badge is added to the dashboard. Set the refresh interval (15–600 seconds) from Pro Settings. 🏷 Custom Ticket Statuses Add unlimited custom statuses alongside the four built-in ones. Each status has a custom label, URL slug, and colour picker for visual clarity in the ticket list. 📋 Audit Trail & Activity Logs Every action on every ticket is automatically logged — replies, status changes, assignments, private notes, auto-closes, and CSAT ratings. View per-ticket logs in the Activity Log meta box. Export as Excel/CSV or print as PDF. 💾 Backup & Restore One-click JSON export of all tickets and Pro settings. Import on any Zupportly site to restore or migrate data. → Get Zupportly Pro