Chatly vs OpenStation

Chatly is an AI-powered chatbot plugin that helps WordPress site owners engage visitors, answer questions automatically, and capture leads 24/7. Free Version Features: 🤖 AI-Powered Conversations – Uses Claude (Anthropic) or ChatGPT (OpenAI) 💬 Basic Lead Capture – Collect visitor information 📧 MailPoet Integration – Connect with MailPoet email lists 🎨 Customizable Appearance – Match your brand colors 📱 Mobile Responsive – Works on all devices Free Version Limitations: The free version is fully functional but designed for smaller sites: * Basic customization options * MailPoet integration only * No conversation limits (you pay for API usage directly) * Community support via WordPress.org forums Pro Version Adds: 🔓 Unlimited Conversations – No restrictions 📧 All Email Integrations – Mailchimp, Constant Contact, AWeber, Webhooks 📊 SEO Insights & Analytics – Discover content opportunities from visitor questions 🗂️ Advanced Knowledge Base – Create comprehensive Q&A libraries 💌 AI Message Generator – Auto-generate welcome messages and prompts 🔍 Yoast SEO Integration – Content gap analysis 📨 Admin Transcript Emails – Auto-send transcripts to admin 🏷️ Source Tracking – Tag leads by source 🛠️ Diagnostics Tool – Built-in troubleshooting 👨‍💻 Priority Support – Direct email support Upgrade to Chatly Pro for unlimited features and priority support. How It Works: Install Chatly and activate the plugin Get an API key from Anthropic or OpenAI Configure your AI provider in Chatly → AI Provider Customize appearance and messages The chatbot appears on your site automatically! Perfect For: Small business websites Service providers Bloggers and content creators Anyone wanting automated visitor engagement External Services IMPORTANT: This plugin requires external API services to function. You must provide your own API keys and agree to the terms of these services. Required: AI Service (Choose One) Anthropic Claude API What it does: Powers the AI chatbot conversations Data sent: User chat messages, conversation history, your system prompt/instructions When sent: Every time a website visitor sends a message to the chatbot User account required: Yes – you must create an account at console.anthropic.com API endpoint: https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messages API Documentation: https://docs.anthropic.com/ Terms of Service: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/consumer-terms Privacy Policy: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy Typical cost: $3-10/month for small sites OR OpenAI ChatGPT API What it does: Powers the AI chatbot conversations Data sent: User chat messages, conversation history, your system prompt/instructions When sent: Every time a website visitor sends a message to the chatbot User account required: Yes – you must create an account at platform.openai.com API endpoint: https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions API Documentation: https://platform.openai.com/docs Terms of Service: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use Privacy Policy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy Typical cost: $3-10/month for small sites Optional: Email Marketing Integrations The free version includes MailPoet integration only. Pro version adds Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and AWeber. MailPoet (Included – No External API) What it does: Adds captured leads to your MailPoet email lists Data sent: None – works entirely within WordPress When sent: N/A – local plugin integration only User account required: No external account needed Plugin required: MailPoet plugin must be installed Terms: https://www.mailpoet.com/terms/ Privacy: https://www.mailpoet.com/privacy-notice/ Mailchimp API (Pro Version Only) What it does: Adds captured leads to your Mailchimp audience Data sent: Visitor name, email address, tags including “Chatly” When sent: When a visitor submits the lead capture form API endpoint: https://{{datacenter}}.api.mailchimp.com/3.0/ API Documentation: https://mailchimp.com/developer/ Terms of Service: https://mailchimp.com/legal/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/ Constant Contact API (Pro Version Only) What it does: Adds captured leads to your Constant Contact lists Data sent: Visitor name, email, phone (if collected), source note “Chatly” When sent: When a visitor submits the lead capture form API endpoint: https://api.cc.email/v3/contacts API Documentation: https://developer.constantcontact.com/ Terms of Service: https://www.constantcontact.com/legal/terms-and-conditions Privacy Policy: https://www.constantcontact.com/legal/privacy-statement AWeber API (Pro Version Only) What it does: Adds captured leads to your AWeber subscriber lists Data sent: Visitor name, email, tags: “chatly” and “website-lead” When sent: When a visitor submits the lead capture form API endpoint: https://api.aweber.com/1.0/ API Documentation: https://api.aweber.com/ Terms of Service: https://www.aweber.com/service.htm Privacy Policy: https://www.aweber.com/privacy.htm Data Privacy Notice When you use this plugin: Visitor chat messages are sent to your chosen AI provider (Anthropic or OpenAI) Chat transcripts are stored in your WordPress database If lead capture is enabled and a visitor provides their information, that data may be sent to your configured email marketing service You are responsible for complying with GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy regulations You should update your website’s privacy policy to disclose the use of AI chatbot services and data collection No Data Sent to Plugin Developer This plugin does NOT send any data to the plugin developer (MediaManagement Marketing Services LLC). All API calls go directly from your WordPress site to the services YOU configure (Anthropic, OpenAI, MailPoet, etc.). We do not track, collect, or have access to your conversations or visitor data. Support Free Version Support: * WordPress.org support forums * Documentation * FAQ Pro Version Support: * Priority email support: [email protected] * 24-48 hour response time * Direct technical assistance Learn more about Chatly Pro Developed by MediaManagement Marketing Services LLC

wp-admin forgets. OpenStation doesn’t. You know the moment. You’re deep in a post and you need one image from the Media Library. You click over, find it, click back, and everything you had going is gone. Your scroll position, your half-typed thought, the three other things you had queued up in your head. That’s not a bug you hit. That’s the design. wp-admin shows you one screen at a time, and every navigation throws the last one away. It has worked this way since 2003, like a fridge that empties itself every time you close the door. WordPress has rebuilt almost everything else. The editor, the site editor, the patterns, the styles. The admin’s one-screen-at-a-time model is the layer nobody touched. OpenStation touches it. Install it and admin screens become draggable, resizable windows. Edit a post while the Media Library sits open next to it. Drag an image from one window straight into the other. Keep comments open in the corner. Reload the browser and your window layout — open pages, positions, sizes, and window states — comes back where you left it. OpenStation itself is free, GPL, and opt-in per user. One click in the admin bar turns it on for you. One click turns it off. Nobody else on your site sees anything change, and deactivating the plugin restores the classic admin exactly. No Core patches and no lock-in. Optional AI providers may charge for their service. Built and maintained by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, Jetpack, WooCommerce, and Tumblr. Work on more than one thing at once Admin pages open as windows, including pages added by most other plugins. Drag them, resize them, snap them, tile them, minimize them to a taskbar. The admin menu becomes a dock of icons. Two editors open at once is one click away. Never lose your place Moving between open windows leaves each page in place. Across reloads, OpenStation remembers your open pages, window positions, sizes and states, virtual desktops, and focus. Closing a window with unsaved changes warns you first. A desk you can actually put things on Drop posts, media, and links right onto the wallpaper. Sort them into folders. Trash them to a Trash that actually holds things. The stuff you’re working on this week can just sit out where you can see it. One desktop per job Virtual desktops, the way your operating system does them. One for writing. One for the store. One for comment triage. One for that redesign you keep poking at. Switch between them without closing anything. Find anything with Cmd+K The full WordPress command palette, plus slash commands from your plugins, all under one keystroke. Turn on the optional AI assistant and you can ask it things like “which post had the comment asking for the recipe?” and it searches your own content to answer. (Requires an AI provider configured in Settings → Connectors on WordPress 7.0+. Details under “External services” below.) See how your site fits together The Corkboard is an interactive, zoomable map of how your posts, pages, and products link to each other. Pan around it. Find the orphans. Find the hubs. Running a store? Orders, Products, Coupons, and Customers become browsable folders with stock and sale ribbons. Open a customer to see their lifetime spend and what they buy most. Follow a product to its buyers, or a coupon to who redeemed it. Make it yours Wallpapers, from color presets to animated scenes to your own photo. Live widgets pinned to the desktop: drafts, stats, recent comments, a focus timer. Uploadable desktop themes, including a built-in Legacy theme that brings the old WordPress blue back in one click. And Mio, a soft-body desk companion that drifts across your wallpaper and gets bumped around by your windows. Off by default. You’ll turn it on. For developers Extend OpenStation through documented PHP and JavaScript APIs. Register windows, icons, wallpapers, widgets, commands, and settings tabs through stable openstation_register_* PHP APIs and a typed JavaScript API; customize dock items through documented hooks; add AI tools with the WordPress Abilities API. Copy-paste examples live in the developer docs on GitHub. External services No external service is required for OpenStation’s desktop interface. The optional AI Assistant and two user-initiated enrichment features make the external requests described below. AI Assistant The optional AI Assistant sends data to the AI provider you configure in WordPress’s Settings → Connectors (for example OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google). Generation is routed through WordPress 7.0’s built-in AI Client, which supplies the credentials stored in Connectors. The plugin never handles an API key itself. With no provider configured in Connectors, no external AI requests are made. When the AI Assistant is enabled and a user invokes it (via Cmd+K or the slash-command palette): What is sent: the user’s prompt, the conversation history for the active session, and tool-call metadata. The plugin’s built-in tools (search_posts, search_pages, search_comments) run WordPress’s native keyword search and may include excerpts of the matching posts/pages/comments in tool results, which are then sent back to the provider as part of the agentic loop. When it is sent: on user-initiated AI requests, and (if an administrator enables “Score new comments with AI”) on comment-save hooks for spam analysis. Posts, pages, and taxonomy terms are not sent automatically. Why it is sent: to obtain model completions and tool-call decisions that drive the AI Assistant. Who provides the service: whichever provider you configured in Settings → Connectors. Which provider (and endpoint) receives the data depends entirely on that configuration. Review the chosen provider’s own terms and privacy policy (e.g. OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google). URL shortcut favicons When an authorized user creates a desktop shortcut to an external URL, OpenStation asks that URL for its page HTML and favicon so the shortcut can display the site’s icon. The request is made from your WordPress server and sends the requested URL, the server’s IP address, an OpenStation user-agent string, and normal HTTP request metadata to the operator of that site. This happens only when a user creates the shortcut. The destination site’s terms and privacy policy apply. WordPress.org plugin information When an authorized user opens or refreshes parts of OpenStation’s Plugins window, OpenStation may request public plugin details, update metadata, and review excerpts from WordPress.org. These requests send plugin slugs, the site’s locale, and normal HTTP request metadata to WordPress.org. This information is used only to display and manage plugins. Review the WordPress.org Privacy Policy. OpenStation’s OAuth relay does not contact a service by itself. Third-party plugins that configure the relay may contact their own providers and are responsible for disclosing those services. Credits OpenStation is brought to you by Automattic. The plugin is open source under GPLv2-or-later; contributions are welcome on GitHub. Third-party libraries The plugin bundles the following third-party JavaScript library, loaded on demand only when a feature that needs it is in use: PixiJS (MIT License) — used by the Corkboard window, built-in canvas wallpapers (e.g. the animated WordPress logo), the Mio desk companion, and the Inkfall typing game. PixiJS is loaded from the plugin’s own assets/vendor/ directory; no CDN requests are made. Data files The Inkfall game’s word list (assets/games/inkfall/words.txt) is generated from the following sources (attribution also ships in the file’s header): FrequencyWords by Hermit Dave (CC-BY-SA 4.0) — English word-frequency ranking derived from the OpenSubtitles corpus. english-words by dwyl (Unlicense) — used as a validity filter. LDNOOBW English list (CC-BY 4.0) — used as an exclusion filter.