Chatwoot vs Tidio
A source-aware comparison of pricing, documented capabilities and workflow fit.
Short answer
- Price: not directly comparable — Chatwoot is free tier available, Tidio is free tier available.
- How to start: both are free tier available.
- Where they differ: only Chatwoot has open source / self-hostable and sso (saml); both offer public api and mobile app.
These lines are generated from the pricing we track, not from a paid placement. How we score tools.
What Chatwoot is
What Chatwoot isChatwoot centralizes supported website, email, messaging, social and API channels in shared inboxes. It is available as Chatwoot Cloud or a self-hosted codebase, but enterprise features and the operational burden differ across editions. The choice between cloud and self-hosted is the real decision, because it changes who carries the uptime and upgrade work.
What Tidio is
What Tidio isTidio provides live chat and chatbots aimed at small online stores, with prebuilt commerce flows. Prebuilt commerce flows — abandoned cart, order status, product questions — mean a small store gets value without designing conversations from scratch. Outside that context the templates matter less and general helpdesks compete better.
Side by side
| Chatwoot | Tidio | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Customer Service | Customer Service |
| How to start | Free tiernot a monthly price | Free tiernot a monthly price |
| Public API | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes |
| Open source / self-hostable | Yes | No |
| SSO (SAML) | Yes | No |
| Visit | Chatwoot ↗ | Tidio ↗ |
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What Chatwoot is built to do
- Shared inboxes
- Routes conversations from supported channels to assigned agents and teams.
- Website and messaging channels
- Connects live chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS, social and other documented providers.
- API channel
- Allows a custom application or unsupported messaging source to create an inbox.
- Cloud or self-hosted
- Offers managed subscriptions and multiple infrastructure deployment methods.
What Tidio is built to do
- Live chat widget
- Adds chat to a store with visitor context and typing previews.
- Commerce chatbots
- Ships prebuilt flows for cart recovery and order questions.
- Multichannel inbox
- Collects chat, email and social messages in one queue.
Choose Chatwoot if
- Teams consolidating supported chat, email and messaging channels
- Organizations with infrastructure staff and a requirement to host conversation data
- Custom support channels that can integrate through Chatwoot's API inbox
Skip Chatwoot if
- You expect Community Edition to include enterprise SSO, SLA and advanced controls
- Your team cannot operate and update the required self-hosted services
- A required external channel or retention period is absent from your selected cloud plan
Choose Tidio if
- Small teams starting with live chat: Starter is $24.17/month billed annually and includes 100 billable conversations, live chat and ticketing, a live visitors list and operating hours
- Teams adding automation — Growth starts at $49.17/month from 250 billable conversations and adds advanced analytics, user permissions, automatic chat assignment and macros
- Businesses that want premium support and team structure: Plus is $300/month plus usage, with departments, multiproject, custom branding, OpenAPI and a dedicated success manager
Skip Tidio if
- You expect a flat bill — pricing is per billable conversation, so cost tracks support volume rather than seats
- You are counting on the AI agent at the entry tier: Starter includes 50 Lyro AI conversations as a ONE-OFF allowance, not monthly
- You need a guaranteed AI resolution rate or pay-per-resolution billing; those are Premium, which is contact-for-pricing
Evidence and freshness
Where a claim on this page comes from a vendor page, it is linked here.
Chatwoot
Official sources reviewed · reviewed 2026-08-24
Chatwoot: pros & cons
- Self-hosting path: Community code outside the enterprise directory is MIT-licensed.
- Channel coverage: Supports live chat, email and multiple messaging or social providers.
- Custom channel API: Connects unsupported applications through an API inbox.
- Deployment choice: Use the managed cloud or operate Chatwoot on your infrastructure.
- Self-hosting stack: Production requires web and worker processes, PostgreSQL, Redis, email and object storage.
- Edition boundaries: Community Edition excludes SSO, SLA policies and several enterprise controls.
- Cloud tier limits: Channels, automation, retention and conversation quotas vary by plan.
- Provider setup: External messaging channels require their own credentials, permissions and sometimes provider charges.
Tidio: pros & cons
- Quick to install on a store
- Prebuilt flows for common shop questions
- Free tier available
- Conversation limits on paid tiers
- Bot builder is limited for complex flows
- Reporting is basic
Our verdict on Chatwoot
Choose Chatwoot after comparing cloud-plan limits with the real cost of operating its full self-hosted stack; open source does not make every enterprise feature free.
Our verdict on Tidio
A sensible starting point for small shops. High-volume support outgrows it.
Published plans, side by side
Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page and is shown with the sentence it came from. Where a vendor publishes no plan prices, we say so rather than guess.
Chatwoot
No published plan prices verified. Chatwoot either quotes on request or renders its prices in a way we could not read from the pricing page.
Tidio
- Starter$24.17/mo
Starter $24.17/mo: 100 billable conversations, 50 Lyro AI Agent conversations (one-off), 100 Flows visitors reached, live chat and ticketing, live visitors list, operating hours, basic analytics, 7-day free trial
- Growth$49.17/mo
Growth starts at $49.17/mo from 250 billable conversations: everything in Starter plus advanced analytics, user permissions, automatic chat assignment, automatic reply, live typing preview, viewed pages history, macros
Chatwoot vs Tidio: common questions
- Does Chatwoot or Tidio have a free plan?
- Both do: Chatwoot has a free tier with limits, and Tidio has a free tier with limits.
- What is the difference between Chatwoot and Tidio?
- On the criteria we check, only Chatwoot has open source / self-hostable and sso (saml); both offer public api and mobile app. The table above lists every criterion side by side.