The website widget
Version 2.0.6 adds a list of allowed domains, a light, dark or automatic colour scheme, a pop-out window, email collection with replies by email, help articles that open inside the widget, audio, video and location sharing, and buttons, forms and cards.
All of it is free on every edition, with unlimited agents. Agent bots, which answer in the widget from your own service, are part of Premium. This page describes the ASP.NET Core edition of DChat 2.0.6; the separate Web Forms package has its own widget without these additions.
List the domains the widget may run on. Other sites get an error from the server and the widget shows nothing there.
Ask a waiting visitor for an email address. If they have gone when you reply, the reply is emailed to them.
Audio and video play in the chat, visitors can share their location, and agents can send buttons, forms and cards.
Quick-reply buttons and a card with a link, here sent by an agent bot.
A waiting visitor is asked where to send the answer.
Matching help articles appear under the question, from the fourth character typed, before the chat starts.
The visitor can move the chat into its own window and keep it open while they browse.
Video (up to 25 MB) and audio (up to 16 MB) files play inline, and a shared location arrives as an OpenStreetMap link.
Choose light, dark, or automatic to follow the visitor's device.
The widget and the agent dashboard work from the keyboard and with screen readers. Tab reaches the launcher, focus stays inside the open chat and returns when it closes, and Escape closes it. New messages are announced without moving focus, form errors are tied to their fields, and text on your brand colour stays readable even when the colour is very light. The widget follows reduced-motion settings and reflows at 320 px wide and at 200% zoom. It is checked with axe-core and real keyboard tests, in English, Arabic (right to left) and dark mode.
When the AI assistant answers from your knowledge sources, the pages it used appear as links under the reply. The visitor can answer “Did that help?” or ask for a person at any time; both feed the AI resolution report.
One domain per line in the widget builder. *.example.com covers subdomains, but not example.com itself. Leave the list empty to allow every site, as before. Only a signed-in administrator can change it, not an API token.
*.example.com
It is off until you switch it on. Choose how many minutes without a reply before the widget asks for an email (three by default). The emailed reply carries a link that reopens the same conversation in the widget, and email answers thread into the same conversation through the inbound email gateway. Every email has an unsubscribe link.
Articles from your help center open inside the widget, with a link to the full page, so the visitor does not lose the chat.
Up to ten buttons, a form of up to five text, email or choice fields, or a card with a title, text, image and link. Agents send them from the reply box, and the REST API and agent bots on Premium can send them too. The visitor's choice or form answers come back as their message. On a channel without buttons, the customer gets a numbered text version.
Yes. Allowed domains, the colour scheme setting, the pop-out window, email continuity, help articles in the widget, media and location sharing, and buttons, forms and cards sent by agents are in the free Community edition. Agent bots that answer in the widget are part of Premium.
Not if you list your domains. With allowed domains set, the widget only runs on those sites and the server only answers them; other sites get an error and show nothing.
With email continuity on, the widget asks a waiting visitor for an email address. If they are gone when you reply, the reply is emailed to them with a link back to the conversation, and their email answers thread back into it.
Add Premium only if you want agent bots, the AI assistant and the other paid features.
DChat gives you the installable server, web dashboard, website widget, and desktop agent tools in one self-hosted product, with live chat free to run, and an AI agent that answers, acts with the approvals you set and hands off to your team when you want one. Run it on infrastructure you trust, on the model you choose.
Deployment
Install on Windows or Linux, behind IIS or Nginx, in a VM, or in Docker if that fits your stack.
Commercial model
Live chat is free with unlimited agents. Premium, with the AI agent, is billed per agent per month, never per conversation.
AI Flexibility
Run the AI agent on a local Ollama model, or connect OpenAI and Anthropic with your own provider accounts.