Tidio alternative

A Tidio alternative you host yourself

Tidio is a hosted chat and chatbot service with a free plan and paid plans that scale by billable conversations, Lyro AI conversations and Flows visitors; Free, Starter and Growth each include 10 seats. DChat gives you the same live chat and AI-chatbot core - a website widget, an AI chatbot with human handoff on Premium, and a real agent workspace with an email inbox - as self-hosted software that runs on your own server. It does not match Tidio's visual Flows builder or its native mobile apps.

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Free live chat, not a monthly bill

Hosted plans compound every month and grow with conversation and AI volume. DChat's live chat is free with unlimited operators, so live chat stops being a recurring line item; Premium features are billed only for the agents you choose to cover.

Chatbot without usage fees

Run the AI on a local Ollama model or your own OpenAI or Anthropic keys. It answers from your knowledge base, and since 2.0.8 from your crawled website and documents with cited sources, hands off to a human with context, and reports its resolution rate; DChat never meters conversations or resolutions. The chatbot is part of Premium, $19 per agent per month.

Conversations stay yours

Transcripts, visitor records, and ratings live in your own SQL Server database, with CSV export and built-in GDPR access and erasure. With a local AI model, no conversation goes to an AI provider; with OpenAI or Anthropic keys, the assistant's prompts go to that provider, and WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and SMS messages pass through Meta or Twilio.

DChat vs Tidio, at a glance

How free self-hosted live chat compares with a typical hosted plan.

Compare	DChat	Tidio
Hosting model	Self-hosted on your own server	Hosted SaaS (Tidio's cloud)
Pricing	Live chat free; Premium (AI and more) $19/agent/month	Free plan with 50 conversations a month; Starter $24.17/month and Growth from $49.17/month, billed annually; Plus from $300/month plus usage; Premium on request
Where conversations live	Your own SQL Server database	The vendor cloud
AI chatbot	Premium - local Ollama or your OpenAI/Anthropic keys, no per-answer fee. Since 2.0.8: answers from your website and documents with cited sources, a bot test bench and resolution metrics. Since 2.0.9: AI actions that call your systems, with agent approval or visitor confirmation; no guaranteed resolution rate	Lyro on every plan: 50 free conversations once, then an add-on from $32.50/month; Premium includes Tidio's guaranteed 50% Lyro resolution rate
Remove vendor branding	Premium, $19/agent/month	Included on Plus and Premium; $16.67/month add-on on Growth
Seats	Unlimited agents on every tier	10 on Free, Starter and Growth; custom on Plus and Premium
Channels	Web chat and email free; WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, LINE, SMS, API and Twilio voice on Premium	Live chat, email, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp
Visual flow builder	Yes, free since 2.0.9: a canvas editor with ten step types, a simulator and per-step drop-off; AI answer and AI action steps on Premium. A new flow starts from one small starter flow, not a template library	Flows: drag-and-drop editor with 40+ templates
Mobile	Installable web app with push notifications; no native apps	iOS, Android, Windows and Mac apps

Checked 26 September 2026. Tidio plans, prices, seats, Lyro allowances and branding removal are from tidio.com/pricing; channels, Flows and apps from tidio.com/features and tidio.com/flows. Competitor pricing changes; check the current figures before you rely on this comparison.

Does DChat include a chatbot like Tidio?

Yes. The AI chatbot is part of Premium, at $19 per agent per month. It greets visitors, answers from your knowledge base, and escalates to a human agent when a conversation needs judgment, with the full transcript carried into the handoff. You bring your own AI provider, so you control the model and the cost.

Can I keep the freemium simplicity?

Live chat is free with unlimited agents and no time limit, on localhost and on your production domain alike. You only pay if you add Premium - the AI assistant, custom roles, automation and extra channels - at $19 per agent per month.

How do I move my site over?

Replace the hosted chat snippet on your site with the DChat widget script, install the server, run the included SQL scripts, and invite agents. The free edition lets you rehearse the whole switch on localhost first.

Run it on your server

Try the full product free on localhost.

The download is the real product: server, dashboard, widget and SQL scripts, with no licence file because live chat is free. One command sets up the demo database and opens the dashboard.

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Self-hosted customer support software

Deploy live chat on your own terms, not on someone else's pricing model.

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.

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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.