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HESK

Simple PHP help desk with built-in knowledge base for small teams and solo operators

340 PHP Other 3 months ago

Overview

HESK is a lightweight PHP help desk application designed for simplicity, offering ticket submission via web form or email, a built-in knowledge base, spam filtering, and email notifications. It runs on any shared LAMP hosting with minimal configuration and is a popular choice for freelancers, small businesses, and anyone who wants a no-frills support system without server management overhead.

Where it falls short of Zendesk

  • No multi-agent collaboration features or internal notes visible across teams
  • No REST API; integrations must be built against the database directly
  • License is source-available for free use but prohibits redistribution

We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.

Tags

helpdesk
php
knowledge-base
lightweight
shared-hosting
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