Overview
Request Tracker (RT) is one of the oldest and most mature open-source ticketing systems, with a development history dating to 1996. It provides a powerful email-driven workflow, flexible queue management, custom fields, full-text search, scripted automation via Scrips, and extensive REST and CLI APIs. RT is widely deployed in higher education, government, and large enterprises that need a highly customizable and reliable support system.
Where it falls short of Zendesk
- Perl stack and configuration via flat files is unfamiliar to modern web developers
- UI is functional but dated; requires theming effort to modernize
- Setup and initial customization have a significant learning curve
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
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[](https://openreplace.com/request-tracker-rt)Similar open-source projects
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