20 Best Free Intercom Alternatives with Unlimited Chats

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This is a list of 20 best free Intercom alternatives with unlimited chats. Similar to Intercom, these services enable you to chat with your website visitors with ease and efficiency. Intercom is no doubt one of the best Live chat services available out there, but it is a completely paid service and doesn’t even has a free plan. But, do not worry, as there are many free services available which also offer similar features to Intercom like chats, agents, proactive chats, concurrent chats, visitor analytics, and so on. Some of them are core live chat services, some are Slack-based, and some of them are Facebook Messenger based website chat services.

You can simply integrate these services on your website by pasting a code snippet in your website’s source code. If you have added Google Tag Manager to your website, then you can directly add code via that for most of these chat services. After that, a live chat widget will be added and your visitors can use it to start chatting with you. These Intercom alternatives are ideal for blogging websites, e-commerce, marketing, and so on.

Now, let’s get started and see what these free Intercom alternatives have to offer.

Tawk.to:

Tawk.to is probably the best free alternative to Intercom. It offers a live chat widget with unlimited chats to help you easily communicate with your website visitors. You can simply setup Tawk.to by signing up for a new account and then copy/paste a code snippet on your website. After you’re done, the website visitors will see a widget for chatting and you can access the dashboard for replying to their queries. You can also invite agents to let them chat with the visitors. There are many other additional features available which I will explain below.

Some useful features of Tawk.to are:

Cross-Platform: This Intercom alternative is a cross-platform tool which you can use on the Web, Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android.
Agents: You can invite unlimited agents for chatting with the visitors for free. They will be able to access the dashboard from where they can read and reply to visitor’s queries. You can also assign any agent as the admin.
Chat: After adding the live chat widget to your website, the visitors can use it for sending messages and you can reply to their queries in real-time. During a chat, you can exchange text messages as well as files like documents, images, etc.
Trigger: One of the useful features of this Intercom alternative is the “Trigger”. You can use it to create triggers to send messages to the visitors automatically. The triggers can be created with custom conditions defined by you. Every website can only have 20 triggers.
Proactive Chat: Another useful feature is that you can easily send proactive chat requests to the visitors. This can be done by creating triggers with conditions like “send a proactive message if any user is on our website for a specific time”, “send a proactive message if any visitor is viewing a particular web page for a specific time”, and so on.
Live Visitor Analytics: You can see and monitor the visitor analytics in real-time on the dashboard. You will see information about highest visits, chats, pageviews, visitors, live count graph of visitors, and more. It will also display other details in real-time like the engagement percentage, missed chats, visitors returned, etc.
Canned Responses: It also lets you create unlimited canned messages and then send them to the website visitors with a simple click. This can come in handy for frequently used replies.
Visitor Details: You can see various information about website visitors such as the device, browser, name, local time, email, IP address, last visit, chat transcript, and location.

Concurrent Chats: It allows you to have unlimited concurrent chats with different visitors simultaneously.
Ticketing: One of the unique feature of Tawk.to is called “Ticketing”. You can use this feature to create custom tickets for all the visitor’s queries and issues. You can also assign the tickets to any agents you want for the solution.
Inbox: You will see a messaging inbox on your dashboard on which all the tickets and chat history will be accessible. You can quickly access them whenever you want.
Whisper: It is another useful feature that can be used to send messages to other agents during an ongoing chat with a visitor. This can come in handy to ask something to other agents without letting the Live visitor know.
Customize Widget: To make the live chat widget appealing on your website, you can also customize it by changing the appearance, edit content, schedule online time, restrict pages for the widget to appear, and so on.
Reporting: You can also view detailed reports for your tickets and chats. For example, you will be able to see the chat volume, user satisfaction, missed chats, offline chats, new ticket volume, ticket source, solved tickets, etc.
There are some other features as well like email notification, ban IP address of any visitor, and more.

Free Plan Limitations: There are some limitations around the customization options, but most of the features are free.

Unbeatable:

Unbeatable is also a pretty useful Intercom alternative which you can use to seamlessly chat with your website visitors. It is a completely web-based service and ideal for e-commerce. It provides features like unlimited chats, agents, visitors, etc. There are other interesting options which can be used for sending proactive messages, concurrent chat, and so on. You can install “Unbeatable” on your website by pasting a code script just above the </body> tag.

Some useful features of Unbeatable are:

Chat: Post installing, you will see a small live chat widget on your website. The website visitors can send their queries using the widget and you will receive the messages on the Unbeatable dashboard. Now, from the dashboard, you can reply to the visitors by sending text messages and files like images, docs, etc.
Agents: This Intercom alternative also allows you to invited unlimited agents for communicating with website visitors. Among the invited agents, you can assign the role of an admin to anyone you like.
Concurrent Chat: It also lets you have concurrent chat with multiple visitors. That means you can reply to the queries of multiple visitors at the same time.
Chat Activity: It lets you track the activity of chat sessions on the dashboard. You will be able to see the number of unassigned chats, active chats, chats today, and the total number of visitors on your website.
Proactive Chat: One of the useful features of this service is that it lets you send proactive or targeted messages to the visitors. You can set up a proactive message on different conditions like for repeated visitors, visitors who failed checkout, and so on.
Visitors Info: While chatting with a visitor, you can see various details like visitor’s name, OS used, browser, IP address, current page, location, chat transcript, and more.

Availability Status: This feature lets you show your availability status as online or offline to the website visitors. You can manually change the status from the dashboard.
Customize Widget: It lets you customize the live chat widget color, header text, etc. and also set the options for hiding the widget if no agent is available, show your avatar in the widget, and so on.
Notes: This feature lets you take down notes when you’re in a chat with any visitor. This can help you keep a track of things that are important. You can take down separate notes for each visitor.
Email Notifications: This feature is also pretty useful as you will be able to get notifications for chat requests, missed chats, etc. via email.
Flag IP: Similar to banning an IP in “Tawk.to”, this one lets you flag IP addresses such that the visitors with flagged IP won’t be able to send messages. All your agents will also get notified of the flagged IPs.

Free Plan Limitations: This Intercom alternative has no limitation on the features. You can use it without paying anything.

Pure Chat:

Pure Chat is also a free and feature-rich Intercom alternative with unlimited chats and agents. You can have as many conversations as you want with your website visitors in real-time. You can integrate Pure Chat on your website just by pasting a code snippet which you will get after signing up. When you do that, the widget for live chat will become visible to the visitors. You and the invited agents can answer their queries from the Pure Chat dashboard. You will also get many features like concurrent chats, triggers, canned messages, and more. So, lets see some of them below.

Some useful features of Pure Chat are:

Cross-Platform: You can only use Pure Chat on the Web or on your iPhone and Android.
Chat: When you add the live chat widget, the website visitors can use it to send their queries. You will see the messages on the dashboard and can reply to them in real-time. Similar to Tawk.to, this one also lets you send and receive text messages and files (like images, etc.).
Operators: It lets you add as many operators/agents as you want. After that, they can also chat with the visitors in real-time via the live chat widget. You can also assign the role of admin to any operator you want.
Triggers: You can also create custom triggers on Pure Chat. Creating triggers can help you pop up the chat widget automatically on your website depending on user-defined conditions.
Proactive Chat: The triggers can also be used to send proactive messages to the visitors. For example, you can create a trigger with the proactive message “Do You Need Any Help”, and show it to any visitor if he/she in on a web page for a specific time period.
Canned Responses: This Free Live chat service also lets you create and send canned messages to website visitors. You can send canned messages to visitors with a single click while chatting. This can come in handy for commonly asked questions by visitors.

Visitor Details: When you’re on a chat with any visitor, you will see some useful details like the source page on your website from which the chat was initiated, visit history, email address, location, chat transcript, etc.
Concurrent Chat: This Intercom alternative also supports unlimited concurrent chats. That means you and other chat operators can chat with multiple visitors at the same time.
Export Contacts: After any visitor starts a chat, some of the information like the email ID, name, company details, etc. gets added to the dashboard. Pure Chat comes with an option to export these details in a CSV file for each contact separately.
Customize Widget: It also provides an option to customize the widget on your website. You can add your contact information like phone number, email, Twitter info, etc. to the widget, change widget color, modify first/intro message, and more.
Ban IP: Another feature which you will see during a chat is “Ban IP”. This feature is pretty useful if you want to block the IP address of any visitor to avoid irrelevant or abusive chats.

Free Plan Limitations: The free version of Pure Chat have some limitations like no email or SMS notification, real-time analytics, chat reports, and also shows the watermark on the widget.

Zestim:

Zestim also lets you have unlimited chats with the visitors on your website. Apart from that, it also offers unlimited agents, unlimited visitors, and more. Some of the features of this Intercom alternative like Chat Routing, Transfer Chat, etc. are quite unique as compared to other similar services. You can simply sign up for a new account and then get the code snippet. Then paste the code on your website for installing the Zestim live chat widget. It is also a completely web-based service.

Some important features of Zestim are:

Chat: After installing the live chat widget, the visitors can use it to start a chat with you. The messages sent by the visitors will be visible to you on the dashboard and from there you can reply to them in real-time.
Agents: You can invite and add unlimited agents or operators to your account. All the agents will be able to chat with the website visitors. The agents can also be assigned a role of admin such that they can totally control the live chat account.
Transfer Chat: This feature can be used to transfer chats with website visitors to any other agents. That means if you’re stuck in a chat for something then you can use it to let other agents answer the visitor query.
Chat Routing: One of the unique features of this Intercom alternative is “Chat Routing”. It allows you to configure how the chats are routed automatically among the agents. It lets you select various options for that including Least Busy, Round Robin, Round to All, and Agent Priority.
Push Page: This feature is also very unique among other Intercom alternatives. It allows you to push and display any specific web page to the visitors.

Visitors Info: During a chat, you can see various details about the visitor like UTM parameters, pages browsed by the visitor, past chats, survey filled status, etc.
Live Visitor Analytics: You can easily see the visitor analytics live on the dashboard. It will show how many visitors are currently present on your website, IP addresses, location, referrer, operating system, status, repeated visits, and more.
Triggers: You can also create triggers for performing different actions automatically such as assign chats to specific departments, notify agents, and more. The action and condition of the triggers can be set manually.
Canned Messages: It also lets you create and store canned messages. This can be useful for frequently used messages which you send to the visitors. With a single click, you can send the canned messages.
Proactive Chats: The triggers can also help you initiate a proactive chat with visitors. To do this, you can choose different conditions manually while creating the triggers.
Auto Responders: Another useful feature of Zestim is “Auto Responder”. It can be used to display pre-created responses to the website visitors for common and simple queries.
Reports: You can also see the detailed agent and chat reports. It will show you the performance report of agents like average chat sessions, total chats, feedback, etc. and also chat transcripts.
WorkFlow: You can use this feature to create workflows for separate departments and even assign tasks to the department-wise agents.
Customize Widget: It also lets you customize the live chat widget by changing the title, greeting message, background, widget size, message hint, position, and more.
Email Notifications: It can also send you notifications via email for messages sent by the visitors when you are offline.

Free Version Limitations: For now, it is completely free to use and has no limitation. But, in future, there will be paid versions as per the homepage description.

Smartsupp:

Smartsupp is another free alternative to Intercom that offers unlimited agents, unlimited chats, etc. It allows you to easily communicate with website visitors in real-time. This one also provides some unique and interesting features like video recording, chat transfer, live visitor analytics, and so on. Setting up Smartsupp is pretty easy, as all you gotta do is register and paste the script on your website before the <body> tag ends.

Some useful features of Smartsupp are:

Cross-Platform: You can use this Intercom alternative on your Windows PC via Pidgin and on MacOS via Adium. But, it does have apps for Android, Windows Phone, and iPhone.
Chat: When you paste the code, the live chat widget will be installed on your website. The visitors will now see the widget and can send their queries using it. The messages can be seen and responded Live from the dashboard.
Agents: You can invite as many agents as you want to your dashboard for chatting with the visitors. The agents can access the chat threads and reply to the queries of visitors with ease. If you want then you can make any of the agents as the admin of the account.
Real-Time Visitor Analytics: One of the useful features is that you can see the visitor analytics in real-time. It will display the total number of visitors on your site, visitors in chats, active visitors, last message, visits, current page, online duration, and more.
Visitors Info: Not only the real-time analytics, it will also show you various information about the visitors during a chat. You can see their location, referrer, operating system, browsing history, IP address, browser, and more.

Transfer Chat: Similar to Zestim, this Intercom alternative also allows you to transfer chats to other agents. The visitors will be unaware of the transfer and they can continue chatting without disruption.
Video Recording: One of the unique features of Smartsupp is “Video recording”. This feature can record various activities of visitors like mouse clicks, mouse movements, etc. as videos.
Block Visitor: It comes with an option to block website visitors during a chat. When you block any visitor, he/she won’t be able to send messages to you anymore.
Customize Widget: You can customize and modify the Live chat widget on your website. You can change the chat box image, widget color, text, bubble themes, display agent info, and more.
Email Notifications: You can also get notification via email for all the offline and missed chats.

Free Version Limitation: The free version of Smartsupp has some limitations like 100 video recordings per month, no canned messages, proactive messages, and so on.

Chatrify:

Chatrify is also a free Intercom alternative which you can use to chat with your website visitors. There is no limit on the number of messages you can send or receive from visitors. There are many other useful features available like file sharing, live analytics, chat transfer, and much more. Installing the Charity live chat widget is very simple as all you need to do is get the code snippet after sign up and paste it on your website.

Some of the important Features of Chatrify are:

Cross-Platform: You can use it on the Web, Windows, iPhone, and Android. The Mac app is coming soon.
Chat: After you paste the code snippet just above the </body> tag, you will see a simple live chat widget added to your website. Now, the visitors can use it to send their queries. You can see and send replies from Chatrify dashboard.
Agents: It lets you invite unlimited agents to your dashboard. However, there is a limitation on the free plan which allows only one active agent at a time. You can also assign the role of admin to any agent you want.
File Sharing: Apart from chatting with text messages, you can also share screenshots, documents, etc. from Dropbox or PC with your visitors.
Notes: It also lets you jot down notes while chatting with the website visitors. This can help you write important notes or requests from the visitors.
Live Visitor Analytics: Similar to Zestim and Smartsupp, this one also shows live visitor analytics. It categorizes visitors into Invited, Now Chatting, Browsing Site, In Queue, and End Chat. You can browse any category to see live analytics of visitor’s location, name, visits, IP addresses, current page, chats, and more.
Visitors Info: When you start a chat, you will see some additional info about the visitor like the browsing time, current page, visitor path, device, operating system, and more.

Proactive Chats: This one also lets you initiate a proactive chat with website visitors. You can create proactive messages by setting different conditions such as keyword search, browsing any specific web page, site browsing time, etc.
Concurrent Chats: The free version is limited to 1 active agent at a time, but it does allow that agent to have concurrent chats with multiple visitors simultaneously.
Canned Messages: You can also create canned messages for commonly used responses. Doing so, you can send them to the visitors with a single click and without typing them again.
Basic Reports: It shows some basic account reports with a graph of missed chats, totals chats, queued chats, visitor sessions, customer satisfaction, and more.
Transfer Chat: This Intercom alternative also has the option to transfer a chat to other agents. It can be helpful if you want any other agent to continue the conversation with a visitor without letting him/her notice the transfer.
Ban Visitors: While chatting, you will also see an option to ban visitors. It can be used to block any visitor you want from sending messages to you.
Customize Widget: The free version only lets you do basic customization like changing the default text, templates, placement, size, etc.

Free Version Limitations: There are certain restrictions in the free version like only 1 agent can be active at a time, no standard reports, complete widget customization, etc.

LiveSupporti:

LiveSupporti is one of the simplest free Intercom alternatives. It offers unlimited chats such that you can have as many conversations as you want with the visitors. You will also get some useful features like page forwarding, proactive chats, IP blocker, and more for free. To setup LiveSupporti, simply sign up for an account, get the script, and paste just before the <body> tag ends on your website. You can use it on the web, Android, and iPhone.

Some important features of LiveSupporti are:

Chat: When you install LiveSupporti on your website, it will add a widget for live chatting. You and the visitors can chat with each other via the live chat widget in real-time.
Agents: This one also lets you add unlimited agents to your LiveSupporti account. But, similar to Chatrify, this one also allows only 1 active agent for live chat at a time in the free version. It also lets you assign agents as admins manually.
Live Visitor Analytics: In this Intercom alternative, you can also see real-time analytics of visitors. You can see the number of visitors on the website, visited page history, online visitors, offline visitors, chat time duration, and so on.
Visitors Info: When you start a chat, you will be able to see various information about the visitor like the platform used, browser, IP address, online time, page browsing time, username, current location, page activity, and much more.
Proactive Chats: Using this service, you can also send proactive messages to the visitors based on conditions defined by you. You can initiate an auto-message with different conditions like browsing time on a specific page, current page, and more.

Canned Messages: Another interesting feature is that you can create custom canned messages and send them to the visitors in one click. This can come in handy when you don’t want to repeatedly type the commonly used answers to visitor queries.
Forward to Pages: Similar to Zestim’s “Push Page” option, this one allows you to redirect the visitors to any web page during a chat. You can use it to show specific pages asked by the visitors.
Concurrent Chats: This one also lets you chat concurrently with multiple visitors on your website. It is very helpful for those who are using the free version, as it supports only 1 active agent at a time.
Offline Messages: It comes with a separate section for all the offline messages. In this section, you can see all the missed chats when you were offline.
Statistics: You will be able to see graphs of customer satisfaction, totals chats, missed chats, agent chats, and more.
Block IP: You will also get an option to block IP address of visitors in a chat thread. The visitors with blocked IP addresses won’t be able to send queries anymore.

Free Version Limitations: There are some limitations like 1 active agent, no customization of widget color, etc. in the free version.

MyLiveChat:

MyLiveChat also lets you easily chat with website visitors from a live chat widget. This Intercom alternative allows you to have unlimited chat sessions with the visitors for free. There are also some useful features available like canned responses, triggers, operating hours, and more. To use this service, you would need to register for an account, get the generated code, and place it inside the <body> section of your website. Then it will be up and running.

Useful features of MyLiveChat are:

Cross-Platform: It is also one of the cross-platform alternatives to Intercom. It comes with clients for Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android, and Web.
Chat: After integrating the live chat widget, you and the visitors can have unlimited chats. The visitors can send text messages along with images and emojis via the widget. You can access the messages on the admin console and reply in real-time.
Agents: This one can also be used to add as many agents as you want to your account. However, the free plan has a limitation of only 1 active agent at a time. That means the admin and an agent can chat with the visitors. If you wish then you can also add any of the agents as account admin.
Triggers: One of the best features of this Intercom alternative is “Triggers”. Creating triggers, you will be able to send a chat request to the website visitors based on conditions like time on the website, specific content query, etc.
Proactive Chat: The triggers can also let you initiate chats proactively. For this, you can set custom conditions such as specific keyword search, browsing a particular web page, and more.
Canned Responses: You can type phrases and save them as canned responses such that whenever you come across common questions asked by multiple visitors, you can simply send the canned messages without writing them again.

Live Visitor Analytics: This free service also comes with the option to see visitor analytics live in the admin console. You can see various information in real-time including the chat duration, online status, platform, IP address, location, DNS, visits, etc.
Visitor Details: after starting a chat with any visitor, you can see some other details such as visitor’s name, city, browser, operating system, email, the page from which the chat was started, IP address, and more.
Concurrent Chat: You can chat with multiple users at the same time using the “Concurrent Chats” feature.
Customize Widget: You will also see various widget customization options on the console. It lets you change the widget button, template, style, header, and much more. Not only that, it even allows you to edit the offline message, pre messages, survey, post messages, etc.
Reports: You can see some useful reports such as chats per agent, missed chats, visitor satisfaction, chat sessions graph, online time, chats per hour, and so on.
Email Notifications: This one also sends you notifications to your email for offline messages, chat requests, etc.
Operating Hours: You can use this feature to configure agent’s operating hours for going online or offline. The agents will be alerted automatically.
Ban IP: You can also ban IP addresses of visitors if you think that the queries are not relevant or abusive.

Free Version Limitations: It does have some limitations like only one active agent, no white label, email reports, etc.

JivoChat:

JivoChat also makes it very simple for you to chat with website visitors. This Intercom alternative allows you to have unlimited chat sessions with as many visitors as you want for free. Some of the other interesting features include web calls, concurrent chat, visitor tracking, and more. To use it, sign up on the homepage and get the code. Then paste that code above the </body> tag on your website and the live chat widget will be installed.

Some useful features of JivoChat are:

Cross-Platform: You can use JivoChat on your Windows PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, and on the Web.
Chat: When you install this Intercom alternative on your website, all the visitors will be able to see a live chat widget. They can ask questions using the widget and you can give answers from your dashboard in real-time. In addition to text messages, it also allows attaching files like docs, images, etc.
Agents: You can invite and add up to 5 agents (admin included) in the free version. The invited agents can access the dashboard and chat with the website visitors. Among the agents, you can make any user an admin for the account.
Visitor Details: It shows different details about the visitors during a chat. You will see their name, phone number, on-site time, email, visit sources, location, pages visited, IP address, etc.
Concurrent Chat: JivoChat also supports concurrent chats. That means the admin and the agents will be able to chat with as many visitors as they want simultaneously.

Track Visitors: You can also monitor and track website visitors on the JivoChat dashboard. It will show you the exact total time on site, website visit count, pages from which the chat was started, pageviews, chats, etc.
Customize Widget: It offers simple customization options using which you can change the alignment, theme, color, labels, sound notifications, and more of the live chat widget.
Ban IP: This one also has the option to ban IP addresses. You can block the IP of any visitor who you’re chatting with such that he/she can’t send messages anymore.
Web Calls: It comes with a unique feature called “Web Calls”. It allows agents to receive web calls from visitors via the JivoChat mobile app, SIP phone, or Windows client.

Free Version Limitations: It has certain limitations in the free version like you cannot use triggers, canned messages, proactive chat, only 5 agents, etc.

Userlike:

Userlike is another simple alternative to Intercom which allows you to communicate with the website visitors. You can have as many conversations as you want with unlimited visitors for free. It also offers other useful options like canned messages, proactive chats, concurrent chats, etc. You can use this service just by pasting a simple code on your website.

Some important features of Userlike are:

Chat: After installing Userlike on your website, the live chat widget will be visible for the visitors to send their queries. Whatever messages they send will be visible on the chat panel and from there you can also reply to them in real-time.
Agents: This one also lets you add unlimited agents to your account. However, in the free version, only a single agent can chat with the website visitor at a time. It lets you assign the admin role to any of the invited agents.
Concurrent Chats: This Intercom alternative also supports concurrent chats with multiple visitors at the same time. As the free version allows only a single active agent, starting concurrent chats can come to a rescue.
Proactive Chats: You can use this service to initiate proactive conversations with the visitors. To do this, you can choose different conditions manually like if any visitor opens any specific page then start a proactive chat, if any visitor is on the website for a specific time, etc.

Canned Messages: It also lets you create and send canned messages. You can use “Chat Macros” to easily create canned messages for the responses which you frequently use while chatting with the visitor. The best thing is that you can send a canned message with one click.
Visitors Info: When you’re chatting with a visitor, you will see useful info about him/her. You can see the current location, currently browsed webpage, browser, etc.
Go Away: This feature is pretty unique and useful. You can use it to stop getting chat requests from the website visitors manually. It can come in handy if you’re using the free version, where only one agent can be active, and getting multiple chat requests at the same time.

Free Version Limitations: There are some limitations like you cannot customize the widget, only 1 agent can be active for chatting, and more.

Zendesk Chat:

Zendesk Chat is also a pretty useful and free Intercom alternative which allows you to seamlessly communicate with visitors. It doesn’t have any limit on the number of chat sessions as well as messages which you can send and receive. There are many other features available in the free version like pre-chat form, visitor list, chat tags, and so on. It also offers mobile apps for iPhone and Android such that you can chat with visitors on the go. You can set up this service by entering the code snippet, which you get after registering, on your website.

Some useful feature of Zendesk Chat are:

Chat: When you integrate the chat widget on your website, all the visitors will be able to use it for sending messages. You will be able to see the messages on your dashboard and from there you can send your responses in real-time.
Agents: The free version only supports 1 agent for chatting with website visitors.
Concurrent Chats: Only one concurrent chat is supported by the free version of Zendesk Chat.
Pre-Chat Form: This feature allows you to ask all the visitors to enter some of their personal details on the chat widget before starting a conversation.
Offline Form: This is a pretty useful feature as it allows the visitors send messages even when you’re not online on the dashboard.
Visitors Info: You will be able to see various info about each visitor during a chat like the past visits, time on site, visitor path, and more. You can also add notes and phone number to each visitor.

Message History: You can search and access the messages for the last 30 days only in the free version.
Monitor Visitors: It also lets you monitor your visitors in real-time on the dashboard. You can see their country, operating system, browser, and also the referrer.
Chat Tags: You can use this feature to organize all your chats by contexting them using custom labels.
Widget Customization: In the free version, you get some customization options for the chat widget like you can modify the title, change color, and also the widget position on your website.
Ban IP: During a conversation, you can ban the IP address of the visitor to stop receiving messages or avoid spam.

Free Plan Limitations: There are many limitations in the free version, like only 1 agent, no triggers, no proactive chats, and so on.

Now, let us take a look at some of the Slack-based alternatives to Intercom.

ChatKwik:

ChatKwik is a free Slack-based alternative to Intercom that also allows you to chat with visitors with ease. But, unlike the other Intercom alternatives explained above, this one lets you chat right from Slack. You can install this Slack-based chat service on your website by pasting the JavaScript code which you get after sign up. This one will also add a chat widget on the website. The messages sent through the widget will be visible on Slack and you can also reply to them directly.

Some of the useful features of ChatKwik are:

Chats: You can have unlimited chat sessions with the website visitors. They can send messages using the widget which you have added to the website. You can read the messages and send replies from Slack in real-time. You can send and receive as many messages as you want for free.
Agents: This one allows you to invite as many agents as you want to help you chat with your website visitors. Do note that you can only add members who are on your Slack team as agents. You would need to invite them to the ChatKwik channel for letting them read or reply to visitor messages.
Concurrent Chat: This Intercom alternative provides concurrent chats. That means you and the agents will be able to have conversations with multiple visitors at the same time.
Visitor Details: After staring a chat with any website visitor, it will show you many details about the visitor including his/her location, browser used, operating system, landing page, time zone, referrer page, and more.
Customize Widget: It also comes with various options to customize the live chat widget. You can change the widget color, edit the greeting message, enable a message for grabbing the attention of the visitors, and more.

Free Plan Limitations: This Slack-based Intercom alternative is totally free to use. However, the homepage says that there will be separate free and paid plans very soon.

Smallchat:

Smallchat is another Intercom alternative which is completely Slack-based. That means you can have unlimited conversations with website visitors from your Slack account. You can install this chat service by first adding a code snippet to the website and then integrate it with Slack. The visitors can use the Smallchat widget on the website to send you messages. Then you can read and respond live directly from Slack. Learn more Smallchat from here.

Some of the useful features of Smallchat are:

Chats: This one also lets you have unlimited chats with as many visitors as you want completely free. The messages can be exchanged via the live chat widget.
Operators: Smallchat lets you invite and add unlimited operators or agents for chatting with the visitors on your website. Only the Slack users who are on your team can be added as operators.
Concurrent Chat: You can have a chat with not only a single visitor, but with multiple visitors simultaneously. You and all the other operators can start concurrent chats with ease in separate chat threads.
Visitors Information: This Intercom alternative also displays various information about each visitor like location, browser, IP address, and more. These information can only be seen during a chat.
Block IP: During a chat, you will also see an additional option to block the IP such that the visitor can’t send you queries anymore.
Hide Widget: This feature lets you hide the Smallchat widget on any of the pages on your website. You can manually select the pages where you don’t want to show the live chat widget.
Widget Customization: You will also get some widget customization options to make the widget look great on your website. It lets you change the widget color, choose among various type of widgets, set custom greeting message, and more.

Free Plan Limitations: The free plan has some limitations like you can’t see the contact list, no option to send auto or proactive messages, etc.

Chatterbox:

Chatterbox by Retainly is also one of the best free Slack-based Intercom alternatives. You can use it to easily chat with your website visitors from a Slack channel. It offers various features like unlimited agents, messages, triggers, etc. You can simply add Chatterbox to Slack and select a channel for live chatting with visitors. It will also provide a code snippet which you need to paste under the <body> tag on your website to add the live chat widget on the website. The visitors will see it and use it to send their messages to you.

Some useful features of Chatterbox are:

Chats: The free version of Chatterbox lets you chat with only 2000 website visitors per month. But, you can send and receive as many messages as you want while having a chat with these 2000 visitors. The messages from visitors can be seen in Slack and you can also reply from there directly in real-time.
Agents: There is no limit on the number of agents whom you can invite for chatting with website visitors. It lets you add all your Slack teammates as agents for the live chat.
Concurrent Chat: Each agent will be able to have chat sessions with multiple visitors at once. That means you can have conversation concurrently. There will be a separate thread for each visitor with whom you’re chatting.
Visitors Details: While having a conversation, you can see different details about the user like his/her name, location, email address, operating system, IP, current web page, and the browser used.
Triggers: One of the unique features of this Intercom alternative is the “Triggers”. It allows you to create triggers with a condition to send greeting messages proactively to the website visitors. You can set the condition for any specific page on your website such that when any visitor opens the page, the greeting message will be sent automatically.
Widget Customization: You will also see some widget customization options which you can use to modify the widget text color, header color, chat button radius, and even add your company logo.

Free Plan Limitations: The free version has a limitation in terms of chat i.e. you can chat with a maximum of 2000 visitors per month.

Drift:

Drift is also a decent Slack-based Intercom alternative which you can use for communicating with website visitors. Instead of a complex dashboard, you can use it to chat directly from Slack. Unlike other Slack-based services explained in this post, this one has more limitations in the free version in terms of chats, agents, etc. You can start using it by integrating with Slack and also installing in on your website by pasting a script.

Some important features of Drift are:

Chats: It allows you to have chat sessions with a maximum of 100 website visitors per month. However, the number of messages which can be received or sent has no limitations. The visitors will be able to send all their queries to you via the chat widget on the website and you can read the messages and reply to them from Slack.
Operators: In the free version, it offers only one seat which means only a single operator can chat with the visitors at a time.
Concurrent Chat: It does allow you to have concurrent conversations with multiple users at the same time. This can be helpful as the free version is limited to only one active seat.
Visitors Info: You will also see different information about each user with whom you chat on Slack. You can see the location, local time, total number of chats, page source, and the browser used by the visitor.
Customize Widget: It also provides some customization options using which you can change the widget color, customize welcome/greeting message, widget themes, and online & offline message.

Free Plan Limitations: Drift has limitations like 1 active seat, chat with 100 visitors per month, etc. in the free version.

Now, let us see the Facebook Messenger based alternatives to Intercom.

Messengerify:

Messengerify is the best Facebook Messenger based alternative to Intercom. It lets you communicate with unlimited website visitors for free and send as many messages as you want. It connects your Facebook page to your website and let the visitors chat with you via Facebook Messenger. Unlike the core Intercom alternatives or Slack-based services, it doesn’t actually allow the visitors to see your replies on the chat widget. But instead, the complete conversation will be carried on Facebook Messenger. The chat widget is only for letting the visitors initiate a chat via Facebook Messenger from your website.

To start using it, you would need to first connect your Facebook page and then get the code snippet. Once done, you can paste the snippet on your website to display a chat widget on your website. Now, the visitors can click on the chat widget, login to Facebook, and start chatting with you.

Important features of Messengerify are:

Chats: As the conversation will continue on Facebook Messenger, there is no limit on the number of chat sessions which you can have with the visitors. You will see the messages from visitors on your Facebook page and can reply to them in real-time via Messenger.
Agents: There is also no limit on the number of agents whom you can invite for chatting with the website visitors. Whoever, you add as the admin or editor to the Facebook page will be able to read and send messages.
Concurrent Chats: Yes, you can have multiple conversations with different visitors at the same time. No limit on the number of concurrent chats.

Free Version Limitations: Only the widget customization is not allowed in the free version.

Quick Facebook Chat:

Quick Facebook Chat is another Facebook Messenger based Intercom alternative which you can use to chat with website visitors for free. Similar to “Messengerify”, this one will also connect your website to the Facebook page in order to chat via Messenger. The chat widget will only allow the visitors to start a conversation with you on Facebook Messenger. No direct messaging on the chat widget.

To use this Intercom alternative, you would need to first select your website platform, add a Facebook page, and then copy the auto-generated code. Then paste the code just above the </body> tag on the website. This will display a chat widget on the website. Now, the visitors can click on that and start chatting with you via Messenger.

Important features of “Quick Facebook Chat” are:

Chats: There is no limit on the number of chats you can have. The messages sent by the visitors can be seen on your Facebook page “messages” section. You can then reply to their messages using Facebook Messenger.
Agents: It also doesn’t put any limitation on the agents’ count, as the conversations will be done via Facebook messenger only. That means all the admins and editors of the connected Facebook page will be able to read messages and send replies to the visitors.
Concurrent Chats: You can have as many concurrent chats as you want. After multiple visitors initiate a chat, you can chat with all of them in separate chat threads.

Free Version Limitations: Quick Facebook Chat has no limitations in terms of chats, messages, agents, etc.

Facebook Chat Widget (by Digital Inspiration):

Facebook Chat Widget is also a simple Intercom alternative based on Facebook Messenger. You can use it to chat with your website visitors via Messenger seamlessly. This one also doesn’t allow the visitors to see your replies in the chat widget as the chat thread is created on Facebook Messenger. No limit on chats, agents, and messages.

This is actually a simple code snippet which you can paste into your website to display the chat widget. This will connect your Facebook page and website. Using the widget, the visitors can send one message first and then continue the conversation with you on Messenger.

Useful features of Facebook Chat Widget are:

Chats: After installing this Facebook Messenger based Intercom alternative, you will be able to have unlimited chat sessions with website visitors. When they send any message, you will see it on your Facebook page instead of the chat widget. You can also reply to them from Messenger.
Agents: As you will have the conversations on the Messenger o your Facebook page, there is no limit on the number of agents. All the users whom you have added as an admin or editor will be able to chat with website visitors.
Concurrent Chat: You can start chatting with as many visitors as you want at the same time. Separate threads will be created for each visitor when he/she initiates a chat.

Free Version Limitations: It is completely free and there are no limitations.

Facebook Chat for Websites (by Supple):

Facebook Chat for Websites (by Supple) is a simple Intercom alternative that can also be used to chat with visitors on your website via Facebook Messenger. It lets you connect your website to your Facebook page in order to chat via Messenger. This one also provides some widget customization options like you can set operating hours, set “Email Us” option and more.

For using this service, you would need to go to the homepage and then generate the code script. After that, copy and paste that script on your website. This will add the chat widget to your website.

Some useful features are:

Chats: When you install the chat widget on your website, the visitors can use it to start chatting with you via Facebook Messenger. You will receive the messages sent by visitors on Messenger and also reply from there with ease.
Concurrent Chat: This one also supports concurrent chats. That means you will be able to have conversations with multiple visitors simultaneously.
Operators: You can add unlimited operators for chatting with visitors. The users can be invited to the Facebook page which you have connected to the website while generating the code.
Operating Hours: You will see an additional option to set operating hours for chatting. That means you can let the visitors know when you will be available to chat with them.

Free Plan Limitations: There is no limit on the number of chats, messages, and even agents.

Chat (by KeyReply):

Chat (by KeyReply) is a simple alternative to Intercom that is based on Facebook Messenger. It will allow your website visitors to start chatting with you through Messenger. You can have unlimited chat sessions, invite unlimited agents, and so on.

For using it, you would need to first connect your Facebook account and website by pasting a small code on your website. Then the visitors will see a widget which can help them start a chat with your on Messenger. No messages can be seen on the widget.

Some important features are:

Chats: After integrating this Intercom alternative on your website, all the visitors will be able to send you messages directly via Facebook messenger. You will see the messages on Facebook and can reply to their queries directly.
Concurrent Chats: This one also supports concurrent chats with separate chat threads. You can have chat sessions with unlimited visitors.
Agents: There is no limit on the number of agents whom you can invite for chatting.

Free Plan Limitations: No limitations on using this service.

Closing Words:

These are some of the best free Intercom alternatives which make it very easy for you to chat with visitors on your website. Now, you can get almost all the important features of intercom absolutely free using all the services explained in this post. Personally, I like all the core live chat services as they offer tons of other useful features than just the option to chat with website visitors. However, the Slack-based and Facebook Messenger-based Intercom alternatives are also pretty useful for chatting with visitors.

Try all of these services and leave your comments below.