/vs/chatwoot
spookat
vs chatwoot.
Chatwoot is an open-source omnichannel inbox you can self-host, or use in their cloud per agent. Spookat is a chat widget that loads nothing until the click and lands every chat in Slack or Discord. Here's the honest version.
the short version.
- 01
$4.99 a site (early access) for the whole team, against $19 per agent on Chatwoot Cloud.
- 02
Discord built in. Chatwoot has no native Discord integration.
- 03
Nothing loads before the click. Chatwoot's widget iframe pulls about 509 kb gzipped on page load.
side by side.
| what | spookat | Chatwoot |
|---|---|---|
| cheapest paid plan | $4.99 a site a month, $9.99 after early access | Startups, $19 per agent a month. Self-hosted Community Edition is free. source for Chatwoot, cheapest paid plan (opens in a new tab) |
| your team | Unlimited and free. We charge per site. | Per agent on every cloud plan. source for Chatwoot, your team (opens in a new tab) |
| their AI | No bot of ours to sell you. No per-answer fees. | Captain AI credits, 1 per message; 300 a month on Startups, then $20 per 1,000. source for Chatwoot, their AI (opens in a new tab) |
| your own AI agent | Webhooks, a reply API and MCP on cool guy ($14.99 in early access). | Yes: Agent Bot API with webhooks, your bot replies through their API. source for Chatwoot, your own AI agent (opens in a new tab) |
| remove their logo | On cool guy ($14.99 in early access). | Cloud Enterprise ($99 per agent). Self-hosted from $19 per agent. source for Chatwoot, remove their logo (opens in a new tab) |
| answer from Slack | A thread per chat, reply in the thread. Every plan. | Native, reply in the Slack thread. Every plan. source for Chatwoot, answer from Slack (opens in a new tab) |
| answer from Discord | A forum post per chat, reply in it. Every plan. | No native integration. source for Chatwoot, answer from Discord (opens in a new tab) |
| before anyone clicks | One launcher script under 4 kb gzipped. 0 requests to our API. | About 509 kb gzipped on page load (the widget iframe loads right away). measured for Chatwoot, before anyone clicks (opens in a new tab) |
| cookies | None. | Yes, a conversation cookie. source for Chatwoot, cookies (opens in a new tab) |
| visitor IPs | Never stored. | An IP lookup feature can store IP and location. source for Chatwoot, visitor IPs (opens in a new tab) |
| free plan | No. 14 days free, no card. | Yes: cloud Hacker plan (2 agents), or self-host for free. source for Chatwoot, free plan (opens in a new tab) |
Chatwoot's side comes from their public pages, checked 2026-09-26. "measured" means we loaded their widget on a test page ourselves and counted what arrived before any click. Prices change: spot something outdated and we'll fix it.
where chatwoot wins.
- Open source (MIT): self-host it on your own servers for $0 per agent.
- One inbox for web chat, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, SMS and more.
- A help center, automation rules, SLAs and reports.
- Solid APIs, including an Agent Bot API for your own AI, and Slack replies on every plan.
pick chatwoot if
you want to self-host, or need many channels in one open-source inbox.
pick spookat if
you want a tiny widget with nothing to run, and your team on Discord or Slack.