Social & Relationships
Live Chat & Chatbots
Buyers range from B2B sales teams using conversational marketing to qualify inbound traffic, to support organizations deflecting high ticket volume with AI agents, to local and vertical businesses using chat and SMS as their primary customer communication channel.
What is live chat & chatbots software?
Live chat and chatbot software lets website visitors and app users message a business in real time, either with a human agent or an automated bot that qualifies, answers or routes the conversation.
How many live chat & chatbots platforms are there?
The Opsmarshal Terminal tracks 20 active live chat & chatbots platforms as of 2026-08-30, within a marketing technology landscape of 15,505 products. Each entry links to the vendor’s own site and, where one was captured, its review source.
What to look for
- Support-suite chat (Zendesk, Freshchat, Zoho Desk, LiveAgent) is a module inside a broader ticketing platform; standalone chat tools (Olark, Smartsupp, Crisp, Social Intents) are cheaper and simpler but require separate ticketing if support volume grows.
- Conversational marketing (Drift) and customer support chat (Intercom, Zendesk) look similar on the surface but solve different problems; Drift is built to qualify and route inbound buyers to sales, not to resolve support tickets at scale.
- AI resolution depth varies enormously: enterprise AI agents (Ada, Intercom Fin) are built and priced for automated ticket deflection at scale, while SMB tools' 'AI chatbot' features are usually simpler rule-based or FAQ-matching bots.
- Data residency matters for regulated or EU-based buyers; most live chat vendors are US-hosted by default; Userlike is a rare EU-hosted, GDPR-first option in this category.
- Messaging-channel focus differs sharply: ManyChat and Zenvia are built around social/WhatsApp/SMS automation rather than a website widget, and Podium centers on SMS for local businesses; confirm the primary channel matches how your customers actually want to reach you before comparing feature lists.
Platforms in Live Chat & Chatbots
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4.5/5 1,135 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Intercom
Intercom · intercom.com ↗
AI-first customer service platform with the Fin agent and messenger.
Read 1135 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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4.7/5 590 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Tidio
Tidio · tidio.com ↗
Live chat and AI chatbot platform aimed at small ecommerce and SMB websites.
Read 590 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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4.6/5 1,727 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
LiveChat
LiveChat · livechat.com ↗
Live chat and messaging platform for real-time website customer support and sales conversations.
Read 1727 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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No rating captured yet
Ada
Ada · ada.cx ↗
AI customer service automation platform for enterprise.
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4.7/5 1,787 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
LiveAgent
LiveAgent · liveagent.com ↗
Help desk platform combining ticketing, live chat, call center, and social media support in one inbox.
Read 1787 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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4.4/5 4,090 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Zendesk
Zendesk Suite · zendesk.com ↗
Customer service platform with live chat, ticketing and AI agents, widely used across support teams.
Read 4090 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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No rating captured yet
Freshworks
Freshchat · freshworks.com ↗
Messaging-first live chat and chatbot product within the Freshworks customer service suite.
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4.5/5 2,214 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Zoho
Zoho Desk · zoho.com ↗
Help desk software bundled within the Zoho suite, with ticketing, AI assistant, and multichannel support.
Read 2214 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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4.6/5 648 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Userlike
Userlike · userlike.com ↗
German live chat and messaging software with an emphasis on GDPR-compliant, EU-hosted data.
Read 648 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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4.5/5 2,110 reviews · G2, captured 2026-08-28
Podium
Podium · podium.com ↗
Text-first customer interaction platform with review generation attached.
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4.5/5 471 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Olark
Olark · olark.com ↗
Straightforward live chat widget with automation rules, targeted at small and mid-size businesses.
Read 471 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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4.7/5 17 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
ZyraTalk
ZyraTalk · zyratalk.com ↗
AI chatbot and messaging platform built for home services businesses (HVAC, plumbing, electrical).
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4.6/5 66 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Text
ChatBot · chatbot.com ↗
No-code chatbot builder from Text (LiveChat's parent company) for website and Messenger automation.
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4.7/5 10 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Social Intents
Social Intents · socialintents.com ↗
Live chat software that runs through Slack, Microsoft Teams or Google Chat instead of a separate agent dashboard.
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4.6/5 1,394 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Appy Pie
Appy Pie Chatbot · appypie.com ↗
No-code app and chatbot builder platform, with chatbot creation as one module of a broader no-code suite.
Read 1394 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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4.1/5 359 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Zenvia
Zenvia Customer Cloud · zenvia.com ↗
Conversational customer engagement platform strong in Latin American messaging channels (WhatsApp, SMS).
Read 359 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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4.6/5 343 reviews · Capterra, captured 2026-08-27
Smartsupp
Smartsupp · smartsupp.com ↗
Live chat and AI chatbot platform with visitor recordings, popular with European ecommerce sites.
Read 343 reviews on Capterra ↗Full profile in the Terminal →
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No rating captured yet
Drift
Drift · drift.com ↗
Conversational marketing and sales platform pairing live chat with account-based buyer intent signals.
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No rating captured yet
ManyChat
ManyChat · manychat.com ↗
Chatbot automation platform for Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and SMS marketing.
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No rating captured yet
Crisp
Crisp · crisp.chat ↗
Multichannel messaging platform combining live chat, chatbots, shared inbox and a knowledge base.
How this list is built. Platforms are placed in this category by their
public positioning, and ordered alphabetically by company name — this is a reading order,
not a ranking, and it does not indicate quality, popularity, or evidence strength. Ratings appear only where captured
from a named review source with a capture date; a missing number means no qualifying evidence stored,
not a judgment about the vendor. Vendor and review links are unpaid and carry nofollow.
Sponsored placement, where it exists, is labeled separately and never reorders this list.
Claim or correct a profile.
Choosing between these is the easy part.
Making them work together is the job. Opsmarshal architects, integrates and governs GTM stacks for B2B teams — the same control plane that maintains this terminal.
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