Flarum vs Zammad
A side-by-side comparison of Flarum and Zammad on what each one charges, what it meters, and which plan every capability actually sits on.
The short answer
2 of the 6 capabilities tracked on both differ.
| Measure | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | Free | Free, then $7/seat/mo |
| Charged per | Not published | Each agent seat |
| AI billed at | Not published | $0.03 per AI interaction |
| Included, where the other says no | 0 capabilities | 2 capabilities |
Capability by capability
2 of the 6 capabilities tracked on both products differ.
Channels
| Capability | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| IncludedEmail digests are named alongside in-browser notifications as the built-in engagement channel, with real-time websocket updates available as an extension. | IncludedStarter v2 EUR 7. In the free self-hosted build. | |
| Live chat | NoNo chat channel in core. Real-time websocket extensions exist for live updating discussions, which is not the same as a support chat widget. | IncludedProfessional v2 EUR 16. In the free self-hosted build. |
| Voice | Not published | IncludedVia CTI integrations: a generic CTI connector, Placetel and sipgate.io, on all editions. Zammad is not itself a telephony provider and publishes no per-minute price. |
| SMS | Not published | IncludedStarter v2 EUR 7. In the free self-hosted build. |
| Not published | IncludedPlus v2 EUR 25. In the free self-hosted build. | |
| Instagram / Facebook | Not published | IncludedFacebook only, from Plus v2 EUR 25. Instagram is not listed as a channel. In the free self-hosted build. |
| Microsoft Teams | Not published | IncludedIntegration shipped in 6.0. All editions. |
| Community forum | IncludedThe whole product. Groups and permissions with per-category access control, built-in moderation and flagging, a choice of Markdown or WYSIWYG editors, in-browser notifications and email digests. | Not published |
Ticketing
| Capability | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| Shared inbox | NoNo inbox, no ticket and no agent workspace. Flarum is a discussion forum and nothing else. | Not published |
| Ticket queues | NoNo ticket object, queue, assignment or SLA. | Not published |
| SLA policies | Not published | IncludedTicket SLAs from Professional v2 EUR 16. In the free self-hosted build. |
| Business hours | Not published | IncludedStarter v2 EUR 7. In the free self-hosted build. |
| Macros / saved replies | Not published | IncludedStarter v2 EUR 7. In the free self-hosted build. |
| Custom fields | Not published | IncludedPublished as individual ticket objects, from Professional v2 EUR 16. In the free self-hosted build. |
| Ticket forms | Not published | IncludedPublished as Web Form. Starter v2 EUR 7. In the free self-hosted build. |
Routing & automation
| Capability | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| Triggers | Not published | IncludedTriggers and schedulers from Starter v2 EUR 7. In the free self-hosted build. |
| Workflow builder | Not published | IncludedCore Workflows from Plus v2 EUR 25. In the free self-hosted build. |
AI resolution
| Capability | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| Autonomous resolution agent | NoNo AI of any kind in core, and no AI pricing surface, because there is nothing to price. | NoZammad's AI is agent-facing throughout: summaries, writing assistance, attribute detection, routing, text extraction and tagging. No customer-facing agent that closes a conversation without a human is published, and nothing in the pricing is denominated in resolutions. |
AI assist
| Capability | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| Reply drafting | Not published | IncludedAI Writing Assistant. Same gate and the same EUR 0.03 per AI call. |
| Summarization | Not published | IncludedAI Ticket Summary. Professional v2 EUR 16, then EUR 0.03 per AI call. Free self-hosted against your own LLM. |
| Auto-tagging | Not published | IncludedAI Ticket Tagger, alongside AI Agents for attribute detection and routing and an AI Text Extractor for order, invoice and customer IDs. |
Knowledge base
| Capability | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| Public help center | NoNo knowledge base, article model or versioning. A forum thread is not a documented article, which is the practical difference when a support team is choosing where answers should live. | IncludedKnowledge Base, monolingual from Professional v2 EUR 16 and multilingual from Plus v2 EUR 25. Both in the free self-hosted build. |
| Custom domain | IncludedSelf-hosted, so the domain is whatever the operator points at the server. Nothing to buy and nothing to unlock. | Not published |
| Localization | Not published | IncludedMultilingual Knowledge Base from Plus v2 EUR 25. In the free self-hosted build. |
Reporting
| Capability | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| Prebuilt dashboards | Not published | IncludedStandard Reporting from Plus v2 EUR 25, with Grafana and Elasticsearch access at the same tier. In the free self-hosted build. |
| Raw data export | IncludedDirect database access rather than an export feature. Posts, users, groups and extension tables live in the operator's own MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite or PostgreSQL instance. | Not published |
Enterprise
| Capability | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| SAML SSO | Not publishedNot core, and not established. Flarum ships a deliberately minimal core where "most of the features that ship with Flarum are actually extensions", and authentication beyond the built-in accounts is left to the community package ecosystem. Whether a given SSO extension exists, is maintained and supports Flarum 2.x has to be checked package by package. | IncludedThird-party authentication has shipped since 3.0, so it is in the free self-hosted build. The hosted pricing page does not itemise SSO per tier, so the hosted gate is Unknown. |
| Role-based access control | Included"Assign permissions to groups, control member access across categories, and keep things tidy with built-in moderation and flagging." Group-based permissions are core rather than an extension, and there is no tier that withholds them. | Not published |
| Custom roles | Not published | IncludedIndividual roles from Professional v2 EUR 16. Role management shipped in Zammad 2.0, so the free self-hosted build has it at no cost. |
| Audit logs | Not published | IncludedTicket history sits in Starter v2's standard features at EUR 7, and in the free self-hosted build. It is not an enterprise upsell here. |
| SOC 2 | NoNot a gap in the software, a category error. Certification attaches to whoever operates a service, and here that is the customer. No SOC 2, ISO 27001 or any other attestation exists or can exist for a project that runs nothing, and any compliance claim about a Flarum forum is a claim about the operator's own hosting. | Not publishedNot claimed on any page read. |
| ISO 27001 | Not published | IncludedISO/IEC 27001:2022, certified 2026, covering the ISMS and infrastructure including the APIs and data pathways used for AI integration. Hosted plans additionally run in an ISO27001-certified data centre. |
| Data residency | IncludedAbsolute, by construction: the data is wherever the operator puts the server. No region list, no plan gate and no vendor to ask, which is a stronger position than any hosted competitor in this category can offer and comes with correspondingly more responsibility. | IncludedGermany, listed on every hosted tier including Starter v2 at EUR 7. Not customer-selectable, because Germany is the only region offered. Self-hosted instances sit wherever you put them. |
Developer
| Capability | Flarum | Zammad |
|---|---|---|
| REST API | IncludedAn API exists and is the basis of the extension model: "Build your own, or commission custom development — the API makes it possible." It is a developer surface for building against the application rather than a documented integration endpoint with a published reference of the kind hosted vendors publish. | IncludedDocumented REST API on all editions including the free self-hosted build, with SLAs exposed as a resource. |
Both entries last checked Sep 9, 2026.
What Flarum costs
- Billing unit
There is no price and no paid tier - Free tier
Yes - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Full
What Zammad costs
$7/seat/month
7 published plans, billed annually- Billing unit
Per agent - Free tier
Yes - AI pricing
$0.03 per AI interaction - Vendor calls it
AI call - Human handoff
Not published - Reopened chat
Not published - AI billing window
Not published - Data export
Self-serve - Automation export
Partial
3 of 9 not published by Zammad, checked