# osTicket

Widely deployed GPL support ticket system whose own API only creates tickets; MCP wrappers need a companion plugin.

osTicket turns email, phone, and web-form inquiries into tickets for agents, with departments, SLAs, help topics, canned responses, and a knowledge base. It is free under GPL-2.0 with hosted SupportSystem and commercial support from the Builder. The official API is ticket creation only, so agent operability runs through third-party MCP wrappers that depend on an extra osTicket API plugin.

Alternative to: Zendesk, Freshdesk

- Capabilities: adaptable, operable
- Vertical: support-bookkeeping
- Shape: business-app
- Form factor: web-app
- Execution model: deterministic
- Provenance: human-written (recorded, never ranked)
- Repo: https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket (GPL-2.0), 3903 stars, last commit 2026-06-17
- Last activity: 2026-06-17
- Page: apps/osTicket--osTicket.html
- JSON: apps/osTicket--osTicket.json

## Use it when

- we need a plain email-to-ticket help desk that thousands of small teams already run and our own IT can host on PHP and MySQL
- we mostly need our agent to open tickets from other systems; reading and updating them is a nice-to-have we accept a plugin for

## Gotchas

- Official API is creation-only; every read or update path needs a third-party plugin and wrapper
- Recommended wrapper has 1 star and depends on the NKS osTicket API plugin being installed
- Last push 2026-06-17, inside the window but the slowest of the support picks
- GPL-2.0 copyleft

## Editions

- Free (self-hosted): Free, open source
  - source: https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket
  - binary: https://osticket.com/download
- SupportSystem (hosted): Free, closed source
  - hosted: https://supportsystem.com/

## Adaptable: make it yours

Effort: config-only (2 things to edit)

The installer copies include/ost-sampleconfig.php to include/ost-config.php with DBHOST, DBNAME, DBUSER, SECRET_SALT, ADMIN_EMAIL, TABLE_PREFIX, TRUSTED_PROXIES, and optional SESSION_BACKEND/MEMCACHE_SERVERS. Help topics, departments, SLAs, forms, canned responses, and email accounts are all admin-panel settings. Plugins (include/plugins) extend auth, storage, and the API; language packs are downloaded from osticket.com.

- Env vars: none
- Config files: include/ost-config.php, include/ost-sampleconfig.php
- Prompt files: none
- Accounts you'll need: none for self-host; SupportSystem account for the hosted edition

## Operable: what an agent can drive

Operability: wrapped. Interface: mcp at https://github.com/nks-hub/nks-osticket-mcp (third party, local).
Recommended wrapper: https://github.com/nks-hub/nks-osticket-mcp. Pushed 2026-08-18 (most recent), 14 tools: tickets CRUD, search, stats, subtickets, attachments; MIT; 1 star. Requires the NKS osTicket API plugin on the osTicket side. Runner-up: https://github.com/markus-michalski/claude-mcp-osTicket (4 stars, MIT, pushed 2026-04-01).

### Reach (partial coverage)

- Create tickets: reachable. official api/tickets.json and api/tickets.email with an API key; wrapper also creates
- Search and read tickets: reachable. wrapper description: search and tickets CRUD, through the NKS API plugin; not possible with the official API
- Update status, assign, and close: reachable. wrapper CRUD over the NKS plugin; official API states no modifications or deletions
- Reply to the user or post internal notes: undetermined. wrapper lists CRUD and attachments; reply posting not named
- Ticket statistics: reachable. wrapper description: stats
- Knowledge base and FAQ: not reachable. not in the official API or the wrapper description
- Help topics, SLAs, ticket filters: not reachable. admin panel configuration only
- Agents, teams, departments admin: not reachable. admin panel only
- Email piping into tickets: reachable. api/pipe.php and api/tickets.email accept MIME messages
- Customer self-service portal: not reachable. end-user web UI

## Code stack

- Languages: PHP, JavaScript
- Frameworks: none
- Package manager: none
- Database: MySQL
- Hosting target: self-host (Apache or IIS)

## Evidence and confidence

- formFactor: README: HTTP server with IIS or Apache, PHP 8.2-8.4, MySQL (confidence 0.95)
- executionModel: no model dependencies (confidence 0.9)
- operability: docs.osticket.com API page: creation of tickets only; nks-hub/nks-osticket-mcp description lists 14 tools over the NKS API (confidence 0.7)
- effort: include/ost-sampleconfig.php defines DBHOST, DBNAME, SECRET_SALT, ADMIN_EMAIL, TRUSTED_PROXIES (confidence 0.85)
- editions: README: completely free, GPL2; commercial support link; SupportSystem hosted edition per sourcing (confidence 0.6)
- active: gh api: pushed 2026-06-17, 3903 stars
- reach:  (confidence 0.6)

## Open questions

- SupportSystem hosted pricing (osticket.com/pricing returned 404)
- Whether the NKS API plugin is open source and maintained
- Reply and note posting through the wrapper

## Sources

- https://github.com/osTicket/osTicket (sourcing:support-bookkeeping:curated)
- https://docs.osticket.com/en/latest/Developer%20Documentation/API/Tickets.html (sourcing:support-bookkeeping:curated)
- https://github.com/nks-hub/nks-osticket-mcp (sourcing:support-bookkeeping:registries)