Guide · As of 6 Nov 2026 · The-Y CRM 1.1.58

Self-hosted helpdesk and customer service platform on your own server

Your customer data should live on your own server. And you don't want to pay per agent. That leaves two routes: put together an open-source tool yourself, or install a ready-made package with a licence key. This page shows what each route costs, what you gain and what you give up, how the installation works, which server you need and what you maintain afterwards.

Get a free key Read the guideCreate a free account, then Settings → License → “Create free key”. No credit card.

Up front

The-Y CRM is not open source. The source code is not open; the software is proprietary. You can still self-host it with a licence key: free with the Free limits (up to 3 users) or without limits for €10 a month or €240 one-time (Alpha & Beta prices). Think of it as a self-hostable alternative to commercial support suites. If open code matters most to you, the open-source tools below are a better fit.

What self-hosting The-Y means

The same software as our cloud. The features are the same; you just run the server.
A licence key instead of open code. You enter the key in the app (Settings → License). Without a key the installation runs fully for 14 days, then read-only.
Free key: 3 users, 1 brand, 2 GB, 1,000 outgoing messages and 200 outgoing call minutes per month, 2 simultaneous calls; no support.
Without limits: Founder €10 a month or Lifetime €240 one-time during Alpha & Beta (from the Live release €20 a month or €480). Both are the same licence – one as a subscription, the other perpetual.
Licence check: about once an hour your installation checks in with us. It only sends the licence key, an installation ID and the version number.
Your data stays on your server. No DPA with us needed – we are not a processor there.
Updates: automatic at night with update.sh. It backs up first, checks afterwards and rolls back to the previous version if something fails.

Self-host or let us host?

Route	To The-Y	Limits	Server
Free in our cloud	€0, free forever	3 users, 1,000 outgoing messages and 200 outgoing call minutes per month, 2 simultaneous calls, 2 GB	we run it: servers in Austria (Vienna data centre)
Cloud Pro	€20 a month per company, all users and brands included (Alpha & Beta price; €40 from the Live release)	no volume limits on messages and minutes, up to 10 simultaneous calls, 10 GB storage	we run it: servers in Austria (Vienna data centre), with updates and backups
Self-hosted with a free key	€0	same as Free, no support	you run it, plus your server costs
Self-hosted without limits	€10 a month or €240 one-time (Alpha & Beta)	no licence limits	you run it, plus your server costs

Licence and Cloud Pro prices are total amounts incl. any VAT, businesses only. Example server at netcup: VPS 500 (2 cores, 4 GB) €8.26 net a month, VPS 1000 (4 cores, 8 GB) €14.50 net a month, retrieved 9 Oct 2026. Every cost item, including WhatsApp, SMS and phone: What The-Y CRM really costs.

Self-hosted helpdesks compared: what you gain, what you give up

If you search for a self-hosted helpdesk, you'll meet these projects. They are mature and cost no licence. The difference is what you have to add yourself.

Tool	Source code	Self-hosted cost	Channels	Phone system	Server
Zammad	open (AGPL-3.0)	software free	email, web form, SMS, chat, Telegram, Facebook, WhatsApp	connects an external phone system only	from 2 cores and 6 GB RAM, 4 GB more with Elasticsearch
FreeScout	open (AGPL-3.0)	core free; features as paid modules, one-time per instance (e.g. WhatsApp $4)	core email only; WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, SMS (via Twilio) and live chat as modules	none	PHP with MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL; Docker only via a third-party image
osTicket	open (GPL-2.0)	free, all features	email, web forms, API	none – “phone” is only a ticket source	Apache, LiteSpeed or IIS with PHP 8.2–8.4 and MySQL; no official Docker image
Chatwoot	core open (MIT), enterprise part proprietary	Community $0 – without AI, voice calls, own branding, roles, SSO; Premium $19, Enterprise $99 per agent a month	web chat, email, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, LINE, TikTok, WhatsApp, API; SMS via Twilio or Bandwidth	calls via Twilio Voice or WhatsApp Calling, self-hosted from Premium	recommended 4 cores, at least 4 GB RAM
UVdesk	open (OSL-3.0), Community Edition	free	email mailboxes; WhatsApp not mentioned	not mentioned	PHP 8.1, MySQL 5.7.23 or later, 4 GB RAM or more
The-Y CRM	not open, proprietary	free key, or €10 a month / €240 one-time	email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, SMS, web chat, phone – one inbox	built in; self-hosted at no extra charge, the installer sets it up if you want (see below)	Docker, from 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB SSD

Zammad, FreeScout, osTicket and Chatwoot according to their official websites, docs and GitHub, details and sources in our comparisons (Zammad, FreeScout, osTicket, Chatwoot, retrieved 10 and 26 Oct 2026). Zammad channels as listed for the Plus plan on zammad.com/en/pricing (self-hosted, the software is free) and hardware per docs.zammad.org, FreeScout WhatsApp module price per freescout.net, UVdesk per its GitHub page – all retrieved 6 Nov 2026. Chatwoot prices in US dollars per agent and month as shown by Chatwoot. “Not mentioned” means the project page says nothing about it; third-party add-ons may exist.

What you gain with The-Y

a built-in phone system with IVR, queues and voicemail, calls in the same inbox as email and WhatsApp (self-hosted: no extra charge, the installer sets it up if you want),
a CRM with deals and pipeline, plus invoices up to the export for your tax advisor,
one installer instead of several tools and modules,
one flat licence instead of paying per agent.

What you give up

the source code – you can't read or change it,
community modules and plugins,
full independence – the installation checks its licence online,
years of maturity – The-Y CRM is Alpha.

Install it in four steps

Rent a server. Linux with root access, from 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM and 40 GB SSD. If Docker is missing, install it with curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh.
Point your domain at the server. An A record, for example crm.your-company.com, to your server's IP address.
Run the installer: curl -fsSL https://the-y.at/install.sh -o install.sh && bash install.sh. It asks for your domain, admin email and company name and creates all passwords itself. Then yes/no questions: daily backups, nightly updates, server hardening (firewall, fail2ban, automatic security updates) and, since 1.1.58, whether to set up the phone system as well. If Plesk, cPanel or another web server is already running, it switches to proxy mode.
Log in and enter your key. Open https://your-domain, log in with the admin account and enter the key under Settings → License. You create the free key beforehand in your free account on crm.the-y.at, also under Settings → License.

Two things that trip people up

The .env file holds the key APP_ENCRYPTION_KEY. Without it, stored credentials (mailboxes, integrations) can't be read any more. Keep the file off the server, for example in your password manager.
Many cloud providers block outgoing mail ports (587, 465). Then receiving works, but sending doesn't. Check on the server: nc -zv your-mailserver 587. Fix: ask your provider to unblock the ports.

Full guide: setting up self-hosting →

Server size calculator

Enter what happens on your side. The highest number decides the size – just like in our server requirements. Contacts barely count; for the server they are almost free.

People on your team Emails per day Simultaneous calls (at most at the same moment; 0 = no phone system) Call recording Recorded minutes per month Marketing messages per month New attachments per month (GB) Translation on your own server (optional)

–

Server

SSD

Example servernetcup, retrieved 9 Oct 2026

Licence to The-Y

Telephony

How it calculates: sizes and limits from the server requirements (Small up to ~5 people, ~500 emails a day, 1–2 simultaneous calls, ~2,000 marketing messages a month; Medium up to ~20 people, ~3,000 emails, 10 calls, ~20,000 messages; above that Large). Values in between count toward the larger size. Storage: a 40 GB base plus 12 months of growth (recordings ~1 MB per minute, plus your attachments, translation ~1.2 GB), with a 20% reserve on top (our assumption) and 3 GB kept free for updates. Telephony: ~170 kbit/s per simultaneous call. Guide values, no guarantee.

Phone system on your own server

When self-hosted, the built-in phone system is an add-on at no extra charge. Since 1.1.58 the installer asks whether to set up the phone system as well – with “yes” it sets it up on your server, credentials and standard announcements included. Already installed? Add it with bash install.sh --add-phone. This works on Linux servers running Docker directly, because voice runs in the host network. Everything else – inbox, email, WhatsApp, CRM, invoices – runs without it.

A fixed public IPv4 address (no CGNAT; IPv4 only). On a home connection, for testing only.
Open ports: SIP 5060/udp, audio 10000–20000/udp, coturn 3478 (udp and tcp) and 49152–49252/udp. 5038 and 8188 stay closed from outside.
Bandwidth: about 170 kbit/s per simultaneous call, stable and in the upload too.
Simultaneous calls: at most 2 with a free key; no plan limit with the licence without limits. A configurable cap applies to the whole server (default 80).
Phone number: from your SIP provider, currently sipgate, Zadarma or Twilio.

Phone system when self-hosting → · Server requirements, ports and bandwidth →

Maintenance checklist

Self-hosting means you are the operations team. Put these points in your calendar.

Once after installing: store .env off the server. Have backups copied to a second place too (offsite target, the installer asks for it).
Daily, automatic: backup of database and files. With a monitoring URL (for example healthchecks.io) it reports when something goes wrong.
Nightly, automatic: updates with update.sh. bash update.sh --probe shows beforehand what would happen.
Weekly: a test restore with bash restore-test.sh. It restores the latest backup into a throwaway database and leaves your real data alone.
Ongoing: an uptime check on /api/public/health. HTTP 200 means healthy, 503 means a problem.
Monthly: look at disk and memory. Updates need at least 3 GB free; keep about a fifth of the RAM free.

Self-hosting operations: backup, updates, monitoring →

When another tool fits better

Choose something else if …

open source code is a must for you or you want to change the code – then Zammad, FreeScout, osTicket or UVdesk,
you only need email tickets and open source matters – then Zammad serves you well,
your installation must never talk to a licence server – The-Y checks its key online,
you mainly want web chat and channels such as Telegram, LINE or TikTok – then look at Chatwoot,
you need long-proven software today – The-Y CRM is Alpha.

Choose The-Y CRM if …

tickets, CRM, WhatsApp and a phone system should run in one program,
you don't want to hunt for modules and add-ons,
you want a flat price instead of paying per agent,
you want to keep the option of letting us host later – it's the same software.

Frequently asked questions

Is The-Y CRM open source?

No. The source code is not open; The-Y CRM is proprietary software by The-Y e.U. from Vienna. You can still run it on your own server with a licence key. Your data then stays with you and can be exported at any time.

What does it cost to self-host The-Y CRM?

With the free key you pay us nothing and get the Free limits: 3 users, 1,000 outgoing messages and 200 outgoing call minutes per month, 2 simultaneous calls, 2 GB. Without limits, the licence costs €10 a month or €240 one-time (Alpha and Beta prices; from the Live release €20 or €480). You pay for the server yourself, for example €8.26 net a month for a small server at netcup (as of 9 Oct 2026).

Which server do I need?

To start, 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM and 40 GB SSD with Linux and Docker are enough. Most companies do well with 4 vCPU and 8 GB. You mainly need more for many simultaneous calls with recording and for large marketing sends, not for many contacts. The calculator on this page shows the right size.

Does the self-hosted version phone home?

Only for the licence: about once an hour your installation checks its key with us. This sends us the licence key, an installation ID and the version number. If our server can't be reached, it keeps running normally for 14 days, then read-only until the check works again. Nothing is deleted.

What happens to my licence if The-Y ceases to exist?

Then all self-hosted installations – with a free key, a monthly licence or a lifetime licence – first get a final update that removes the licence check and all usage limits. After that they keep running for free, without limits and indefinitely; your data is on your server anyway. This is also in our Terms of Use.

Is there a free self-hosted helpdesk?

Yes. Zammad, osTicket, the FreeScout core and the UVdesk Community Edition cost no licence; you pay for the server and do the maintenance. The-Y CRM is free self-hosted with a free key for up to 3 users, with the Free limits – then with inbox, WhatsApp and CRM in one.

Get a free key and try it on your server.

Create a free account, generate the free key under Settings → License and run the installer. Want to look first? The demo shows everything with sample data and is deleted after 24 hours.

Create a free account Try the demo – no sign-up Guide: setting up self-hosting

No server of your own? Then we host it: Cloud Pro costs €20 a month per company, all users and brands included, servers in Austria (Vienna data centre).

Sources

The-Y self-hosted (installer, licence key, 14 days without a key, updates, phone system): Self-hosting guide, server requirements, self-hosting operations; licence check, data, no DPA, backups: Security & operations; final update if we stop: Terms of Use; prices and limits: costs page
Zammad: zammad.com/en/pricing (channels) and docs.zammad.org (hardware), retrieved 6 Nov 2026; licence and telephony per our Zammad comparison
FreeScout: freescout.net/module/whatsapp ($4, lifetime licence for one instance), retrieved 6 Nov 2026; licence, modules, Docker per our FreeScout comparison
osTicket and Chatwoot: per our osTicket and Chatwoot comparisons (sources listed there, retrieved 10 and 26 Oct 2026)
UVdesk: github.com/uvdesk/community-skeleton, retrieved 6 Nov 2026
Server prices: netcup.com, retrieved 9 Oct 2026 (as on the costs page); open points of the Alpha: Known Issues

Zammad, FreeScout, osTicket, Chatwoot, UVdesk and netcup are trademarks of their respective owners. This overview is independent and made to the best of our knowledge; please report errors to office@the-y.at and we'll correct them right away.