We've tried systems like OSTicket, OTRS etc, but never found anything to our liking. Most systems were cluttered, slow or too advanced. Brimir is simple but usefull.
Self hosting is a huge benefit I think for these systems. I'd love to see you charging for the self-hosted version. Just because it's open source doesn't mean you can't charge for it.<p>Will some people dig into the source and find a way to pay you nothing? Certainly. But how many people will pay if your default setup screens ask them to and makes it dead simple? Hosting the service is basically free for the resources this is going to consume. Most of your costs are probably development and bugfixing, right? So aren't you giving away the farm?<p>Making it ridiculously easy to set this up while self hosting shouldn't decimate your bottom line. Adding some monthly or annual license for the self-hosted version shouldn't dissuade strangers from submitting pull requests. The world would be a better place if more SaaS companies could demonstrate it's possible to drive revenue even in a self-hosted and open source model.<p>I don't really know if it would work, but it would fun to see you try, and write-up the experience so we can follow along!<p>Without seeing screenshots it's hard to know the right price, but I would guess at least $49 - $79/year. Or just put a slider with a recommended default payment based on the number of support tickets in the DB and see what happens.<p>Fanatical support is such a cornerstone of startup culture, if your product moves the needle on "happier customers for each support manhour" it's worth $1000s even for a small business with just a single full-time support person on staff.
For comparrsion, I've been using django-helpdesk which has been pretty solid since deployed end of 2008.<p><a href="https://github.com/RossP/django-helpdesk/" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/RossP/django-helpdesk/</a>
I've been comparing services in this space for a bit, and I've always felt unsure of inserting this into our CS workflow.<p>One immediate question that comes to mind is, how well does this support something like eBay's email support system? I know that Zen Desk was inconsistent with these emails: <a href="https://support.zendesk.com/entries/21305048-eBay-integration" rel="nofollow">https://support.zendesk.com/entries/21305048-eBay-integratio...</a>