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What Is OTRS?

OTRS is a fully-managed help desk solution that includes ticketing, automation and notification. It can be configured to match your help desk's needs and comes with features such as a customer information database, knowledge base, ITIL processes, CMDB, SLA management or corporate security process management. It's an ideal solution for help desks that want to streamline communication, track and identify trends and deliver top-quality service to their customers. Try OTRS today.

Who Uses OTRS?

As a service management solution, OTRS is traditionally used by help desks, IT organizations, corporate security teams and customer service teams.

OTRS Software - Flexible agent interface
OTRS Software - Process Management
OTRS Software - Simple collaboration
OTRS Software - Instant customer info
OTRS Software - Quick simple reporting

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Reviews of OTRS

Average score

Overall
4.4
Ease of Use
4.2
Customer Service
4.2
Features
4.4
Value for Money
4.5

Reviews by company size (employees)

  • <50
  • 51-200
  • 201-1,000
  • >1,001

Find reviews by score

5
60%
4
26%
3
12%
2
2%
Abhishek
Abhishek
Assistant Manager in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Accounting, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: Free Trial
Reviewer Source

Powerful Tool for Ticket Management

4.0 last year

Comments: Its Low cost and very Effective tool for Managing Customer service. Repoting and monitoring service is very Effective.

Pros:

Its help to Create automation flow of Ticket Management. Its User-friendly. Finding and tracking issue made easy for resloving Issue.

Cons:

Can't handle multiple ticket at same time its slow down or Crashed.

OTRS Response

last year

Thanks for taking time to share your insights, Abhishek. I'll share your feedback about the multiple tickets with the team too.

Alan
Alan
Consulting Engineer in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source
Source: GetApp

Alternatives Considered:

OTRS is great for small to midsize businesses

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: It's a great daily ticket email system.

Pros:

I love the ticket handling and speed of the interface. It's basic layout offers the basics you need to get up and running with a ticketing system.

Cons:

The support is little to non-existent but that is expected with the free tier.

OTRS Response

3 years ago

Thank you for the positive words. To clarify, OTRS has both support and functionality that extend beyond what is offered with ((OTRS)) Community Edition.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Open source ITSM tool

3.0 2 years ago

Comments: It was very difficult to deploy OTRS, you need a very skilled team to achieve a minimum useful configuration

Pros:

Once you had it configured, the ticketing functionality worked well.

Cons:

The user portal was not user friendly at all, it created a lot of desafection with the users. The learning curve was too high for deployment and configuring any functionality or module.

OTRS Response

2 years ago

Thank you for taking time to share your experience, however the open source option that you're referring to is ((OTRS)) Community Edition. Rather, OTRS is actually a product supported by the manufacturer and separate from the community edition.

Martina
Martina
Photographer in Italy
Verified LinkedIn User
Photography, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

Good Experience

4.0 last year

Pros:

The processing of a ticket is a really fast process, and has the main features required to provide customers support.

Cons:

OTRS is not much intuitive, so if you're looking for an easy to use software, this one isn't for you.

OTRS Response

last year

Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts. Glad OTRS is working for your customer support needs.

Mridun
Mridun
Student in India
Verified LinkedIn User
E-Learning, Self Employed
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Best experience

4.0 last year

Comments: The versatility and adaptability of the system and the system has a server to manage incidents in an optimal manner

Pros:

OTRS's ability to generate new processes and to change those that become obsolete within the system.

Cons:

many modifiable options causing confusion when have to fix a problem.clicking on several links to get on one path

OTRS Response

last year

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Paola
Paola
manager in Italy
Verified LinkedIn User
Arts & Crafts, 2–10 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

great tool for our business

5.0 last year

Pros:

very easy to use and fast interface that helps to manage our business

Cons:

i don't like that sometime it is a bit slow

OTRS Response

last year

Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts, Paola.

Andre
Andre
System Analyst in Brazil
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Keep track of all your support calls

5.0 4 years ago

Comments: The user experience with OTRS is amazing. Being able to show all your work to the client is great.

Pros:

If properly used, with the control of calls and "learning" of errors, in addition to a quick response, it is possible to show the user everything that is happening and how it is being done.

Cons:

Its look is not pretty, however, being extremely functional, this goes unnoticed. They could have a more practical way of creating reports.

OTRS Response

3 years ago

Glad you're enjoying it. Thanks for taking time to write in.

Gustavo
Gustavo
Middleware Manager in El Salvador
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Software, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

OTRS a complex tool for the creation of Tickets.

3.0 6 years ago

Comments: My experience with this tool is to be able to follow the requirements of our customers through the Tickets in OTRS.

Pros:

This tool complies with the necessary requirements to carry out ticket controls and cases attended. It is a very modifiable tool in relation to administration.

Cons:

In my case the disadvantages of this tool is that the user interface is very cumbersome and very unintuitive. The creation of the tickets is very complicated for me. It is necessary to have previous knowledge or to have received an induction to be able to use this tool.

OTRS Response

6 years ago

Thanks for taking time to write in Gustavo. The feedback is always appreciated. I don't know if you've had a chance to see the newly released OTRS 7: the external interface was updated with this release, and that's the start of changes to come with respect to the interface. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

Omar
Omar
Technical Coordinator in US
Verified LinkedIn User
Higher Education
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Opensource framework with modern front-end and perl backend

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: Low-cost, scalabale solution that could handle multiple trouble ticket queues within one software context.

Pros:

Highly customizable. Perl backend "makes sense" and isn't opaque like some designs. It runs as a set of CGI, so that allows it to be wedged into most any webserver environment. We found it simple to run within an Apache / Linux environment.

Cons:

The CGI-based design is relatively inefficient and can be sluggish without making some optimizations on the webserver side -- mod_perl in our case (relatively complicated). Docs are a bit sparse, though customer service is responsive.

OTRS Response

7 years ago

Thanks for taking time to share your experience, Omar.

Annie
Annie
IT Service Desk in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Luxury Goods & Jewelry
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Pretty decent, but it does have a few flaws

4.0 7 years ago

Comments: IT Asset Management got easy for us. Thank you for coming up with this application

Pros:

The application is pretty quick and the administrators are able to bring about changes quickly aswell. We create FAQs and SOPs and add it to OTRS which makes it a great internal Knowledge Base. We also use it as a IT Asset management tool.

Cons:

Its not the most fanciest application, but I am used to this now and I love it. No issues in the past 4 years

OTRS Response

7 years ago

We're glad that it's helped with your IT Asset Management efforts. Thanks for taking time to share the review.

santosh
Business Head in India
Information Technology & Services, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

OTRS is a Ticket to Success

5.0 last year

Comments: OTRS helped our business to track the effectiveness of the customer support operation and helps in finding the areas of development.

Pros:

The best part about OTRS is it can be fully customizable, it is a flexible and scalable platform that can be personalized to meet the particular needs of a business.It can be easily integrated with other CRM Software.

Cons:

OTRS is complex for new users.OTRS is an open source platform where the vendor cannot provide official support which can be difficult.

OTRS Response

last year

Thanks for your input, Santosh. It sounds like you're likely using ((OTRS)) Community Edition. OTRS is a bit different.

Rajdeep
Teacher in India
Education Management, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Effective Office Management Software

4.0 last year

Comments: I can get a complete review of all tasks that have been assigned to the team. No need to waste time in setup, it allows to import device data for quickly available to use.

Pros:

OTRS office management is a pre-configured software manage work in all areas. It help to reduce workload and save our time.

Cons:

The only thing that I like least is that I found it a bit complicated.

OTRS Response

last year

Thanks for the review, Rajdeep.

Miguel
IT consultant in El Salvador
Information Technology & Services, 11–50 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

OTRS a very good tool

5.0 3 years ago

Comments: OTRS is a very complete tool to keep records of tasks, problems or incidents in an orderly or concise manner. in the same way to keep a record of time and hours invested that is very useful in resolving incidents or customer cases.

Pros:

It is a very easy and simple tool, very useful to keep track of activities that are carried out internally or by a client.

Cons:

There are small sections that can be improved, such as the creation of combo boxes for items or sections to be broken down, but in general there are few changes

OTRS Response

3 years ago

Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Internet, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

We use OTRS to register all the activities/pendencies. It is ease to use and intuitive as well.

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: The way we can centralize everything on it is real a benefit.

Pros:

The provided scalability really help us. As a new demand appears, we can set the software to fit to this new need. This is really a power way to work with software.

Cons:

When I send some e-mail to, which is related to some active ticket, the emails go agrupated, so for any new e-mail sent, all the previous text are rewritten. In some tickets, there are a lot of du- or tri or quadri-plicated emails. I know this is just something I can solve by deleting the text before sendind it to OTRS, but, it would be amazing if OTRS could append only the new text to the ticket.

OTRS Response

7 years ago

Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts about OTRS. We're glad for the feedback. I will pass along your comments about the e-mails. It may also help to know that you can submit new improvement ideas to the development team via https://otrsteam.ideascale.com/ Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Easy and Robust Software - Economical Ticketing Solution for any Organization

4.0 7 years ago

Comments: Cost effective Ticketing Software .

Pros:

This is an open source application and exactly the reason why we love it in our company. When every year the management cuts our budget, OTRS is a tool where we don't have too spend to much to get great features and also use it to address tickets and eventually delight our customers

Cons:

Vendor Support is something that I would expect to be a little better. For some changes they charge a lot

OTRS Response

7 years ago

Thank you for your review. We appreciate the feedback.

Sander
Sander
Beleidsadviseur ICT in Netherlands
Government Relations, 51–200 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Very flexible system - easier to use than to configure

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: It helps us to administer our support tickets and create FAQ articles for them.

Pros:

The ease of use and flexibility are very valuable. Also it's open source and you can run it yourself would you wish to do so.

Cons:

Interfacing with other systems is, out of the box, rather limited. You could build it yourself though. Managed hosting by OTRS is very expensive for teams with just a few members.

syed
tech engineer in India
Transportation/Trucking/Railroad, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

otrs review

5.0 3 years ago

Pros:

the most i liked about this software is it is a fastest communicating have best response with in sec which makes our daily usage more and give the best expirence in front and has the fastest resolution from the otrs tech team if any issues are given

Cons:

there only one dilike it doesnt have the productive analysis tool is it has the option it will make a best software in the filed

OTRS Response

3 years ago

We appreciate your input.

Verified Reviewer
Verified LinkedIn User
Information Technology & Services, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 6-12 months
Reviewer Source

customization makes easy issue tracking

4.0 6 years ago

Pros:

can submit and track the customer queries easily and customization can be done as per the requirement. notes can be added and the owners can be assigned easily. SLAs can be set up for escalation

Cons:

sometimes it is low in performance and when replied via email for an otrs sent request it creates another duplicated ticket.

OTRS Response

6 years ago

Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts, and we're glad to hear that OTRS has been useful to you. I'll also share your comments with the rest of the team. Much appreciated.

Hamza
Software Engineer in Pakistan
Financial Services, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

One of the best Ticketing System out there

4.0 4 years ago

Pros:

Being a part of the implementation and support team, OTRS is our daily thing it notifies us about the new assigned tickets, important followups, internal notes and provides a detailed history of all the past tickets, the power to use SQL queries to make personal filters to sort our tickets and an interactive dashboard.

Cons:

The tool is extremely powerful but the interface is not that interactive and one can miss many useful things just due to the lack of an interactive interface.

OTRS Response

3 years ago

Thank you for your review. We're glad to hear that it's working for you. You may be interested in the interface changes in OTRS 8, which offer far more individualization to agents.

Maxim
Infrastructure Specialist in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Biotechnology
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

Its handy tool to have for an organization which does not have a lot of Infra/Solution staff.

3.0 7 years ago

Comments: It's a great way to express what an application does from a User/Administrator point of view.

Pros:

It's easy to use, doesn't have a lot of field like the other ticketing apps, so makes a users life easier.

Cons:

Features, lacks a lot of features, for example, if you have a Major incident, then you can link the child tickets to it but they aren't auto-closed, which you need to do manually, which becomes a tedious task.

OTRS Response

7 years ago

Thanks for the feedback, Maxim. We appreciate it.

Georges
Service Manager in Luxembourg
Telecommunications, 201–500 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

With ITSM awareness and maturity, OTRS can be successfully adopted and adapted.

4.0 7 years ago

Comments: Organize and Improve Desk and Operation functions. The value and level of services delivered by our department/team is better understood internally. Customer expectation is managed properly, therefore leading to improvements in customer experience.

Pros:

Adaptability to agents organization and processes. ITIL orientation for ops processes and inclusion of Configuration and Knowledge management.

Cons:

Ticket to C.I. links can be better clarified and improved (impact of the relationship) C.I. Features on Customer portal (e.g. missing search function, latency to refresh large CMDB)

Rosen
Program Manager Central IT Services in Germany
Airlines/Aviation, 1,001–5,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 2+ years
Reviewer Source

OTRS is one of the best ITSM tools that I've ever seen and I'm so happy seeing its development!

5.0 7 years ago

Pros:

Incident management and request fulfillment processes are fully covered by the tool. It's highly customizable and very stable.

Cons:

There are two things: 1. Change management process is a little bit hard to implement; 2. The trend to go into the cloud. We're very conservative organization and we prefer to operate on-premise solutions.

OTRS Response

7 years ago

Hi Rosen. Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts on OTRS. We appreciate you doing so and hearing about your experience with it.

Manjunath
Senior System Administrator in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

Great Tool to work with . Its easy and fast

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: We use this as our Primary Ticketing Tool.

Pros:

We use it on a regular basis and it helps us monitor tickets and work on them. It's absolutely essential for an ITIL based service desk

Cons:

The GUI could be better. but that's nothing I'm complaining about. I like the speed at which we can change screens

OTRS Response

7 years ago

Thanks for taking the time to write a review. We appreciate the feedback!

Govinda
IT manager in India
Information Technology & Services, 501–1,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1+ year
Reviewer Source

OTRS has outstanding functionalities, usability

5.0 7 years ago

Comments: OTRS benefits are many : Integrated Business Features such as Chat and Ticket Timeline View. Free choice of exclusive features. Installation and configuration. Regular, free updates. ITIL compatible Service Management. Use OTRS Business Solution on your mobile devices

Pros:

Low cost , usability and integration with multiple app is possible. Very user friendly. Definitely will have great cost saving post implementation.

Cons:

Data encryption is not working correctly, same is tested by installing this module. Seems this error must have fixed by app development team.

Johnson
Johnson
Storage and Backup Analyst in India
Verified LinkedIn User
Computer Networking, 5,001–10,000 Employees
Used the Software for: 1-5 months
Reviewer Source

Great Open Source Software

5.0 7 years ago

Pros:

We are currently testing this product at Symphony Teleca for an internal project and so far so good. The ease of tracking tickets and problem tickets is comparable to the big players like Remedy and Service now. I like the way report generation is easy.

Cons:

I can't say since I'm currently testing it, but I can tell you that the tool is powerful but needs custom changes