Top Drift Alternatives: Find Your Perfect Customer Messaging Solution

Drift is a powerful platform that helps businesses connect with their customers through targeted, behavior-driven messages, in-app communication, and AI-powered conversational experiences. It allows companies to understand user behavior, streamline sales and support, and deliver personalized experiences at scale. However, as excellent as Drift is, it might not be the perfect fit for every business. Whether you're looking for a more budget-friendly option, a specific feature set, or a different approach to customer engagement, exploring a reliable Drift alternative is a smart move.

Best Drift Alternatives

To help you navigate the vast landscape of customer messaging and live chat solutions, we've compiled a list of the best alternatives to Drift. Each offers unique strengths, from open-source flexibility to comprehensive feature suites, ensuring you can find a platform that aligns perfectly with your business goals.

tawk.to

tawk.to is a popular live chat application that allows you to monitor and chat with visitors on your website. It's a fantastic freemium Drift alternative, available across a wide range of platforms including Mac, Windows, Linux, Web, Android, iPhone, and even specific browsers like Chrome and Safari. Its features include chat history, robust customer service and support, helpdesk ticketing, and visitor tracking, making it a comprehensive solution for real-time customer engagement.

Intercom

Intercom offers a unified platform for sales, marketing, and support, providing customer messaging apps all in one place. As a commercial Drift alternative, it runs on Web, Android, and iPhone, and boasts powerful features like email automation, encrypted chat, knowledge base structuring, live chat, onboarding tools, and detailed user profiles. It's ideal for businesses seeking an all-in-one customer communication ecosystem.

HelpCrunch

HelpCrunch is an all-in-one customer platform offering modern live chat, email marketing automation, and ticketing software. This commercial SaaS solution, available on Web, Android, and iPhone, is a strong Drift alternative, especially for small to medium-sized businesses. Key features include automatic messages, integrated chat, Slack integration, CRM capabilities, customizable chat widgets, email tracking, and pricing per agent.

Userlike

Userlike provides free live chat and customer messaging software for web and popular messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. As a freemium SaaS solution for the web, it serves as a robust Drift alternative, particularly for those focused on multi-channel support. Its features include a chat bot, real-time analytics, comprehensive customer support, support for multiple users, live broadcasting, real-time collaboration, and SMS messaging.

Crisp

Crisp is designed for entrepreneurs, focusing on easy customer interaction. Its chatbox can be set up in minutes. As a freemium Drift alternative, it's available on Mac, Windows, Linux, Web, Android, and iPhone. Crisp offers essential features like customer support, integrated chat, a knowledge base, online chat, unlimited users, and user profiles with location data, making it a simple yet effective tool for engaging website visitors.

Zendesk Chat

Zendesk Chat, formerly Zopim, offers a fast way to engage customers with live chat software. It’s a freemium web-based solution and a powerful Drift alternative, especially for businesses already using or considering the broader Zendesk suite. Its key features include efficient chat functionalities, robust live chat, and workflow automation, simplifying customer conversations and support.

Chatwoot

Chatwoot stands out as an open-source, self-hosted alternative to Intercom, Zendesk, and Drift. It offers a free solution for those who prefer more control over their data and infrastructure. Key features include an agent dashboard, a customizable chat widget, CRM capabilities, and comprehensive customer service and support through live chat, making it an excellent choice for developers and privacy-conscious businesses.

Smartsupp

Smartsupp provides live chat for websites and webshops, helping businesses turn visitors into happy customers through personal conversations. This freemium SaaS Drift alternative is available on Web, Android, iPhone, Windows Phone, and iPad, with self-hosted options too. Notable features include user session recording, visitor recording, automatic messages, canned responses, a chat bot, customer feedback tools, Facebook integration, and detailed statistics and reports.

Olark

Olark is a commercial web-based solution that comes with a wide range of features to customize and manage your live chat experience. It's a simple yet jam-packed Drift alternative focusing on ease of use. Its core features revolve around robust customer support and online chat, making it an efficient tool for businesses prioritizing straightforward and effective real-time communication.

Plumm

Plumm offers a single collaborative customer support dashboard for all your projects, enabling seamless chat with customers and team members from one workspace. As a commercial SaaS Drift alternative, it excels in collaboration. Key features include comprehensive customer support, helpdesk ticketing, real-time collaboration, a shared inbox, live chat, and team messaging, making it ideal for unified communication and support.

Choosing the right customer messaging platform is crucial for your business's growth and customer satisfaction. While Drift is a powerful tool, these alternatives offer diverse options, whether you're prioritizing budget, specific features, platform compatibility, or the flexibility of open-source solutions. Explore these top Drift alternatives to find the perfect fit for your unique needs and elevate your customer engagement strategy.