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I was going to use osTicket as my 'help desk' for my website, however I just got a little bit concerned when I realised that the clients' login details to see their support tickets are only their email address and a ticket ID. I am probably going over the top with security though, which is why I wanted to get some second opinions on how secure osTicket actually is and whether I should use it with my website. I run a software company, so chances are licence keys may be included in support tickets which are obviously sensitive information and valuable - so I want to ensure that the likelihood of a support ticket being hacked is very low.

If there is any plugins/additions to make osTicket more 'secure', I would appreciate it if you could point me to them. Otherwise if there are any more free, more suited, help desk softwares out there please let me know.

Thanks in advance

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I would not use OSTicket for help desk if security is a concern. It's fine for simple support options but since you are developing software there is a PR cost to you if you use a tool that isn't up to standards or expectations. You want your users/customers to feel that you are a professional operation all the way around...short cutting on the web site can backfire on you.

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  • This is a good point but the only problem is I can't really afford to invest in a support ticketing system, and I'm not skilled enough to write my own. I'm only just launching my online business once I get the help desk sorted so I'm only expected a very minute number of sensitive info being submitted on the support tickets, if any, at least to start with. So I don't know if security is that big of a concern, at least at the beginning whilst I get enough funds to get a more secure help desk system. Do you know of any better solutions for me?
    – Andy
    Jun 29, 2013 at 20:04
  • You could get better results by installing WordPress in a subdirectory and use its ability to have user accounts with various permission levels plus front-end post authoring to create fully private support threads. Or you could look into support ticket plugins for it. Pretty much any CMS could be wrangled into this purpose with only time investment...
    – JCL1178
    Jun 29, 2013 at 20:14
  • My main website actually uses Drupal 7 - I've had a look at the support ticketing module but I don't really understand how this works. I'll have a look at the module again but is there any better modules that more closely mimic osTicket, obviously with the login functionality
    – Andy
    Jun 29, 2013 at 20:20
  • I'm not 100% familiar with all of the Drupal modules available so I may not be the best person to ask.
    – JCL1178
    Jul 2, 2013 at 18:33
  • Ok then, thank you for your honesty. Hopefully somebody who knows more about Drupal will come along and help out. Thank you for your answer though
    – Andy
    Jul 2, 2013 at 18:38
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As an alternative to osTicket, since you're running a software company which likely includes development also, I'd recommend taking a look at Jira.

This offers an easy path for tracking and converting support issues (such as bugs) into project issues and tasks that can be assigned to individual staff or groups. For more on its features see: Jira Features

Different levels of security can also be assigned for issues and projects. See this for more on that: Jira - Configuring Security

It's not very difficult to setup (i.e., there's an installer with self-contained server), and the pricing is free to:

Open source projects that meet certain criteria, and organizations that are
non-profit, non-government, non-academic, non-commercial, non-political, 
and secular.

For commercial or academic users, there are two paid options for either their hosted service, or per user running on your server, starting at just $10 per 10 users (i.e., those accessing the application or project settings, not anonymous public access) - with a free 30-day trial.

You can see online video demonstrations of it here: JIRA Demonstration Video

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  • Thanks for your answer. Jira does look fantastic and the fact that so many well-known companies use it is encouraging! However, there are two very major problems. I can't really afford $10 each month at the minute (and I'm pretty sure I don't qualify for it free either), and even if I could, I'm only using shared web hosting so I wouldn't be able to install Jira unfortunately. It will be worth remembering for when I start making some money though, so thanks for pointing me to it.
    – Andy
    Jun 30, 2013 at 11:51
  • No problem. Hope you get to that level quickly. Bugzilla is free, but not as popular know as it used to be (many are using Jira instead). Perhaps you can upvote both our answers for the effort, and someone will come along with a suggestion that better matches what you're looking for. Good luck!
    – dan ♦
    Jul 1, 2013 at 21:46
  • Thank you for the good luck, I think I'll need it. I too hope I get to that level quickly, but right now I'm looking at any free help desk software that will integrate with my Drupal installation and users. I'm not having much luck however
    – Andy
    Jul 2, 2013 at 13:26

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