Papercups is shaking up the world of live customer support with its open-source chat tool - honestly, it feels like catching lightning in a bottle! Built from scratch in Elixir, this bad boy is tailor-made for those who crave a reliable, self-hosted alternative to bigwig tools like Zendesk and Intercom. And the best part? You can get it up and running in no time with a one-click deploy on Heroku. Just like that, you’re ready to chat your customers up, no strings attached. Now, while Papercups might be in maintenance mode with no major updates on the horizon, it’s still a heavyweight in its league. The core features are killer and worth highlighting. You can reply to support queries not just via email but also through SMS, thanks to seamless Twilio integration. Plus, the chat widget is a true chameleon – customizable to fit your brand, and it’s versatile enough to be embedded into your website as an HTML snippet or integrated into React, React Native, and even Flutter apps. Seriously, talk about multi-tasking! What’s even cooler, Papercups syncs up with your Slack and Mattermost channels too. So, you can handle customer messages without skipping a beat, right from your favorite platforms. Picture this: managing conversations, closing, assigning, and prioritizing tickets with ease, all while leveraging the robust backbone of Elixir that guarantees responsiveness and real-time updates. Papercups is privacy and security-conscious to the core, designed specifically for those wary of handing customer data over to third parties. The team philosophy stems from a need to keep data close to home, which is a huge plus if you’re safeguarding sensitive customer info. For added charm, there’s support for Markdown and emojis, meaning you can add a little pizzazz to your messages. Invite your team to the party, and you’re all set to deliver delightful customer support together. And if you’re itching to see how it all comes together, just hop over to their demo page and take the chat widget for a spin. Documentation? It’s all there at docs.papercups.io, and contributions are always welcome. Whether you have a tiny tweak or a major overhaul in mind, the folks behind Papercups would love to see the community pitch in. So whether you’re a tech head looking for a new chat solution or just tired of the big names in the live support arena, Papercups is worth a good look. Check out more details on their GitHub page and show some love to the contributors who’ve made this awesome project possible.