How to install Chatwoot on Saplo (live chat and helpdesk for your team)

If you serve customers via chat and pay monthly per agent on Intercom, Zendesk, or Tawk.to Pro, sooner or later you'll calculate how much a team of several people costs. Chatwoot solves this differently because it's open source and you host it on your own server. You pay once for a Box, and there's simply no limit on agents, conversations, or mailboxes. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to deploy Chatwoot on Saplo.

Who is Chatwoot for?

Before you install, check if this tool suits your needs:

• You want to answer customer chats on your website, not just by email - Chatwoot provides a chat widget that you can embed on any page, and conversations go to a shared team inbox.
• You manage several brands or websites from a single panel - one Chatwoot installation supports any number of inboxes: website, email, Facebook, or Instagram, each separately.
• You're tired of paying for another agent in Intercom, Zendesk, or Tawk.to - Chatwoot is open source, with no fees based on the number of people in your support team.
• You care about automations and team statistics - rules for automatic conversation assignment, response templates, and response time reports are built-in, no extra plan needed.

If you're looking for a simple, ready-to-use widget without your own infrastructure and don't mind paying per agent, Tawk.to's free plan might still be enough. Chatwoot on Saplo makes sense when your team grows and the cost of SaaS starts to increase with it.

Requirements

To set up Chatwoot on Saplo, you need:

• A Box on the M plan or higher, because the recipe spins up four Docker containers at once (application, worker, database, Redis) and requires a minimum of 2 GB of free RAM.
• A minimum of 10 GB of disk space.
• A domain or subdomain *.saploapp.pl included in every plan, under which the agent panel and chat widget will be hosted.
• You do not manually set up a separate database. The recipe deploys its own PostgreSQL container with the pgvector extension, as Chatwoot uses it for AI functions, and the engine only has a shared database for MySQL.
• Your own SMTP server, if you want agent invitations and notifications to actually be sent by email. More on this in the first configuration section below.

Step-by-step installation

1. In the Saplo panel, go to App catalog and select Chatwoot (category "Business").
2. Select a Box plan M or higher with at least 2 GB of free RAM and a domain or subdomain for the agent panel.
3. Confirm the installation. The engine installs Docker CE if it's not already on the Box, downloads the official chatwoot/chatwoot image (about 1.5 GB), and images of its own pgvector/pgvector database and Redis.
4. Before launching the panel, the engine performs a one-time database preparation step (rails db:chatwoot_prepare), which Chatwoot requires before the first start, and only then launches both long-lived containers: the web server (agent panel and chat widget) and the Sidekiq worker in the background (notifications, emails, automations).
5. The installation takes longer than simpler recipes because it involves downloading the image, preparing the database, and starting two containers from the same image. The engine waits until both have actually started, instead of just launching them.
6. The wizard for creating the first account appears under the specified domain.

First login and configuration

1. Go to the domain you specified during installation.
2. Unlike most Saplo recipes, Chatwoot does not automatically create an administrator account, so you will do it yourself in the "Create your profile" wizard: you provide the company name, email address, and password, which becomes the first administrator account. Do this as soon as possible after installation, because until then, the panel is available to anyone who lands on the domain.
3. Add the first inbox in Settings -> Inboxes -> New Inbox -> Website, from there you will copy the chat widget code to paste on the client's website.
4. By default, Chatwoot only sets the sender header for emails, it doesn't actually send them, so if you want agent invitations and notifications to reach mailboxes, configure your own SMTP server in Settings -> Account -> SMTP Settings.
5. Full first login instructions and container log previews can be found in the CHATWOOT-SETUP.txt file in the App catalog.

Chatwoot on Saplo vs. alternatives

Frequently asked questions

Is the administrator account created automatically, like in other Saplo recipes? No. Chatwoot does not have variables for automatic account creation, so you create it yourself in the "Create your profile" wizard when you first access the domain. Do it immediately after installation, because until then the panel is open to the first person who gets there.

What database does Chatwoot use? Its own PostgreSQL container with the pgvector extension, not Saplo's shared MySQL database. The recipe sets it up automatically during installation, you do not need to set up your own database.

Are agent invitations and notifications sent automatically by email? By default, no, the installation only sets the sender header. For emails to actually reach inboxes, configure your own SMTP server in Settings -> Account -> SMTP Settings after the first login.

How many Inboxes can I connect to one installation? Unlimited. You connect a website, email or social media as separate inboxes in the same panel, each with its own widget or address.

Why does the installation require a Box M plan, and not a lower one? Because the recipe sets up four containers at once: the application, the Sidekiq worker, the PostgreSQL database, and Redis, which requires a minimum of 2 GB of free RAM. Box S usually does not have that much free memory.

It is easy to lose a chat conversation when a client returns after a month. You can manage contacts, sales opportunities, and cooperation history in EspoCRM on Saplo, without a fee per user.

If you want to stop paying for another agent in Intercom or Zendesk and have customer conversations on your own server, you can set up Chatwoot on Saplo in a few minutes. Write to us if you need help with SMTP configuration or your first inbox.