Search for OTRS today and you will find two different things wearing the same famous name: an unmaintained free edition from 2020 and a commercial product. The free system you actually want lives under a new name - Znuny. Here is what happened, and the simple rule for choosing in 2026.
This is the one page to read before downloading anything. OTRS was open source for two decades, and that history is exactly what now traps people: old download pages, old tutorials and old copies of the Community Edition are still everywhere, and installing them today means running internet-facing software that has had no security patches since 2021. The community's answer was a fork - same code, same way of working, actively maintained. That fork is Znuny, and it is where every new install should start.
In December 2020, OTRS AG announced - with very short notice - that support for the free Community Edition would end on 1 January 2021, and in February 2021 the edition was suspended indefinitely. There is no Community Edition 7 and there never will be. OTRS AG now sells only its commercial product. The scale of what was stranded is worth knowing: even the Wikimedia Foundation ran its volunteer response system on the Community Edition and had to migrate away. Nothing about the old code broke overnight - it simply stopped being looked after, which for software that reads your email is the one thing that matters.
Znuny is a fork of the last Community Edition, started in 2021 by Znuny GmbH - the company of Martin Edenhofer, the original creator of OTRS. Its stated goal is compatibility: existing configurations, add-ons and habits carry over, and OTRS 6 administrators feel at home immediately, down to the same folder layout and installer. It is free and open source under the GPL, developed in the open, and it is what the Wikimedia Foundation migrated to. A second maintained fork, OTOBO, also exists for those who prefer its direction.
Install Znuny. You get the system the video demonstrates - same queues, same agents, same mail engine - with a living project behind it and patches when vulnerabilities are found. Choose the commercial OTRS only if your organisation specifically wants a vendor contract and vendor support, which is a legitimate reason, honestly priced as a commercial product. And the one firm rule: never put a fresh Community Edition 6 install on the internet in 2026, however many old tutorials recommend it.
The full OTRS helpdesk installation with every screen shown live - server, database, installer and first login.
▶ Watch Full VideoYes. Znuny is published under the GNU General Public License, the same open-source licence family the Community Edition always used. You can install and use it without licence fees; the company behind it earns from optional professional services.
That migration is exactly what Znuny was built for, and it is the path most old installations took. Take a full backup first, follow the documented upgrade path for your version, and test the result on a copy before switching the live system.
Deliberately not. Znuny keeps the interface, concepts and configuration style of OTRS 6, so training material and administrator experience carry over. The differences are under the surface - maintenance, fixes and continued development.