Cards / needs / AI chatbots for customers and communities
AI chatbots for customers and communities
Self-hosted alternatives to Intercom Fin, Chatbase, Tidio, Botpress Cloud and Voiceflow.
What people say
- a chatbot for my website
- an AI that answers customer questions from our docs
- a support bot
- an AI bot for our Discord, Slack, or Telegram
Why people self-host it
People leave Intercom Fin, Chatbase, Tidio, Botpress Cloud, Voiceflow for it. Why, strongest first: cost, control, privacy.
Does it suit a machine of your own?
Fits, with conditions the public talks to it, so it must stay up and its model costs must be capped; a hosted chatbot is often simpler for a small business
Questions that decide it
- who will talk to it: customers, members, or your team?
- which model: a hosted API with a spending limit, or a local one?
How to publish it
- Usually
- the chat widget or bot webhook on none, because the public and chat platforms cannot sign in; the admin and knowledge base on org; set a spending limit on any paid model API, and rate limits in the app
- When the data is private or sensitive
- the same, with only public information in its knowledge base: anything the bot can read, a visitor can get it to say
- When the data is regulated
- do not let it answer from client, patient, or financial records; send those questions to a person
Who sees what inside it
a public bot answers anyone, so its knowledge base must hold only what anyone may see
The machine
always on, so usually a small cloud server; a GPU only for a local model
Cards for it
- n8nLocked editor and open webhook hostname, one n8n processnot tested yet