10 Free Website Chat Widgets to Make Your Site Interactive

Aug 27 2010 by Phong Thai Cao | 51 Comments

If you want to make your website livelier, then adding a website chat widget is perhaps one of the more effective solutions for increasing user engagement and growing your community.

By putting a proper website chat widget on your site, you will get real-time feedback from site visitors regarding your product, services, or content. For sites that sell services or products, a chat widget will definitely help you communicate with your visitors in real-time and potentially make more sales.

This is a collection of 10 free website chat widgets that you can install on your websites.

1. Chatango

Chatango

Chatango is a customizable chat room add-on that anybody can install in their website. The main advantage of using this website chat widget is that users can have their own avatar. It also offers different user roles that give participants privileges for becoming moderators and administrators.

2. Meboo.me

Meboo.me

Meboo.me is a product of Meebo.com — a popular web-based IM platform service. Whether you are using Typepad, Blogger or WordPress, Meebo.me is just ideal for any of these platforms. The most advantageous part of adding a Meebo.me chat box in your webpages is that it is compatible with Gtalk, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, as well as with Facebook. Hence, the visitors of your website do not need to register to interact through it. They can use their existing Gtalk or Facebook username to stay in touch with your website.

3. JWChat

JWChat

JWChat is an Ajax-powered chat script. It only uses JavaScript and HTML, making it an ideal solution for those who want to quickly get a chat widget up and running. It functions like a traditional IM client, with system sounds notifying you of events like if someone sent an IM, support for emoticons, and more.

4. CBox

CBox

CBox attempts to merge the features of traditional desktop IM clients with the benefits of the social web. The user interface is straightforward, the installation is a snap, and is plug-and-play because it only relies on client-side JavaScript and HTML. CBox is free, but there is a premium version available for $2.00 a month with additional features like bigger bandwidth, no ads displayed, and custom word filters.

5. Mibew Web Messenger

Mibew Web Messenger

Mibew Web Messenger, which also calls itself Open Web Messenger, is a free and open source chat messenger that was built with PHP and MySQL. This chat application was developed with live customer support in mind, but works well in other contexts.

6. AjaxChat for WordPress

AjaxChat for WordPress

This free website chat script is a plug-in for adding live chat functionality to a WordPress installation. It enables WordPress users to chat with other visitors on your blog without refreshing the browser.

7. AJAX Chat

AJAX Chat

As you can probably conclude by its name, AJAX chat uses client-side JavaScript to enable you to run a robust chat client on your website. It can also be used as a shoutbox, a site feature that allows your visitors to quickly leave a message and "shout out" to other visitors and the site admins.

8. phpFreeChat

phpFreeChat

This free PHP-based chat system is highly customizable and is packed with features you’d only expect in desktop clients. It supports the ability to create multiple chat rooms, private messages, custom themes using CSS, and Ajax for a smooth and seamless user experience.

9. iJab

iJab

This web-based IM client, developed using the Google Web Toolkit is free and uses Ajax to simulate a client desktop IM client. iJab can be a great solution for implementing a similar Facebook chat feature that people can use within their web browser while perusing your website.

10. Ajax IM

Ajax IM

Ajax IM is a slick and open source web-based IM client for your website. It’s lightweight, weighing only 78KB on a good day (i.e. when minified). By default, it affixes itself at the footer of your web pages, similar to Facebook’s web-based chat client.

About the Author

Phong Thai is the Web Developer with over 5 years of experience in PHP, JavaScript, and CSS. He is the creator and administrator of JavaScriptBank.com: a new generation of JavaScript resources that provides thousands of free JavaScript, DHTML, tutorials, videos, examples, reference and help. Follow him on Twitter or connect with him on Facebook.

51 Comments

Steve

August 27th, 2010

Great article there are a few out there for chatroom style effects, another one for Live web support is http://www.webhelp.co.uk and is also free by the looks of it.

everlearner

August 27th, 2010

Nice collections. Chat widgets are very useful for interaction between website visitors and site owners.

How about shoutmix? It is also a free chat widget (also have premium version).

Chris

August 27th, 2010

Pretty sweet collection! I never thought about putting a chat on any of my websites, and now that I think about it, I could probably drop it on almost all of them! Thanks again!

david

August 27th, 2010

Interesting post, i have never used any of these Chat Widgets before, but i imagine it will not be long until a client wants one.

Matthew Wehrly

August 27th, 2010

+1 for Mibew Web Messenger. I have utilized on several projects and never had issues. Thanks for the great list!

Exionyte

August 27th, 2010

A couple of these plugin could come in handy. Thanks!

ddeja

August 27th, 2010

Cbox is the clear winner for me.

As for the rest. Most of them do not have demos to show me how they work.

Some are complete solutions which I do not need.

And Mibew Web Messenger is not a chat widget it’s something more like web help or something:) Why would I want to give my email for anyone without reason?:) That’s just crazy;)

Young

August 27th, 2010

I’ve checked out a good number of these in the past, but never had the time to decipher the code and deploy. I’d like to learn more about bandwidth strains, buddy list customization etc…

Rochelle Dancel

August 27th, 2010

Oh, wow, thank you for this super useful collection :)

venkat

August 27th, 2010

very good collection, those are very useful for web designers

esranull

August 27th, 2010

very usefull post thanks a lot

James Wade Weaver

August 27th, 2010

Thanks for all the great tips. Love the site!

Eko Setiawan

August 28th, 2010

Great resources, meboo.me look simple and elegant…
Thanks

Rupnarayan Bhattacharya

August 29th, 2010

Great article. Surely I shall be using some of the widgets in my sites.

ben

August 29th, 2010

thinking of a chat widget for my wordpress blogs. Is it awesome or something in the past? Remind me of blogspot.

imran khan

August 29th, 2010

meboo is great looking chat widget…

Great Article!! This is what i was looking for .. Thanks

pixeltoxhtml

August 29th, 2010

Thanks for sharing “CBox” look Clean and crisp

Mal

August 30th, 2010

What about LiveZilla?

Tyler

August 30th, 2010

This is a great list! Thanks.

Anyone know of a good AJAX web IRC client that I can host myself? I am using PJIRC and it seems really bloated.

Andrew

August 30th, 2010

There is also my personal favorite:

http://www.plugoo.com/

It works with your existing IM account, and the website visitor doesn’t have to have any existing account. They just enter their name and start chatting with you.

Melanie

September 2nd, 2010

I’ve used Ajax Chat for several months on a client’s site. It’s easy to install, configure and style, and so far has been very stable.

Robert

September 24th, 2010

FCChat is another free chat widget:

http://www.fastcatsoftware.com

The idea of this widget is to place it on every page of your web site, so that your visitors stay interconnected as they browse your site.

Pavel

November 29th, 2010

the new one chat widget:
http://p3chat.com

HTML5 based; Nice-looking Web interface; integration with GTolk, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo!; no pop-up window.

Rick

December 6th, 2010

This was very helpful in helping us to locate some potential replacements for our current chat system, x7chat. Now we have some good options to test out. Thank you.

indonix

January 3rd, 2011

Excelent information. We use meebo because it has more feature..

Designerix

January 20th, 2011

WOW. coolest one :)

Marvin Peacock

February 2nd, 2011

thanks I added the first one, just what I was looking for

Pandji

February 28th, 2011

Thx for sharing,

Akashj

March 13th, 2011

Thanks 4u

zack

April 11th, 2011

good 1 for web t y

Charlie

April 12th, 2011

You can also add ChatWing.com to this list. It’s free and it’s also easy to implement and use. Best of all, websites can have a piece of ChatWing’s advertising profits.

Rodney Burton

June 3rd, 2011

Great article, another Free one is http://www.livecontact.us – It works with any kind of website, even plain HTML. You don’t have to install anything, just copy/paste a couple lines of script on your page and then stay logged into YOUR OWN website so your visitors can chat with you. You can even have the interactive company profile replace your entire Contact Us page, if you want. It’s free because we have a premium service that supports Click-2-Call so your website visitors can click a button and make their phone ring your phone (like a toll free #), without you paying an 800 monthly fee. That part costs 5.9 cents a minute and is optional. There is no ads or spam. We are also working on adding the capability to see who is on your website (live), and proactively pushing chat requests to them. Please check it out.

Dan

June 18th, 2011

For those who like me mistakenly came to this page being in search of a free WEB chat, can checkout http://getch.at

Nikki

June 20th, 2011

This one never seems to make the lists but it’s been the most reliable, user friendly, non pain in the butt option for years…just customize, get the script, add it where you want it, log in and chat. There are no ads anywhere. No user limits. No refresh – it’s live chat. It’s as private as you want it. It’s an IRC chat room. I’ve looked for embeddables but always end up coming back to this option, making a stand alone chat page, embedding my favorite music players to jam while chatting… give it a shot!

http://www.freejavachat.com

LiLi

July 14th, 2011

You should add to this list service called http://www.rumbletalk.com

What is nice about it is that it has nice skins
and that you have the ability to actually design a chat.

James Tamplin

July 30th, 2011

Also check out Envolve (www.envolve.com) – They run one of the best services out there and are constantly innovating.

William Shamburg

August 3rd, 2011

Informative article. Is there a chat widget that can be put on a website that will connect with a messaging service or app on smart phones so that if a prospect client goes to your site and initiates a chat to ask questions, you can answer back to them immediately from your mobile phone?

Basavant Kutre

August 19th, 2011

its very helpful to me.. thanx

Adson

August 22nd, 2011

I have used ChatBox from http://www.chatbutton.com/
Its simple to use.. with Google+

Stevedammy

September 4th, 2011

This is really great and i love it

Diana

September 7th, 2011

Have you heard that meebo is going to shutting down there live chat widget.?
http://blog.meebo.com/?p=3877

Now meebo is shutting down there system, I highly recommended this best
alternative live chat widget which is the CHATWING. check this out, http://www.chatwing.com

Jeff

September 12th, 2011

check out this http://www.flashvoicevideochat.com and http://www.pinguchat.com and http://www.buzzerchat.com

Nonoy

September 17th, 2011

I’m planning to place a chat widget on my post, not on my homepage. I hope one from your list can able to do that. Thanks for this great list. :-)

rebelyn

October 11th, 2011

visit me if you are willing to communicate!!!

kpss

October 25th, 2011

Thank you very, very …

Sultan Mahmud

November 9th, 2011

Chaudhri

November 19th, 2011

Cbox is good……

Ridwan Shafi

November 20th, 2011

I am using the website and want online customer support but my website does not support PHP and that is sad :-( So I consider using meebo.me as chatango is not user-friendly

Rick

November 21st, 2011

Hey guys we just launched a free AJAX based chat widget service where in you get to create your own chat room with admin functions, its free, has no adds, no user limits and is yours to the true sense of the term. Just signup, follow the instructions fill up the chat details that suit you and your chat will be ready, just copy the code that we give you and paste it in your site and your chat will be up and ready. visit us at http://www.techbreeze.in/chat