
Quick Comparison Table
Platform | Best For | Free Plan Features | Starting Paid Price | Website |
---|---|---|---|---|
Tidio | Small to medium businesses | Basic live chat, limited chatbots | $29/month | https://www.tidio.com |
Chatfuel | Social media automation | Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp bots | $12/month | https://chatfuel.com |
Landbot | Interactive landing pages | 100 conversations/month | $40/month | https://landbot.io |
Smartsupp | Small businesses | 100 conversations/month, visitor tracking | $14/month | https://www.smartsupp.com |
ProProfs Chat | Customer support | Forever-free plan available | $9/seat/month | https://www.proprofschat.com |
HubSpot Chatbot | CRM integration | Free chatbot builder | Included in paid HubSpot plans | https://www.hubspot.com |
Tawk.to | Budget-conscious businesses | Completely free forever | Free | https://www.tawk.to |
Botpress | Developers | Open-source, self-hosted | Free (open-source) | https://botpress.com |
Rasa | Advanced AI developers | Open-source framework | Free (open-source) | https://rasa.com |
Wit.ai | NLP-focused bots | Free API access | Free | https://wit.ai |
In today's digital landscape, businesses of all sizes are leveraging artificial intelligence to enhance customer engagement and streamline operations. AI chatbots have emerged as powerful tools that provide instant support, qualify leads, and automate repetitive tasks around the clock. The best part? Many robust chatbot platforms now offer free plans or open-source options that make this technology accessible to everyone, from startups to established enterprises.
Whether you're running an ecommerce store, managing customer service for a growing business, or simply looking to improve visitor engagement on your website, there's a free AI chatbot platform designed to meet your needs. This comprehensive guide explores the top free chatbot solutions available in 2025, helping you choose the right platform for your specific requirements.
Top Free AI Chatbot Platforms
1. Tidio
Tidio combines live chat functionality with AI-powered chatbot automation, making it an excellent choice for small to medium-sized businesses. The platform features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that requires no coding knowledge, allowing users to create sophisticated chatbot flows in minutes.
The free plan includes basic live chat capabilities and limited active chatbots, which is sufficient for businesses just starting with automation. Tidio's AI assistant, called Lyro, can automatically resolve up to 70% of customer inquiries by learning from your FAQs and providing instant answers. The platform integrates seamlessly with popular ecommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce, making it particularly attractive for online retailers.
Tidio also offers multichannel support, managing conversations from your website, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and email in one unified inbox. This centralized approach ensures that no customer inquiry falls through the cracks, regardless of where it originates.
Website: https://www.tidio.com
2. Chatfuel
Chatfuel specializes in no-code chatbot creation for social media platforms, particularly Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. With over 7 million businesses using the platform since its founding in 2015, Chatfuel has established itself as a leader in conversational marketing.
The platform's user-friendly drag-and-drop builder allows you to create functional chatbots in just minutes without any programming experience. Chatfuel is particularly effective for businesses that want to leverage the massive reach of Meta's platforms for lead generation, customer support, and sales automation.
The free plan provides basic functionality with visible branding, while paid plans starting at $12 per month unlock advanced features like unlimited subscribers and premium integrations. Chatfuel's partnership with Meta ensures secure, reliable integrations, and its incorporation of ChatGPT technology enables more natural and engaging conversations.
Website: https://chatfuel.com
3. Landbot
Landbot stands out for its focus on creating conversational landing pages and interactive website experiences. Unlike traditional chatbots that simply answer questions, Landbot enables businesses to build engaging, conversation-driven workflows that guide visitors through custom journeys.
The platform's visual builder is highly praised for its clarity and flexibility, allowing marketers to design complex flows with conditional logic, API calls, and rich media elements—all without coding. Landbot's free plan includes 100 chatbot conversations per month, making it suitable for smaller websites or those testing chatbot strategies.
What sets Landbot apart is its ability to create immersive conversational experiences that feel less like typical chat widgets and more like interactive product tours or lead qualification tools. The platform integrates with numerous external tools including Salesforce, HubSpot, and Google Sheets through native connections and Zapier.
Website: https://landbot.io
4. Smartsupp
Smartsupp blends live chat, chatbot automation, and visitor tracking into a lightweight, easy-to-install widget that's ideal for small businesses. The free plan includes 100 chatbot conversations per month along with live chat functionality, allowing you to connect with website visitors in real-time while letting chatbots handle inquiries outside business hours.
One of Smartsupp's standout features is its visitor recording capability, which lets you see how visitors interact with your website and chatbot. This insight is invaluable for optimizing both your site and your bot's performance. The platform is particularly popular among European businesses and offers strong GDPR compliance features.
Website: https://www.smartsupp.com
5. ProProfs Chat
ProProfs Chat offers a plug-and-play AI chatbot solution with a forever-free plan that combines live chat and AI in a single interface. The platform is designed for simplicity, allowing you to customize chat widgets, set up automation flows, and track conversations without any coding knowledge.
The free plan is genuinely functional rather than just a trial, making it an excellent option for budget-conscious businesses that want to provide professional customer support. ProProfs Chat integrates with various CRM systems and email platforms, ensuring your chatbot conversations sync with your existing business tools.
Website: https://www.proprofschat.com
6. HubSpot Chatbot Builder
HubSpot's free chatbot creation tool allows businesses to build conversational bots without code and deploy them on websites or Facebook Messenger within minutes. The platform uses an intuitive visual editor with ready-to-use templates that simplify the bot-building process even for non-technical users.
What makes HubSpot's chatbot particularly powerful is its seamless integration with HubSpot's CRM ecosystem. Your chatbot can personalize responses based on customer data stored in the CRM, qualify leads, trigger email campaigns after interactions, and provide continuously updated customer support. While the free version offers substantial functionality, more advanced features require a subscription to HubSpot's Marketing Hub or Sales Hub.
Website: https://www.hubspot.com
7. Tawk.to
Tawk.to deserves special mention as one of the only completely free live chat and chatbot platforms with no limitations on features or number of agents. The platform is free forever, making it an exceptional choice for businesses that want professional chat functionality without any recurring costs.
Despite being free, tawk.to doesn't compromise on features. It includes live visitor monitoring, pre-chat surveys, unlimited chat history, file sharing, and a mobile app for on-the-go support. The platform also offers a chatbot builder, though it's more basic compared to some paid alternatives. Tawk.to generates revenue through optional paid services like removing branding and hiring monitored chat agents.
Website: https://www.tawk.to
Open-Source Chatbot Platforms
For developers and businesses with technical resources, open-source chatbot platforms offer maximum flexibility and customization. These platforms are free to use, though they may require investment in hosting, development, and maintenance.
8. Botpress
Botpress is an open-source conversational AI platform that supports multiple Natural Language Understanding (NLU) libraries. It's designed to build chatbots using visual flows and small amounts of training data in the form of intents, entities, and slots. Botpress is particularly popular among developers who want the flexibility to customize every aspect of their chatbot while benefiting from a supportive open-source community.
Website: https://botpress.com
9. Rasa
Rasa is a powerful open-source framework for building contextual AI assistants and chatbots. It gives developers complete control over the conversation design and NLU pipeline. Rasa is ideal for enterprises that require on-premise deployment and have specific data privacy requirements. While it has a steeper learning curve than no-code platforms, it offers unparalleled customization capabilities.
Website: https://rasa.com
10. Wit.ai
Acquired by Facebook (Meta), Wit.ai is a free, open-source NLP platform that simplifies the creation of voice and text-based chatbots. It offers an intuitive API and supports multiple languages, making it accessible to developers worldwide. Wit.ai leverages Facebook's NLP expertise to provide accurate intent recognition and entity extraction without any cost to developers.
Website: https://wit.ai
Choosing the Right Platform
Selecting the ideal chatbot platform depends on several factors including your technical expertise, budget, intended use case, and integration requirements. If you're a small business looking for an easy-to-use solution with no coding required, platforms like Tidio, Chatfuel, or ProProfs Chat are excellent starting points. For those focused on social media engagement, Chatfuel's Meta platform specialization makes it a natural choice.
Businesses that prioritize customization and have development resources should explore open-source options like Botpress or Rasa, which offer complete control over the chatbot's functionality and data handling. Meanwhile, companies already using HubSpot's CRM will find tremendous value in their integrated chatbot builder, which leverages existing customer data to provide personalized experiences.
The democratization of AI chatbot technology has made it possible for businesses of any size to provide 24/7 customer support, automate lead qualification, and create engaging website experiences—all without substantial financial investment. The platforms listed in this guide represent the best free options available in 2025, each offering unique strengths for different use cases.
Whether you choose a user-friendly no-code platform like Tidio or Chatfuel, opt for the complete freedom of tawk.to, or dive into open-source development with Botpress or Rasa, you'll find that implementing an AI chatbot can dramatically improve customer satisfaction while reducing the workload on your support team. Start with a free plan, experiment with different platforms, and scale up as your needs grow. The future of customer engagement is conversational, and these platforms make it accessible to everyone.