Looking for Elfsight alternatives that go beyond static widgets? Elfsight offers 80+ widget types but its chat widget lacks AI, real-time messaging, and deep customization. It is a contact button, not a communication tool. These 10 alternatives deliver actual AI chatbots, live messaging, and multi-channel support for your website.
| Tool | Starting Price | AI Chatbot | Channels | Best For | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boei | $14/mo with AI | Included | Included | 50+ | Best overall value |
| Tidio | Free / $29/mo | $0.50/conv | $59/mo extra | ~10 | E-commerce |
| Crisp | Free / $25/mo | $95/mo plan | $95/mo plan | ~6 | EU teams |
| tawk.to | Free | $29/mo add-on | No | 1 | Zero budget |
| Chatbase | $40/mo | Included | Yes (via integration) | 1 | Simple AI chat |
| GetButton | Free | No | No | 20+ | Simple contact button |
| LiveChat | $20/agent/mo | Separate product | Via integration | 5 | Agent teams |
| Chatfuel | $14.39/mo | Included | Yes | 3 social | Social media |
| HubSpot Service Hub | Free / $45/mo | Included | Higher plans | 8+ | HubSpot users |
| Kommunicate | $40/mo | Included | Yes | ~5 | Mobile apps |
Before diving into the alternatives, here is why website owners leave Elfsight for chat and contact needs. Four issues come up repeatedly.
1. AI chatbot is separate and limited. Elfsight recently added an AI Chatbot widget that can train on custom data and hold real conversations. But it is a standalone widget, separate from their chat contact button. The free plan allows only 50 messages. You may need two Elfsight widgets (chat + AI chatbot) to cover basic needs, while alternatives bundle everything in one.
2. No real-time messaging. The Elfsight chat widget does not offer actual live chat. It redirects visitors to WhatsApp, Messenger, or email by opening those apps. There is no built-in inbox, no conversation history, and no way to respond in real time.
3. Per-widget pricing adds up. Elfsight charges per widget and per site. Want a chat button, a contact form, and a social proof notification? You are paying for three separate widgets. Costs add up fast for businesses with multiple sites.
4. The chat widget lacks depth. Compared to dedicated tools, the Elfsight chat widget has limited customization. You cannot set up automated flows or route conversations to team members. There is no conversation analytics or deep CRM integration.
Elfsight sells each widget separately — chat widget, WhatsApp widget, social icons, contact form — and the costs stack up. Boei unifies all communication into one widget with over 50 channels including WhatsApp, Messenger, live chat, email, phone, Telegram, and Signal.
What sets Boei apart is the AI chatbot. Your AI assistant answers visitor questions based on your website content. It hands off to a human agent when needed and works 24/7. The AI chatbot add-on costs $6/month for 2,000 replies. The widget is also deeply customizable with positioning, colors, icons, greeting messages, and page-level targeting.
Pricing is simple. The base plan is $8/month per domain for the widget, inbox, contacts, and analytics. Add the AI chatbot for $6/month (2,000 AI replies). Add live chat agents at $6/month each. That is $14/month with AI. Compare that to Elfsight where a single chat widget on a PRO plan costs more without AI or real messaging.
Weaknesses:
Best for: Businesses that want a professional, multi-channel contact widget with AI at a clear price.
Pricing: $8/month per domain. $14/month with AI chatbot. 7-day free trial, no credit card.
See how Boei compares to Elfsight.
Tidio has carved out a strong position in e-commerce. It is popular among Shopify and WooCommerce stores. It combines live chat with AI-powered chatbots for product recommendations, order status, and abandoned cart recovery.
The AI chatbot, called Lyro, resolves a good share of customer questions without human help. It learns from your FAQ content and support docs, then handles conversations naturally. The catch is per-conversation pricing. At $0.50 per AI conversation, costs can rise fast for high-traffic stores.
WhatsApp integration exists but requires the Tidio+ plan starting at $59/month. That puts it out of reach for smaller businesses. The free plan works for basic live chat. But the best features like AI, WhatsApp, and advanced analytics are locked behind higher tiers.
Weaknesses:
Best for: E-commerce stores that want AI-assisted sales and support with deep platform integrations.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans from $29/month. AI conversations charged separately.
Crisp is a French-built customer messaging platform that takes data privacy seriously. This is a big advantage for European businesses navigating GDPR. It offers live chat, a shared inbox, a knowledge base, and chatbot features in a clean interface.
The platform supports around six messaging channels: email, live chat, Messenger, and Instagram. WhatsApp integration is only on the $95/month plan. That plan also unlocks AI-powered chatbot features. The free tier gives you basic live chat for two agents, a fair starting point for small teams.
Crisp stands out with co-browsing and video chat on higher plans. Support agents can see a visitor's screen or start a video call from the chat widget. These features are great for complex support cases but come at a premium price.
Weaknesses:
Best for: EU-based teams that value data privacy and want a polished messaging experience.
Pricing: Free for 2 agents. Pro at $25/month. Unlimited at $95/month.
tawk.to is the most well-known free live chat tool on the market. It gives you a full live chat widget with no usage limits, no conversation caps, and no time restrictions. The core product is free, making it the obvious pick for businesses that cannot invest in paid tools yet.
The trade-off is clear: you get live chat and only live chat. There is no built-in AI chatbot, no WhatsApp integration, and no multi-channel features. If you want AI to handle conversations, tawk.to offers it as a paid add-on at $29/month. That somewhat undercuts the free positioning.
The widget is customizable and the dashboard works fine, but the interface feels dated next to newer competitors. Branding removal also requires a paid upgrade. If you strictly need a free live chat box on your website, tawk.to delivers.
Weaknesses:
Best for: Solo entrepreneurs and small businesses that need free live chat and nothing more.
Pricing: Free. AI assistant add-on at $29/month. Branding removal at $19/month.
Chatbase focuses on one thing: letting you build an AI chatbot trained on your own data. You upload documents, paste your website URL, or connect your knowledge base. Chatbase then creates a conversational AI that answers visitor questions from that content.
The platform does not try to be a multi-channel hub. WhatsApp is available via integration, but there is no Messenger and no shared inbox for your team. It is primarily an AI chatbot widget that you embed on your site. If you want to automate FAQ responses and cut support tickets, this simplicity is a plus.
Pricing starts at $40/month with a fair number of AI conversations included. The chatbot matches your brand colors. You can adjust the AI personality and response style. It connects with Slack and Zapier for notifications. But the core experience is a standalone chat bubble.
Weaknesses:
Best for: Businesses that want a simple AI chatbot without a full communication platform.
Pricing: From $40/month. Free tier available with limited messages.
GetButton is the closest alternative to what Elfsight actually does with its chat widget. It gives you a floating button that links to various messaging apps. You pick from 20+ channels and the widget shows them as clickable icons. When a visitor clicks one, it opens that app.
There is no AI, no live chat inbox, no conversation tracking, and no automation. GetButton is upfront about this: it is a contact button, not a messaging platform. The widget just makes it easy for visitors to reach you through their preferred app. It is free for basic use.
The lack of any intelligence or inbox means you manage conversations across multiple apps by hand. For businesses that get a few inquiries per day, this works. For anything more, you will feel the limits fast.
Weaknesses:
Best for: Freelancers and micro-businesses that want a simple floating button linking to their messaging apps.
Pricing: Free. Premium plans available for customization.
LiveChat is a mature, enterprise-grade live chat platform built for support teams. It has a solid agent dashboard with chat routing, canned responses, workload management, and performance analytics. If you have five or more agents handling customer chats, LiveChat is built for that.
The platform does not include an AI chatbot. That is a separate product called ChatBot, sold on its own. WhatsApp works through third-party connectors but is not a native feature. This split approach means you may end up paying for multiple products to get what some alternatives bundle in one plan.
Per-agent pricing at $20/month per agent means costs grow with your team. A ten-person support team costs $200/month before adding AI or integrations. The product is polished and reliable, but the pricing model gets expensive for growing teams.
Weaknesses:
Best for: Businesses with dedicated support teams that need agent management tools.
Pricing: From $20/agent/month. ChatBot sold separately from $52/month.
Chatfuel specializes in AI-powered chatbots for social media. It covers Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp. If your customer conversations happen mainly on social channels, Chatfuel is built for that.
The platform has a visual flow builder for creating automated conversation sequences. You can set up lead qualification, product catalogs, appointment booking, and FAQ automation. The AI uses GPT-5 to handle natural language beyond the scripted flows.
The limit is the narrow channel focus. Chatfuel does not provide a website chat widget in the usual sense. It is built for social platforms. If you need live chat on your website alongside social messaging, you will need a second tool.
Weaknesses:
Best for: Businesses whose customer interactions happen mainly on Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
Pricing: From $14.39/month. Usage-based pricing on higher tiers.
If your business already runs on HubSpot's CRM, the Service Hub's chat features plug right into your contact records, deals, and tickets. Every chat conversation shows up in the contact timeline. Your team gets full context without switching tools.
The free tier includes basic live chat and a simple chatbot builder. AI features, WhatsApp, and advanced automation need the Starter plan at $45/month or higher. The chatbot builder is decent but less powerful than dedicated AI platforms. It works best for structured flows, not open-ended AI conversations.
For businesses not already on HubSpot, adopting Service Hub just for chat does not make sense. The value comes from CRM integration. But for current HubSpot users, adding chat to their website is effectively free. It also gives conversation context that standalone tools cannot match.
Weaknesses:
Best for: Businesses already using HubSpot CRM that want chat in their existing workflow.
Pricing: Free tier available. Starter at $45/month. WhatsApp on Professional plan and above.
Kommunicate positions itself as a support automation platform with strong mobile app integration. It offers native SDKs for iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter. This makes it easy to embed chat into mobile apps, not just websites.
The AI chatbot is built on large language models and trains on your docs and FAQ content. It works with Dialogflow, Amazon Lex, and IBM Watson for teams that use existing NLU tools. WhatsApp and Telegram are available on all paid plans.
At $40/month as the entry point, Kommunicate is not cheap. The price makes sense if you need mobile app chat with AI. But for website-only use, several alternatives on this list offer more value for less.
Weaknesses:
Best for: Companies that need AI-powered chat in their mobile apps alongside their website.
Pricing: From $40/month. 30-day free trial available.
| Feature | Elfsight | Boei | Tidio | tawk.to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base widget | $5/mo (1 widget) | $8/mo (50+ channels) | Free (basic chat) | Free (live chat) |
| AI chatbot | Not available | $6/mo (2,000 replies) | $0.50/conversation | $29/mo add-on |
| Static link only | Included | $59/mo plan | Not available | |
| Total with AI + WhatsApp | Not possible | $14/mo | $59/mo+ | Not possible |
For a dedicated chat and contact widget, Boei offers the best mix of features and price. It includes 50+ communication channels and an AI chatbot. The base plan is $8/month per domain, or $14/month with AI. Unlike Elfsight, it provides actual messaging rather than static widget displays.
Yes, Elfsight recently added an AI Chatbot widget that trains on your custom data and holds real conversations. It starts with a free plan (50 messages) and paid tiers for more volume. However, it is a separate widget from the chat contact button. You need two Elfsight widgets to get both multi-channel contact links and AI chat, which adds to the per-widget cost. Dedicated tools like Boei bundle AI chatbot and multi-channel contact in a single widget.
Elfsight is a widget marketplace with 80+ widget types including social feeds, galleries, forms, countdowns, and chat buttons. Each widget serves a different purpose, and chat is just one of many. A dedicated chat tool like Boei, Tidio, or Crisp focuses on visitor communication. It offers deeper features like AI chatbots, conversation routing, analytics, and real-time messaging.
Boei, Tidio, Crisp, Chatfuel, HubSpot, and Kommunicate all support WhatsApp. Pricing varies a lot. Boei includes WhatsApp at $8/month (base plan). Tidio requires the $59/month plan. Crisp requires the $95/month plan. Chatfuel includes WhatsApp on all paid plans from $14.39/month.
Yes. tawk.to offers completely free live chat. GetButton provides a free multi-channel contact button. Crisp, Tidio, and HubSpot all have free tiers with basic live chat. Free plans usually lack AI chatbot features and advanced channel integrations though.
Boei and GetButton both let you show multiple messaging channels in a single widget. Boei supports over 50 channels including WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Signal, live chat, email, and phone. GetButton supports 20+ channels as clickable links. Most other tools on this list focus on fewer channels but offer deeper features within those channels.
Elfsight is a solid widget marketplace, but it is not a communication tool. If you need a chat widget that actually chats with AI, real-time messaging, and multi-channel support, a dedicated alternative will serve you better.
For the best mix of channels, AI, and pricing, Boei gives you 50+ channels at $8/month per domain. Add the AI chatbot for $6/month (2,000 replies). 7-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Try Boei free and see how it compares to your current setup.
Article by
Ruben is the founder of Boei, with 12+ years of experience in conversion optimization. Former IT consultant at Ernst & Young and Accenture, where he helped product teams at Shell, ING, Rabobank, Aegon, NN, and AirFrance/KLM optimize their digital experiences. Now building tools to help businesses convert more website visitors into customers.
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