Guide

How to add live chat to your website

Adding live chat comes down to four steps: stand up a chat server, create a widget in the dashboard, paste one snippet into your pages, and answer your first conversation. With a self-hosted tool like ZChat you own the server and the data; the snippet on your site is the only public piece.

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Step 1. Install the chat server

Download the package and install the server on the platform you already run: Windows with IIS, Linux with Nginx, or Docker. Run the included SQL scripts to create the database on your own SQL Server. The free localhost evaluation lets you do this on your own machine first, with no license and no public server required.

Step 2. Create your widget

Sign in to the dashboard and set up the widget: colors and greeting to match your brand, the pre-chat fields you want to collect, operating hours, and the department that new chats route to. If you want the AI chatbot to answer first, load a few knowledge-base articles and enable it here.

Step 3. Paste one snippet

The dashboard generates a small script snippet. Paste it into your site template just before the closing body tag so the launcher appears on every page. On WordPress, add it in your theme footer or a header-and-footer plugin; on a hand-built site, add it to the shared layout. No other page changes are needed.

Step 4. Test and go live

Open your site, click the launcher, and start a chat as a visitor. Answer it from the browser dashboard or the Windows desktop console, then confirm the transcript and satisfaction rating are stored in your database. Once that round trip works, you are live.

Try it on localhost

Practice the whole setup for free

The download includes a trial license so you can install the server, build a widget, and answer a test chat entirely on your own machine before putting it on a live site.

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Owned customer support software

Deploy live chat on your own terms, not on someone else's pricing model.

ZChat gives you the installable server, web dashboard, website widget, and desktop agent tools in one self-hosted product you buy once and keep. Run it on infrastructure you trust and connect AI only if and how you want it.

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Deployment

Install on Windows or Linux, behind IIS or Nginx, in a VM, or in Docker if that fits your stack.

Commercial model

One-time purchase, perpetual license, and no monthly per-agent bill attached to growth.

AI Flexibility

Use Ollama locally or connect OpenAI and Anthropic with your own provider accounts.