· On October 19, 2016, Zammad went live. Seven years later, the open-source solution has gained great popularity among numerous companies in the world of customer service. In this open letter, Martin Edenhofer, Founder and CEO, reflects on the Zammad journey and fondly recalls the early years.
Today is Zammad’s 7th anniversary! It's a significant milestone that we celebrate with great joy. We're proud to have not only overcome the so-called "seven-year itch," a challenge often faced by young businesses, but to have done so intentionally and through dedicated effort.
Reflecting on all we've achieved over these seven years fills me with immense pride. In 2016, I launched Zammad and since then, we've evolved from a young open-source software to a self-sustaining company in an industry dominated by big players. With annual growth of over 85% in 2021 and over 90% in 2022, Zammad is proof that an open source company can be both profitable and beneficial for everyone.
As we move forward, I look back at many successful moments, valuable lessons learned from our setbacks, and the incredible teamwork that is our most vital ingredient. It's not just a concept for us: Teamwork is deeply ingrained in our very name and our DNA. Zammad is Bavarian and stands for "together" - and that's what we're all about: together with our users, we solve their challenges. Together with our customers, we engage in their needs. And together with our community, we work on Zammad.
It feels as if it were just yesterday when the first line of source code was written. This journey was sparked by my recognition that existing solutions fell short in providing all the necessary features and integrations required for everyday support. It became clear to me that someone had to step up and rectify this, and I realized that it could be me.
Joined by like-minded software enthusiasts, we embarked on the Zammad project. After an extensive research, development and testing, we released our code to the world, which still forms the core of our software. To ensure its accessibility to everyone, I established the Zammad Foundation as the home of the open-source project. To this day, we proudly continue to provide Zammad as a complete Open Source version, free from the necessity of an enterprise edition.
Following the release of Zammad 1.0, our dedication to open source was acknowledged through multiple prestigious awards, including the Bronze OSBAR Open Source Award in 2016 and the Thomas-Krenn-Award in 2017. However, it was the first 500 GitHub stars from our passionate community that really blew us away.
These recognitions fueled our determination. We’ve continued to optimize user experience, introducing new features that streamlined processes, ultimately reducing the workload for support agents.
The word of our open-source alternative spread rapidly and by 2017, we had already recorded 120,000 downloads of Zammad. Despite this success, we were aware that there were still some features missing from our repertoire, which hindered larger companies from making the switch to our open-source system.
To bridge this gap, we introduced Zammad 3.0, complete with a strong knowledge base, followed by Zammad 4.0 with powerful reporting capabilities. These additions further solidified our position as a comprehensive and competitive solution for customer support.
In 2022, we also hit another important milestone, reaching a total of 1,500 paying customers and over 1 million downloads. This year was also marked by a crucial accomplishment: the translation of our software into 47 languages, making Zammad even more accessible for a global audience.
The current year has started on a positive note, and we are ready to carry this momentum into 2024. With the introduction of Zammad 6.0, we have strengthened our tech stack, unlocking a wide array of possibilities for future improvements. These advancements enable us to overcome previous technical challenges, making Zammad well-equipped for adoption by large companies.
I would like to extend my special thanks to all our customers for their loyalty and positive feedback. It is your support that empowers us to consistently refine and improve Zammad. Also, a huge thank you to our users for being part of the Zammad story. I look forward to the incredible things we will do together in the next years.
Rest assured, we will continue to explore ways to enhance Zammad and better serve our user base.
— Martin Edenhofer, CEO and Founder of Zammad