Live Helper Chat
Live Helper Chat ships MCP support, making self-hosted customer chat an AI-queryable endpoint
Comparison · Support
Request Tracker vs Chatway
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Request Tracker and Chatway — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Request Tracker vs Chatway: at a glance
What is Request Tracker?
Request Tracker maintains three branches in lockstep, and security is what sets the release calendar.
Best Practical ships RT across three concurrent branches, 4.4, 5.0 and 6.0, and coordinates security releases across all of them on the same day. The most recent pair, 5.0.10 and 6.0.3, both landed on 2026-05-20 carrying the same fixes: a privilege escalation and credential disclosure through the REST 2.0 user collection endpoint (CVE-2026-44231), SQL injection via the entry_aggregator parameter in JSON search (CVE-2026-41075), and an LDAP authentication bypass. Feature work rides along on the 6.0 branch, while 5.0 and 4.4 receive security fixes and little else.
What is Chatway?
Chatway's bot learned to read the store; now the store can listen back
Chatway is a live chat widget for small e-commerce sites, weighted toward WooCommerce and Shopify, with an AI support agent attached. The last three weeks added the two things that decide when and where the agent operates: webhooks that push conversation, contact, assignment and resolution events out to external tools from the existing Developer Tools panel, with per-event subscriptions and delivery logs; and AI Availability settings that schedule the agent by weekly time range, timezone and special dates rather than leaving it always on. Underneath, self-service and routing shipped earlier in August.
Request Tracker vs Chatway: editorial side-by-side
Request Tracker
0.0SUPPORT
Request Tracker maintains three branches in lockstep, and security is what sets the release calendar.
◆ Current state
Best Practical ships RT across three concurrent branches, 4.4, 5.0 and 6.0, and coordinates security releases across all of them on the same day. The most recent pair, 5.0.10 and 6.0.3, both landed on 2026-05-20 carrying the same fixes: a privilege escalation and credential disclosure through the REST 2.0 user collection endpoint (CVE-2026-44231), SQL injection via the entry_aggregator parameter in JSON search (CVE-2026-41075), and an LDAP authentication bypass. Feature work rides along on the 6.0 branch, while 5.0 and 4.4 receive security fixes and little else.
◆ Where it's heading
The branch structure is consolidating. RT 4.4 reached its last planned release at 4.4.9 in October 2025, with users pointed at 5 or 6, and 6.0 is where features now land: dashboard saved searches gained pagination and sorting, statuses take colors from lifecycle configuration, custom fields display multi-column by default, and keyboard menu navigation improved. The 5.0 line still gets real work but of a narrower kind, such as the inline CSS handling in ticket history that shipped with 5.0.10. Expect the same-day multi-branch security release to remain the pattern for as long as two branches are supported.
◆ Prediction
The next release is most likely another coordinated security pair on 5.0 and 6.0, with feature work continuing to accumulate only on 6.0.
Chatway
6.3SUPPORT
Chatway's bot learned to read the store; now the store can listen back
◆ Current state
Chatway is a live chat widget for small e-commerce sites, weighted toward WooCommerce and Shopify, with an AI support agent attached. The last three weeks added the two things that decide when and where the agent operates: webhooks that push conversation, contact, assignment and resolution events out to external tools from the existing Developer Tools panel, with per-event subscriptions and delivery logs; and AI Availability settings that schedule the agent by weekly time range, timezone and special dates rather than leaving it always on. Underneath, self-service and routing shipped earlier in August.
◆ Where it's heading
The product keeps widening from a widget into a support stack, and the recent work is about control and connection rather than new answering ability. The August spark grounded the AI agent in live store data; since then Chatway has added the Help Center it can point to, routing that decides who takes a conversation, an outbound event stream so other systems can react, and now a schedule that says when the AI is allowed to be the one responding. The consistent thread is that merchants are being given switches over an agent they were first given a reason to trust.
◆ Prediction
With events flowing out and a schedule governing the agent, the obvious next gap is inbound control — triggering Chatway actions from outside, or handing off to a human on a rule rather than a reply. The entries do not indicate which, and no API beyond webhooks is mentioned.
Alternatives to Request Tracker and Chatway
Other Support products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Request Tracker or Chatway.
Formbricks
Formbricks 6.0 RC cycle reveals commercial hardening: lower self-hosted cap, MCP OAuth, and Act as Beta
SolarWinds Service Desk
SolarWinds Service Desk is loading its Labs pipeline with native Entra ID automation, IT asset tracking, and compliance-ready task management.
Freshchat
Freshchat keeps product moves off the public record — changelog offers nothing to track.
Freshdesk
Freshdesk's changelog feed contains only marketing copy — no substantive release data available.
TeamViewer
TeamViewer's scraped feed contains only community marketing fragments—no actual release data.
See all Request Tracker alternatives → · See all Chatway alternatives →
Recent activity from Request Tracker and Chatway
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 16d agoChatwayConnect Chatway to other tools with Webhooks
- 19d agoChatwayMore control over AI agent availability
- 23d agoChatwayIntroducing the Chatway Affiliate Program
- 27d agoChatwayRoute chats based on visitor replies
- 1mo agoChatwayCreate your own Help Center
- 1mo agoChatwayYour AI agent can now access WordPress & WooCommerce data ⚡
- 3mo agoRequest TrackerSecurity release fixes REST 2.0 credential disclosure and SQL injection
- 3mo agoRequest TrackerSame security fixes as 5.0.10, plus dashboard and accessibility work
- 10mo agoRequest TrackerCalendar view for saved searches and memory management work
- 10mo agoRequest TrackerCSV injection fix in TSV export, with assorted updates
- 10mo agoRequest TrackerFinal RT 4.4 release closes the branch with one security fix
- 1y agoRequest TrackerRelease exists mainly to support RTIR 6.0.1
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Request Tracker and Chatway?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Chatway is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Request Tracker better than Chatway?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Chatway is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Support products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Request Tracker?
Top Request Tracker alternatives in Support are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Request Tracker alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/request-tracker for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Chatway?
Top Chatway alternatives in Support are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Chatway alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/chatway for the full list with editorial commentary on each.