I’ve launched an open-source project called GOTRS - a modern ticketing system written in Go that maintains compatibility with OTRS databases.

The Problem

OTRS and its forks have powered IT service desks for decades, but they’re showing their age. Perl monoliths with complex deployment requirements don’t fit modern container workflows. Upgrades are painful. Running on Kubernetes requires workarounds.

Meanwhile, organisations have years of ticket data they can’t abandon. The choice seemed to be: stay on legacy software, or lose your data migrating to something modern.

Our Solution

GOTRS takes a different approach. We built a modern Go application that reads and writes the same database schema as OTRS. Your existing data stays intact. Your existing integrations keep working.

Version 0.1.0 establishes the foundation:

• Security-first auth with JWT tokens and RBAC - no more legacy session handling
• OTRS schema import supporting all 116 tables for seamless migration
• Complete ticket lifecycle including articles, canned responses, and file storage
• Container-native deployment with Docker and Podman from day one

The Benefits

Organisations can now modernise their ticketing platform without a risky data migration. Deploy GOTRS alongside your existing OTRS instance, verify it works, then switch over. The same database powers both.

For new deployments, you get a Go application that compiles to a single binary, runs in containers without gymnastics, and handles modern security requirements properly.

Server-rendered HTML with HTMX keeps things fast without JavaScript build complexity. No webpack configs to maintain. No node_modules to manage.

More updates to come as development continues. If you’re interested, the project is at gotrs.io.