48
3CX Free Live Chat, Calls & Messaging
Professional tools that come with a heavy privacy catch.
DecliningPoor rating
48/100
The plugin offers professional features for free but suffers from serious privacy concerns and broken mobile design.
Active installs
~150,000
our estimate · wp.org shows 100k+
Rating
4.6★
821 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
-27%
Declining fast
1,032 → 751 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORverified rating is 3.53★
- MINORdownloads down 27% vs a year ago
- MINORnot updated in 9 months
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Declining fast · -27% in the last year
1,032/day a year ago→751/day today
Reviews
what people actually say3CX Free Live Chat is a feature-rich and free live chat plugin that impresses some users with its professional capabilities, but is held back by serious reliability issues, a complex setup, mobile shortcomings, and significant privacy concerns around data routing through 3CX servers even in standalone mode.
What people like
- +Free plugin with a broad set of professional-grade features not easily found in alternatives×2
- +Support team is responsive and helpful when engaged×3
- +Generally works well when properly configured×2
- +Phone/call system component works well
Common complaints
- −Settings panel broken/hidden due to a CSS display:none bug, making the plugin completely unusable×2
- −Serious privacy and GDPR concern: even in standalone mode, all chat data (visitor names, emails, messages) is routed through 3CX servers without meaningful encryption control
- −Plugin became unstable and dysfunctional after updates
- −Chat widget not responsive on mobile — content is cut off×2
- −Complex, confusing configuration process with unclear or missing settings×2
- −Agents always shown as offline regardless of configuration; offline messages not delivered
- −Plugin caused the entire website to become inaccessible×2
- −No response from developers or support when the plugin stopped working entirely
- −Insufficient customisation options for mobile vs. desktop layout and offline messaging behaviour×2
- −Missing or broken language support (Polish reported as supported but absent)
- −Text input bug: spaces not registered when typing
Review trustReviews look organic
- 3.53★Verified rating — drops from 4.60★ once one-shot reviewers are removed
- 20%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2023-07-202025-01-102026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 821 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2026-01-15★★★★★Average reviewKC
- 2025-11-25★★★★★Almost perfectmusherenko
- 2025-10-22★★★★★Works flawlesslyshnalla
- 2025-04-23★★★★★Unified / Yet Disconnected ExperienceChad
- 2024-02-26★★★★★Very great !ulocateme1-shot
- 2023-08-02★★★★★Fantastiqueagenceneoh
- 2023-07-16★★★★★Works good. Support not great but hey it's freefreq32
- 2023-02-16★★★★★Very very complicated configurationAdi
- 2022-08-19★★★★★Mobile Design terriblestephaniejean95
- 2022-03-10★★★★★Privacy major issuethomasmathys1-shot
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNFor developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
723
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
690
Prior 7-day baseline
672
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
790
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
+4.8%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
14%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
2.04
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
60%
5★ share in analyzed sample
20%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
—
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
3.73 → 3.53★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered