Live chat software or Live Support Software , Live Help software is a term for live messaging applications designed specifically to provide online assistance to visitors of a web site. Live chat software enables the operator or webmaster of a web site to receive and respond to text chat message from the web site online. By using live chat software, webmasters often are anticipating increased interactivity and trust with the website visitor and increased sales.

From a list of live support software (applications), there are some that use JavaScript, Java or Flash Player to run directly inside the browser. These online applications differ from classic software mostly because Website visitors don't have to install anything on their PCs and they can communicate freely with website's online agents. There are also live support software that goes beyond basic text chat, and offer such advanced communication capabilities as true VoIP (Voice over IP), application sharing, remote view, real-time website traffic monitoring, and remote form filling.

The majority of live support applications open in a window and connect the user to a member of "call center" staff. The more advanced scripts allow the users to be queued, so that one member of staff can deal with a customer and then automatically move on to the next customer. The customer's position in the queue is sometimes displayed.

Live support applications are typically written using PHP and ASP.NET utilizing backend databases such as MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server. PHP and MySQL are commonly used due to the fact that they are open source and effectively free. Making it highly probable that companies webservers will have the capability to run PHP scripts. As stated before a wide variety of techniques are used to create the display which the user receives.