By platform
Live chat for plain HTML
One script tag, then every message arrives in your Telegram. Including the three ways this specifically goes wrong on plain HTML, which is the part the install docs leave out.
Last checked 1 September 2026
Live chat by platform/plain HTML
The short answer
How do you add live chat to plain HTML?
Immediately before the closing body tag.
With TGLiveChat that is one tag and about five minutes. The widget is roughly 26KB across 3 requests, replies arrive in Telegram rather than in another dashboard, and your visitors need no Telegram account of their own.
What plain HTML is, briefly
A static site, a hand written page, or anything served as HTML without a framework or a CMS in front of it.
The install, step by step
- 1Open the page or the shared footer include.
- 2Paste the script immediately before the closing body tag.
- 3If you have many pages and no include, add it to your template or build step rather than to each page by hand.
- 4Load the page and send a test message.
The full walkthrough with screenshots is in the install guide.
The three ways this goes wrong on plain HTML
Every one of these is a real failure that looks like a broken widget and is not. They are the reason this page exists rather than just a link to the docs.
Putting it in the head without defer blocks rendering
A synchronous script in the head stops the parser until it downloads. For a chat widget that is the worst possible placement. Before the closing body tag is correct and needs no attributes.
A strict Content Security Policy will block it
If you serve a CSP header, the widget origin needs to be allowed in script-src and connect-src. The browser console tells you exactly which directive refused, and that message is the fastest route to the fix.
Pasting it once per page means updating it once per page
Fine for three pages, painful for thirty. If your site has no template layer, a two line include is worth writing before you paste the script anywhere.
What plain HTML gives you instead
None, by definition. A static site has no chat unless you add one, which is also why static sites tend to stay fast: everything on them was a deliberate decision.
What a chat widget costs a plain HTML page
This is the case where widget weight matters most in relative terms. A static page can be 30KB in total. Adding a 749KB chat widget to it makes the chat widget twenty five times the size of the site it sits on.
| Widget | Transfer size | Versus ours |
|---|---|---|
| Tawk.to | 749KB | 29x heavier |
| Zendesk Chat | 533KB | 21x heavier |
| Drift | 464KB | 18x heavier |
| LiveChat | 385KB | 15x heavier |
| Intercom | 301KB | 12x heavier |
| Crisp | 155KB | 6x heavier |
| LiveAgent | 79KB | 3x heavier |
| TGLiveChat | ~26KB | Baseline |
Competitor figures are DebugBear's measurements, published 14 July 2019 and updated 10 November 2025. Ours is measured by gzipping the files we serve, and the command is on our methodology page.
Why the replies land in Telegram
The reason most small sites end up with a dead chat widget is not the widget. It is that answering means opening a dashboard that nobody keeps open, so messages sit unread for six hours and visitors stop bothering. Telegram is already open on your phone, so a message from your website arrives the same way a message from a friend does.
Your visitors see none of that. They get a normal chat window on your plain HTML site, they need no account, and they never learn which app you answered from. The AI agent handles the questions that have obvious answers while you are asleep, and hands anything else to you.
The bottom line
Adding chat to plain HTML is one tag in the right place. Getting it to keep working is about the platform specific traps above, and about whether you will actually answer the messages once they arrive.
The free plan covers 100 conversations a month and does not ask for a card, which is a faster way to find out than reading any more of this.
Frequently asked questions
How do I add live chat to a plain HTML site?
Is there a free live chat for plain HTML?
Will a chat widget slow down my plain HTML site?
Do my visitors need Telegram?
Why does the widget not show up on my plain HTML site?
What is the native plain HTML option?
Can I remove the branding?
How long does the install actually take?
Sources and references
- DebugBear: How Do Different Chat Widgets Impact Site Performance? Published 14 July 2019, updated 10 November 2025. Source of every competitor weight figure above.
- web.dev: Largest Contentful Paint The Core Web Vital that third party scripts move most on a content page.
- How we measure our own widget The command, the numbers, and the four figures we published wrong and corrected.