The best open source CRM for small business in 2026
Seven CRMs whose code you can download, compared on what a small team pays to run them and who keeps them working.
An open source CRM is customer relationship software whose source code is published under a license that lets you run, read and modify it: you install it on your own server, or pay someone to host it. For a small business, the software is the cheap part; the server, the add-ons and the person who upgrades it are what you really pay for.
The short answer: EspoCRM for a team of 3 to 50 without a developer, Twenty if you want a modern CRM and can run Docker, Dolibarr if quotes and invoices matter as much as the pipeline, and Odoo Community if the CRM is the first step toward a full ERP.
The ranking is editorial: a sponsored spot is always labeled on its entry, and no affiliate link changes a score.
The best open source CRM for your business
Runs on PHP hosting
Modern interface, custom objectsCloud Pro $9/user/mo yearly
CRM plus quotes and invoicesFree, GPLv3
Growing into an ERPLGPLv3
Flat-fee managed hosting$20/mo, unlimited users
Deep CRM modules, 10+ usersHosting from £130/mo yearly
7 open source CRMs for small business compared
Read the "License and stack" column first: the license tells you what you may do with the code, and the stack tells you what kind of server, and what kind of person, you need to keep it running.
| Best for | License and stack | Free plan | Team size | Visit | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | EspoCRM | for a small team without a developer | AGPLv3 · PHP + MySQL | 4.0/5 | Free (AGPLv3); cloud from $15/user/mo, 3-user minimum | ✓ | 3 to 50 users | Visit → |
| 2 | Dolibarr | CRM with quotes and invoicing | GPLv3 · PHP | 4.0/5 | Free (GPLv3), self-hosted | ✓ | 1 to 20 users | Visit → |
| 3 | Twenty | modern CRM for a tech-savvy team | AGPLv3 core · Docker | 4.0/5 | Free to self-host; cloud Pro $9/user/mo billed yearly | ✓ | 2 to 30 users | Visit → |
| 4 | Odoo Community | if the CRM is step one of an ERP | LGPLv3 · Python | 3.9/5 | Community free (LGPLv3); Odoo Online Standard $24.90/user/mo first year, billed yearly | ✓ | 5 to 50 users | Visit → |
| 5 | Krayin | Best flat-fee managed hosting for a team | MIT · Laravel | 3.7/5 | Free (MIT); managed hosting $20/mo, unlimited users | ✓ | 1 to 10 users | Visit → |
| 6 | SuiteCRM | for deep, Salesforce-style CRM modules | AGPLv3 · PHP | 3.6/5 | Free (AGPLv3); hosting from £130/mo billed annually, flat fee | ✓ | 10 to 150 users | Visit → |
| 7 | Vtiger Community | known name, with a cloud path | VPL (MPL-based) · PHP | 3.4/5 | Community edition free (VPL); cloud plans from $12/user/mo billed annually | ✓ | 5 to 30 users | Visit → |
Prices read on vendor pricing pages in 2026, in the currency each vendor shows (US dollars, pounds for SuiteCRM hosting). Annual prices are marked as billed yearly.
Is your tool missing from this page? Email us: hello@hackceleration.com
How we compared and scored
We started from what a small business owner finds when searching for an open source CRM: comparison guides from tech publications, software directories and blogs. The tools they put in their headings most often (SuiteCRM, Odoo, Vtiger, EspoCRM and CiviCRM) were all reviewed, along with newer projects developers talk about. We reviewed sixteen CRMs on their license file, their pricing page, their installation docs and their repository, and read user feedback on forums and review sites.
Each CRM gets five scores out of 5, and its overall score is their weighted average: ease of running it for a small team 30%, CRM features 25%, true cost for five users (hosting, paid add-ons, cloud plan) 20%, license freedom 15%, project health (releases, contributors) 10%. Ease of running gets the biggest weight because the most common way a small business fails with open source software is not a missing feature: it is an install nobody upgrades.
CiviCRM, which three guides rank, stays out of the ranking on purpose: it is built for nonprofits, with donations, memberships and events at its core, and runs standalone or inside WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or Backdrop. If you run a nonprofit, it belongs on your shortlist. Developer teams and larger companies will find a broader field in our general open source CRM ranking. OroCRM serves B2B commerce companies with a complex setup, ERPNext and Axelor are ERPs first, and Bitrix24 and Freshsales, which some free CRM lists mix in, are not open source.
- Ease of running itServer needed, install, upgrades, admin without code30%
- CRM featuresPipeline, email and calendar, automation, reports, quotes25%
- True costHosting, paid add-ons and cloud plan for five users20%
- License freedomWhat the license lets you modify, host and resell15%
- Project healthRelease rhythm, contributors and community10%
EspoCRM
EspoCRM is a classic CRM in the Salesforce mold: accounts, contacts, leads, opportunities, cases, calendar, email sync and a knowledge base, all configured from an admin panel where you add fields, layouts and roles without writing code. It is written in PHP and runs on a plain web host: PHP 8.3 to 8.5 and MySQL 8.0 or later (MariaDB 10.6 or PostgreSQL 15 also work), plus one cron job. That is the stack most small business hosting plans already offer, which is why it is our first pick when nobody on the team writes code.
The license is AGPLv3, so the self-hosted version is free for any number of users. What is not free is the Advanced Pack, the official add-on that brings reports, workflows and BPMN business processes: $395 for a 1-year license with upgrades, per instance. If you want "when a deal is won, email the account manager", you need it. The vendor cloud includes every extension: Basic is $15 per user per month with a 3-user minimum and 100,000 records, Enterprise $25 with a 5-user minimum, both billed for 6 months or 1 year at a time.
Its limit: the project relies on a small core team, and the interface is functional rather than modern. For a field sales team that lives on phones, open the demo on a phone before you commit.
- Admin panel, no code
- Runs on shared PHP hosting
- Every extension included in cloud
- ✓Free for unlimited users when self-hosted
- ✓Roles down to field level
- ✓Email, calendar and cases in the core
- ✗Workflows and reports cost $395 a year self-hosted
- ✗Cloud bills 6 or 12 months up front
- ✗Plain, functional interface
The safest open source CRM for a small business without a developer. Pick Dolibarr instead if you also need invoices, or Twenty if your team wants a modern interface and can run Docker.
Dolibarr
Dolibarr is an ERP and CRM suite where you switch on only the modules you need: third parties and contacts, proposals (quotes), orders, invoices, payments, products, stock, projects and agenda. For a small business, that means the CRM and the billing share the same customer record, so a quote becomes an order and then an invoice without retyping anything. The latest version is 24.0.3. If invoicing is the main need, our invoicing software ranking for small business covers the dedicated tools.
It is licensed under GNU GPLv3 and written in PHP, so it installs on the same kind of host as EspoCRM. The software costs nothing for any number of users; you pay for hosting, and for any paid add-ons you pick on its marketplace. Upgrades are designed to jump from any old version to the latest without losing data, which matters a lot to a business with no IT person.
Its limit: the sales pipeline is simpler than a dedicated CRM. You get prospect statuses, opportunities and proposals, rather than the drag-and-drop pipeline and email tracking of Twenty or EspoCRM.
- Quotes, orders and invoices built in
- Turn modules on one by one
- Upgrade from any old version
- ✓Free, GPLv3, unlimited users
- ✓One customer record for sales and billing
- ✓Light enough for a small host
- ✗Basic sales pipeline
- ✗Interface looks dated
- ✗Some useful modules are paid add-ons
The best open source CRM when your real need is "from quote to paid invoice". If you mostly chase deals and emails, EspoCRM or Twenty fit better.
Twenty
Twenty is a recent open source CRM that has passed 60,000 stars on GitHub. It looks like the modern SaaS CRMs (tables, kanban, record pages), lets you create your own objects and fields, syncs Google and Microsoft email and calendars, and runs workflows and AI agents. It is a TypeScript app on PostgreSQL, and you self-host it with Docker Compose.
Read the license closely: the project is mostly AGPLv3, but files marked "@license Enterprise" are under a commercial license, and some packages are MIT. Self-hosting the open source core is free. The cloud costs $9 per user per month on Pro billed yearly, or $12 billed monthly; Organization is $39 billed yearly and is where SAML/OIDC single sign-on, custom roles down to fields and rows, and 5x more AI usage live. Workflows run on credits: Pro includes 1 credit per user per month, and 1 credit covers 10,000 workflow steps.
Its limit: the stack is heavier than a PHP app (a server, a worker, PostgreSQL and Redis), so it wants a VPS and someone who knows Docker, not shared hosting.
- Custom objects and views
- Workflows and AI agents built in
- 60,000+ GitHub stars
- ✓Modern, clean interface
- ✓Cloud Pro from $9 per user
- ✓Active development
- ✗Needs Docker and a VPS
- ✗SSO starts on Organization at $39
- ✗Enterprise-licensed files inside the repo
The pick for a small team that wants a CRM it will enjoy using and can host a Docker app. Without that skill in-house, EspoCRM is easier to keep alive.
Odoo Community
Odoo is a suite of business apps (CRM, sales, invoicing, inventory, website, e-commerce, project, HR) built on one database. Its CRM app is a clean pipeline with leads, opportunities, activities and quotes that flow into the Sales app. The open source part is Odoo Community, under LGPLv3, which you download and host yourself for free. If Odoo becomes your ERP, our small business ERP ranking compares it with the alternatives.
Keep the two editions apart. Odoo Online, the hosted service, runs the Enterprise edition, which is not open source. Its One App Free plan gives one app to unlimited users for $0, forever, so a CRM-only team can start free in the cloud. Add a second app and you move to Standard: $24.90 per user per month billed yearly, but that price is a discount valid 12 months for the users you first order, then $31.10. Billed monthly, Standard is $31.10 for the first 12 months, then $38.90. Custom (Studio, multi-company, external API) starts at $49 billed yearly.
Its limit: once you pay for more than one app, Studio and multi-company need the Custom plan ($49 billed yearly for the first 12 months, then $61), even though the One App Free plan allows several companies; and a small team that self-hosts Community often pays a partner for setup and for upgrades between major versions, which is where the real cost sits. Already on Odoo and unhappy? See how to switch from Odoo.
- CRM linked to sales, stock and accounting
- One App Free in the cloud
- LGPLv3 Community edition
- ✓Grows into a full ERP
- ✓Large partner network
- ✓Clean pipeline and quotes
- ✗Hosted plans are not open source
- ✗First-year discount, then +25%
- ✗Too large if you only need a CRM
Take Odoo if the CRM is the first piece of a bigger system. If you only need a CRM, it is more software than you will use, and EspoCRM is simpler.
Krayin
Krayin is a lightweight CRM built on Laravel and Vue.js: leads with a kanban pipeline, contacts, organizations, products, quotes, activities, email and custom fields, with role-based access. The LICENSE file of its repository is MIT, a permissive license that lets you modify it and even resell a white-label version without publishing your changes; the vendor's hosting FAQ, however, calls the core AGPL, so get the license confirmed in writing before you resell a modified version.
The vendor sells managed hosting from $20 a month with unlimited users, and says its managed plans are up to about 15% cheaper billed annually. It sets no artificial limits on records or contacts; you are limited by the storage and compute of your plan. For a five-person team, that flat fee is a fraction of any per-seat cloud CRM.
Its limit: it is a young, compact product. Reporting and automation are thin next to EspoCRM or SuiteCRM, and its extension ecosystem is small, so plan to rely on the code more than on a marketplace.
- MIT license
- Flat hosting fee, unlimited users
- Laravel codebase
- ✓Flat $20 for the whole team
- ✓Easy for a Laravel developer to extend
- ✓Pipeline, quotes and products included
- ✗Thin reporting and automation
- ✗Young, compact product
- ✗Small ecosystem of extensions
A smart pick when you have a Laravel developer or want a managed CRM for a flat $20. For automation and reports out of the box, EspoCRM goes further.
SuiteCRM
SuiteCRM is the open source descendant of SugarCRM Community and a CRM most open source lists cite. It covers sales, marketing campaigns, customer service cases, quotes, contracts, projects, workflows and reports, with workflows and reports in the core application. Version 8 rebuilt the interface on Angular; the current release is 8.10.2. The license is AGPLv3.
Its hosted service is priced per instance, not per user: Starter is £130 a month billed annually (£143 billed monthly), recommended for up to 10 users, Business £180 for up to 50 users, Premium £280 for up to 150, all excluding VAT, with unlimited users on every package and a 30-day trial. That flat fee only pays off with a team: for 3 users it is far above a per-seat plan.
Its limit: it is a demanding app to run and to upgrade, and the interface still feels dated next to Twenty. A small business without an admin should take the hosted plan or a partner.
- Workflows and reports in the core
- Flat hosting fee, unlimited users
- Broad CRM modules in the core
- ✓Workflows and reports included
- ✓Campaigns, cases and contracts included
- ✓Big community and partner network
- ✗Hard to self-host and upgrade
- ✗Hosting priced for teams, not for 3 users
- ✗Dated interface
Choose SuiteCRM when you need the full CRM toolbox and have 10 or more users or an IT partner. A team of three will be happier with EspoCRM.
Vtiger Community
Vtiger has been one of the best-known open source CRMs for years, with over 5 million downloads. Its Community edition, which you download or run in Docker, covers leads, contacts, organizations, opportunities, quotes, invoices, tickets and a workflow designer, with more than 200 extensions.
Read the license before you call it open source in your own policy: it is the Vtiger Public License, based on the Mozilla Public License, with file-level copyleft. It is a license written for this one project, so have whoever signs off on software read it. The vendor's cloud is a separate product: One Pilot is free forever with no credit card, and paid cloud plans start at $12 per user per month billed annually ($15 billed monthly). Those cloud editions are proprietary SaaS, not the code you download.
Its limit: most of the vendor's energy goes into the cloud, so the Community edition moves more slowly and feels older than EspoCRM or Twenty.
- Workflow designer in the community edition
- Free One Pilot cloud as a fallback
- 200+ extensions
- ✓Well-known, many integrators
- ✓Quotes, invoices and tickets included
- ✓A cloud path if you stop self-hosting
- ✗Project-specific license
- ✗Community edition moves slowly
- ✗The free cloud is a different product
Fine if your team or integrator already knows it. Starting from scratch, EspoCRM gives a similar classic CRM with a better-known license and a livelier release cycle.
How to choose an open source CRM for a small business
A CRM (customer relationship management software) keeps every contact, company, deal, email and task in one shared place, so the whole team sees where each customer stands. Open source changes who runs it, not what it does. Six questions settle most choices, in this order.
Who will run it?
This is the first question, before any feature list. If nobody on the team has run a Linux server, pick a PHP CRM that installs on ordinary web hosting (EspoCRM, Dolibarr) or pay for the vendor's managed hosting. If even that feels like too much, a hosted CRM for small business will serve you better. Twenty and Odoo want a VPS and someone at ease with Docker or Python.
What does the license let you do?
"Open source" covers very different licenses. MIT (Krayin's repository) lets you do almost anything, including closing your changes, though Krayin's hosting FAQ says AGPL: check before you resell it. GPLv3 (Dolibarr) and LGPLv3 (Odoo Community) ask you to share changes when you distribute the software. AGPLv3 (EspoCRM, SuiteCRM, Twenty's core) goes further: if you modify it and let people use it over a network, you must offer them your modified source. For an internal CRM that rarely matters; for a CRM you sell to clients, it does. Vtiger uses its own license, based on the Mozilla Public License.
Is the free version the full product?
Check what sits outside the free code. EspoCRM sells its workflows and reports pack separately when you self-host. Twenty keeps some files under a commercial license. Odoo's hosted plans run the Enterprise edition, not the open source Community. Vtiger's free cloud plan is a different product from the code you download.
What will five users really cost?
Take five users for a year. EspoCRM self-hosted: a small VPS plus $395 for the Advanced Pack if you need workflows; EspoCRM cloud Enterprise: 5 × $25 × 12 = $1,500. Twenty cloud Pro: 5 × $9 × 12 = $540. Odoo Online Standard: 5 × $24.90 × 12 = $1,494 the first year, then 5 × $31.10 × 12 = $1,866. Krayin managed: $20 × 12 = $240 for the whole team. SuiteCRM hosted Starter: £130 × 12 = £1,560, the same for 2 users or 10. Our CRM pricing index puts these numbers next to the subscription CRMs.
Will it talk to your email and tools?
A CRM nobody updates is worthless, and email sync is what keeps it updated. Twenty syncs Google and Microsoft mail and calendars; EspoCRM pulls email from IMAP mailboxes and sends through SMTP. For everything else, all seven have an API, and an automation tool such as n8n, itself self-hostable, connects them to forms, invoicing and chat; Make also has ready-made modules, as in our guides to EspoCRM with Make and SuiteCRM with Make.
How do you leave?
Your data sits in a standard database (MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL) that you can dump at any time when you self-host: that is the real lock-in protection of open source. With a hosted plan, check that you can download a full backup, not just CSV exports.
Five costs and traps the lists leave out
What the pricing pages and docs say in small print, read for a team of three to ten.
Odoo's $24.90 lasts twelve months
The Standard price shown on Odoo's pricing page is a discount valid 12 months, for the users you first order. After that, the yearly price is $31.10 per user per month: 25% more. Budget the second year, not the first, and remember that users you add later pay the full rate.
EspoCRM workflows are a yearly fee when you self-host
Free EspoCRM has no workflows, reports or BPMN processes: they come with the Advanced Pack, $395 a year per instance. The cloud includes it, but Basic requires 3 users and Enterprise 5, billed 6 or 12 months at a time. Three users on Basic for 6 months is 3 × $15 × 6 = $270, paid up front.
SuiteCRM hosting is a flat fee sized for a team
SuiteCRM's hosted Starter is a flat £130 a month billed annually (£1,560 a year, excluding VAT), whatever the number of users, and it is recommended for up to 10 users. With 8 to 10 people, the fee spreads well; with 3, each seat costs over £43 a month, against $15 a user on EspoCRM Basic. Below that size, self-host on a VPS or pick another CRM.
Twenty's monthly plan costs a third more
Twenty Pro is $9 per user per month billed yearly and $12 billed monthly: 33% more for the flexibility. Start monthly for the first one or two months while you check the fit, then switch to yearly. And if you need single sign-on, it sits on Organization at $39, so self-hosting may be the better route.
Test a restore before you import your customers
On any self-hosted CRM, schedule a nightly database dump and copy it off the server, then restore it once on a test machine before go-live. EspoCRM and SuiteCRM also need their cron job running, or scheduled emails and workflows silently stop.
Which open source CRM for your case
Find your situation, take the CRM next to it.
Open source CRM for small business · FAQ
Can I use an AGPL open source CRM for my business?
Yes, for any internal use, at no cost and without publishing anything. The AGPL obligation starts only when you modify the code and let other people use your version over a network: then you must offer them your modified source. A CRM your staff uses internally does not trigger it; a CRM you customize and rent to clients does.
Which open source CRM is easiest to install?
EspoCRM, for most small businesses: it needs PHP, MySQL and a cron job, and its docs include an installation script for Docker. Dolibarr is similar. Twenty installs with Docker Compose in a few commands, but you then run several services, including PostgreSQL and Redis.
Are open source CRMs GDPR compliant?
The software can be; compliance depends on how you run it. EspoCRM lets you flag the fields that hold personal data, then view and erase them on a contact, lead or account when a customer asks to be forgotten, and its cloud offers hosting in Germany for EU data. Self-hosting lets you choose where data lives, but you also own the security, backups and access logs that GDPR expects.
Can I try an open source CRM before installing it?
Yes, without a server. EspoCRM, SuiteCRM and Twenty each offer a 30-day trial of their hosted version, and Twenty's starts without a credit card. Odoo's One App Free plan lets you keep its CRM app free in the cloud with unlimited users, so you can use it for real before deciding to self-host Community.
Can an open source CRM sync with Gmail and Outlook?
Yes. Twenty syncs Google and Microsoft email and calendars, so meetings and threads log themselves on the contact. EspoCRM pulls email from any IMAP mailbox and links it to contacts and accounts. Check how often the sync runs on a self-hosted install: it depends on your cron schedule.
Can I move from a hosted plan to self-hosting later?
Usually, yes. On Odoo Online you can download a backup of your database at any time from the control center, and Odoo advises switching to on-premise right after a new stable version comes out. Krayin's paid migration service goes the other way, from self-hosted to its cloud. Ask for a full database backup, not a CSV export.
Do I need a developer to run an open source CRM?
Not for a PHP CRM like EspoCRM or Dolibarr on managed hosting: an admin panel covers fields, layouts and roles. You do need someone to apply updates, check backups and set up the cron job that sends scheduled emails. Customizing the code itself, or running Twenty or Odoo, is where a developer earns their fee.