Best CRM is the platform through which you can manage your business activities in an efficient way. There are plenty of CRM solutions available at different price points. You have to choose the right platform that will allow you to focus on your business while streamlining all your processes.
Open source CRMs are quickly gaining popularity among businesses due to the availability of free software. Here are a few open source CRM.
Bitrix24
- Open source:
(via partner network) - Upgrade price: $19 per month for two users
- CRM emails: 1,000 per month
- Number of users: 12
- Unlimited leads and contacts:
- Analytics and reports:
- Top features: Kanban boards, Gantt charts, workload planning
Bitrix24 is a great choice if you’re looking for a free and open source CRM. Though the open source part of the offering has to be handled by a Bitrix24 partner.
The big reason why I recommend Bitrix24 is the number of features it offers without charging top dollar for them. For instance, you will get unlimited feature records, sales tracking, email marketing, and more – all for free.
The fact that over 7,000,000 companies use Bitrix24 says much about the popularity of this tool. The only downside of this cloud-based CRM software is the learning curve (even with the paid version), especially when you compare it to platforms like Freshsales.
Putting that aside, it is one of the best free CRM software for improving your collaboration and communication, as well as helping you manage your clients with ease. I think it’s a good choice for small businesses looking for a collaboration software that doesn’t put a dent in their marketing budgets and that offers almost all of the advanced features.
SuiteCRM
Benefits:
SuiteCRM handles sales, service, and marketing, with custom module, layout, and relationship development tools that will please your IT department too (if you have one). This CRM has also got a real-time dashboard, meaning as data streams in, new figures offer broader insights into things like pipeline metrics, open project statuses, and cash flow.
Endless modular customizability and add-ons mean you can use it for applications, simple or complex. It also works on every operating system under the sun: Windows, OS/X, Ubuntu, Android, iOS—you name it.
With a low learning curve and easy set-up, it’s definitely one of the most approachable open source systems on the scene. It’s also one of the most popular.
Drawbacks:
Helpdesk support can be slow, as it is community-based. There’s also a moderate learning curve, and the free open source version’s integrations and features aren’t as developed as in paid versions. SuiteCRM doesn’t integrate with ERP software, so if you’re looking for holistic business process integration, it may not be the right choice.
Pricing for SuiteCRM: OnDemand:
- Pure SuiteCRM is free.
- Starter plan (recommended for 1-10 users) is $123 (billed as £95) per month, billed annually.
- Business plan (recommended for 5-50 users) is $430 (billed as £332.50) per month, billed annually.
- Premium plan (recommended for 10-150 users) is $614 (billed as £475) per month, billed annually.
A 30-day free trial is available for all SuiteCRM: OnDemand hosted solution plans.
Odoo
Benefits:
Odoo is all about ‘extensible architecture,’ with a modular design that lets you mix and match different features. The open source Community Edition of Odoo CRM plugs into the 10,000+ apps in the vendor’s orbit, which are configured to integrate with one another seamlessly.
If you’re in retail, restaurants, or other brick-and-mortar enterprises, you may be interested to know Odoo has a very useful point of sale app. Working with other Odoo apps, point of sale data can easily flow into your inventory management, email marketing, and sales operations.
Drawbacks:
The open source version of Odoo CRM has a significant learning curve, and you’ll have to pay special attention to setting it up and implementing it to prevent headaches later. The invoicing tool is a bit more complicated than necessary (you have to create a quote, followed by an order in order to generate an invoice), and reporting options are limited. Customer support is dependent on app community members.
Pricing:
- Open source CRM is free. Paid add-ons available.
OroCRM
Benefits:
OroCRM has a reputation as the most flexible open source CRM. It’s based on the Symfony2 PHP framework for web development, which is widely used and well-liked. That means that lots of open source developers find it easy to understand Oro’s code and create new customizations, making it relatively easy and cost-effective to modify the platform to your needs.
Easy integrations with Zendesk, MailChimp, and many other clutch apps are a nice touch too.
Drawbacks:
If you’re managing ecommerce, you might need a developer to customize the app in order to fulfill helpdesk / customer support functions. There is also no localization (Oro is only available in English).
Pricing:
- Open source edition is free.
- Contact vendor for Enterprise Edition access.
X2CRM
Benefits:
X2CRM has an open source edition, which generously shares code through GitHub, SourceForge and Bitnami, thus encouraging anyone and everyone to customize it for their own purposes. The software can be downloaded right onto a webserver, but you can also get help when downloading it as part of a full stack version.
This open source edition employs many of the core modules from the general (non-open source) X2CRM platform, which is more geared toward larger enterprises rather than lean startups.
Lighter operations can take advantage of X2CRM Open Source’s tools for marketing campaigns and pipeline and funnel management. There are email modules that include open email tracking and a feature to design workflow visualizations. X2CRM also has Android and iOS apps.
Drawbacks:
X2CRM is an up-and-coming platform and not the most widely used, so you may find it tricky to get the support you need through its small-ish community.
Pricing:
- Open source version is free.
- Paid custom configuration and development solutions also available.
Vtiger
Benefits:
Vtiger CRM Open Source covers the breadth of customer relationship management features you know and love. You can use it to run marketing campaigns and keep track of leads, customers, and opportunities, handling the sales cycle and daily workflows. Reporting and analytics features are included, and it has a Gmail extension, which is super handy for referencing CRM data and info while emailing.
As you scale up your usage, you can check out the market for add-ons for greater features. It’s the #1 most downloaded Open Source CRM on SourceForge (with 4.5 million+ downloads), so it has a big community of users and developers behind it.
Drawbacks:
Vtiger’s reporting features are somewhat lightweight in open source when compared to its paid version. Navigation between features sometimes feels a bit clunky, and the Google Sheets integration isn’t the best. Vtiger also has a moderate learning curve, so it will take time to train your team to implement the platform effectively.
Pricing:
- Free, with paid add-ons available.
EspoCRM
Benefits:
EspoCRM offers full-featured sales automation for leads and tracking for opportunities, accounts, and contacts. It also keeps tabs on contacts by defining relationships and relating them to multiple accounts. EspoCRM’s social stream allows you to track activities and “follow” specific records that are relevant to your work.
Drawbacks:
Time spent implementing the open source solution on-premise and paying for developers, data hosting, etc. may negate some of the financial benefits of getting the software free. Also, there aren’t many integrations with other apps.
Pricing:
- Self-hosted (on-premise) solution is free.
- Cloud-hosted solution pricing in consultation with vendor.
A one-month free trial is available for the cloud-hosted solution. Credit card not required.
CiviCRM
Benefits:
CiviCRM is a completely free open source CRM targeted at non-profits, associations, and civic sector organizations. User-friendly and designed to be adapted towards a wide range of uses, CiviCRM provides full-fledged CRM features like contact management, accounting integration, case management, and email marketing.
Drawbacks:
You will likely need help installing and tailoring the solution for your organization’s needs. It’s not designed for sales, so you may find it doesn’t meet your business requirements or requires too much investment in time and money to customize. It should be noted, the UI is also somewhat out-of-date.
Pricing:
- Free.
Freshsales
- Open source:
- Upgrade price: $12 per user per month (billed yearly)
- CRM emails:
- Number of users: unlimited
️ - Unlimited leads and contacts:
- Analytics and reports:
- Top features: unlimited users, unlimited support, lead scoring insights
Many of the best free and open source CRM software out there aim to be all-in-one suites – handling everything from getting a new lead to then nurturing it throughout its life cycle.
However, Freshsales have their focus narrowed down to sales. You can use it to engage with customers, close more deals, and attract new sales.
Freshsales offers a free forever plan for startups with limited budgets. With this plan, you will get unlimited users, contacts, and premium support, including email, chat, and phone support. Feature-wise there is a lot there for startups and new businesses, especially since they aren’t charging anything at all.
On the flip side, Freshsales free is missing out on some advanced features like email tracking, behavior analytics, and reports. All that’s available is a basic overview via the sales dashboard.
There is a minimal learning curve, so companies that are new to CRM software can get started quickly. To sum it up, I’d say Freshsales is a good CRM to start with. It focuses solely on scalability and sales to help you grow your business faster. The free plan is best for startups, but you might want to skip on this one if you are running a small to mid-sized business.
Small Businesses and Start up
Freshsales
Benefits:
Freshsales is a full-fledged sales force automation solution for sales teams. It provides everything a salesperson needs to— attract quality leads, engage in contextual conversations, drive deals with AI-powered insights, and nurture customer relationships.
With built-in email, phone, chat, and telephony, Freshsales empowers sales teams with more time for selling by automating the sales process and increases efficiency and productivity in their daily activities. With Freddy AI, salespeople can get insights into the best deals to go after and what actions to take and predict revenue with sales forecasting. Businesses can take the next step forward towards powerful pipeline management with Freshsales. Also, the option to use native CPQ makes generating and sharing quotes and other vital sales assets hassle-free.
Drawbacks:
Like many vendors, some of the better features are reserved for premium packages. Among these for Freshworks CRM are time-based workflows, some chatbot tools and advanced metric reporting. But overall, the free and basic plans are a decent place to start, and you can always upgrade.
Pricing:
- There is a Free Forever Startup plan
- Growth plan is $15 per user/month billed annually
- Pro plan is $39 per user/month billed annually
- Enterprise plan is $69 per user/month billed annually
HubSpot CRM
Benefits:
HubSpot is a massive company, and played a big part in ushering in the rise of inbound marketing. Their free version automates menial tasks, manages lead management, and allows for a database of one million contacts. It also allows unlimited users and unlimited storage.
Some advantages to HubSpot are firstly their large wealth of training videos to help speed up adoption. Also, because of their sheer enormity, they have a pretty great reputation for personalized customer service, which is a big point in its favor vs. many open source solutions.
Drawbacks:
Some negatives include limited syncing between contact and deal data, a weak search function, and the inability to log email attachments into the contact record. Also, as you may have surmised, you may well need to dish out money on add-on modules to get the most out of the free version.
Pricing:
- HubSpot CRM is free.
- Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub add-on packages are $50 each per user/per month, billed monthly.
- HubSpot CMS starts at $300 per month, billed monthly.
- All-inclusive Starter Growth Suite starts at $113 per user/per month, billed monthly.
Conclusion
Open source software is based on the principle that everyone shares their work, usually with the goal of making improvements.