Home / CRM & Sales / Alternatives to Salesforce

2 open source alternatives to Salesforce

Enterprise CRM and customer platform. Here are the open source projects real teams use instead — ranked by fit, with honest pros and cons for each.

What people don't love about Salesforce

  • Expensive and complex to configure.
  • Consultants often required for setup.
  • Vendor lock-in.

Current Salesforce pricing (for reference): From $25/user/month (Essentials) up to $300+.

Ad slot — above comparison

Quick comparison

Alternative Best for License Self-host Hosted cloud?
SuiteCRM
Open source enterprise CRM — SugarCRM fork. 		The long-running open source Salesforce alternative. AGPL-3.0 ★★★☆☆ Yes
EspoCRM
Fast, lightweight open source CRM. 		Lighter and more modern when full Salesforce is overkill. AGPL-3.0 ★★☆☆☆ Yes

1. SuiteCRM — The long-running open source Salesforce alternative.

Open source enterprise CRM — SugarCRM fork.

Strengths

  • Feature-rich — accounts, opportunities, workflows.
  • Mature project with enterprise adoption.
  • Extensible via modules.

Weaknesses

  • UI feels aging vs modern SaaS CRMs.
  • Self-hosting is LAMP-stack-heavy.
  • Hosted tier is less polished than HubSpot.
License: AGPL-3.0 Self-host difficulty: 3/5 Hosted cloud optionMobile: iOS, Android

SuiteCRM homepage · Source on GitHub · Salesforce vs SuiteCRM →

2. EspoCRM — Lighter and more modern when full Salesforce is overkill.

Fast, lightweight open source CRM.

Strengths

  • Snappy UI and modern feel.
  • Workflow and reporting included in community edition.
  • Docker deploy works well.

Weaknesses

  • Smaller extension ecosystem than SuiteCRM.
  • Some advanced modules are paid extensions.
  • Smaller partner network.
License: AGPL-3.0 Self-host difficulty: 2/5 Hosted cloud optionMobile: iOS, Android

EspoCRM homepage · Source on GitHub · Salesforce vs EspoCRM →

Ad slot — below body

Not what you're looking for?

Browse other tools in CRM & Sales, or check out open source projects by category on the full category index.