Why Choose An Open Source CRM Software & Which One?

A CRM is an abbreviation for Customer Relationship Management. It can be a software application or a group of strategies, but the end goal remains the same i.e. managing relationships between customers and a business. When software is open source, its source code is publicly accessible to modify and share. A source code is the backend part of the software that determines the functionality of the program or application. The combination of both terms is an open source CRM i.e. a CRM software whose source code is open and publicly available for everyone to use, modify, and distribute.

Benefits of Using Open-Source CRM

The open source support movement is on the rise and it is not limited to software development only. Open source has become a set of values, more commonly known as the “Open source way”. It makes the customer feel that they are building something original and personalized, rather than buying the subscription of proprietary software. Let’s have a look at the advantages.

• Easy Integration: It’s a fact that open source CRM easily integrates with third-party applications as compared to subscription-based CRM. Open source software provides more flexibility and scalability to its users. One can argue that such custom software development takes time, but the end product you get will work the way you want.

• Pocket Friendly: Obviously, open-source CRM applications are free to use for everyone. Even considering the amount of hosting and domain, generally, the collective price of CRM is affordable as compared to cloud-based software. Most proprietary CRM has a per user per month pricing model and some even ask for the upfront commitment for a whole year. So in case you don’t like the software after using it for five months then a hefty amount of your money will get wasted.

Top Open Source CRM Software in 2022

SuiteCRM

This year SuiteCRM was crowned as the best open source CRM. SuiteCRM is ideal for businesses that have multiple departments like sales, marketing, and customer service. All departments can use a single CRM which makes it very efficient for users. Furthermore, there are other features that allow you to do customization, build relationships between modules, create custom fields, sections, etc. And you can do all this without having to know to develop knowledge. SuiteCRM provides Studio and module builder from where you can do all these actions. It’s a drag-and-drop kind of setup so it’s pretty easy to use.

You can even use third-party SuiteCRM plugins to enhance the existing functionality of the software. In addition, it works on almost all operating systems including but not limited to Windows, Linux Ubuntu, Android, iOS, etc. Understanding this CRM is comparatively easy and you should give it a try if you’re thinking of having a CRM.

What’s not to like

SuiteCRM doesn’t have dedicated customer support, but they do have an active community. Also, there is a slight learning curve for advanced features like setting up workflows. If you want to integrate applications like Google Calendar then it won’t be that easy. You will either need to buy the subscription version of SuiteCRM or purchase an add-on from vendors.

Odoo

Odoo is also one of the most popular open source CRM. The UI of Odoo is a bit different from SuiteCRM. Odoo has a modular design that allows you to try out different functionalities easily. The USP of Odoo is their apps ecosystem. They have more than 10,000 apps listed on their website serving different purposes for example finance, sales, marketing, human resources, etc. In addition, all these apps have the capability to blend with each other so data can be formed.

The point-of-sale app of Odoo does the magic, especially for the traditional businesses that have physical stores. You can feed the purchase history and other information of the walk-in customers in their sales app. The collected data can progress towards other tools like inventory management, marketing automation, etc.

What’s Not to Like

Contrary to SuiteCRM, Odoo CRM has a steep learning curve. Before properly start utilizing this tool, you need to get familiar with the user interface. Even the initial setup and configuration are difficult to execute. There are some Odoo apps like the invoice app that are unnecessarily overcomplicated Just like SuiteCRM for the support you need to depend on the community.

Ending Note

That’s it from our side on the open source CRM. Before making your final decision there is one question you might want to ask yourself i.e. is open source the right fit for you? Usually, open source software doesn’t have help desk support for their user, therefore, you need to have the skill set to learn new things and know your way around. People look at the open source software more as a “Free Tool” than an open source code application. And there is nothing wrong with that, if you’re a small business and looking for a tool to manage customer information then go for the CRM open source software.