5 Top Free and Open Source CRM Software: Examine and Select

5 Top Free and Open Source CRM Software: Examine and Select

One of the most powerful words in the English language is “free.” The adjective emotional triggers a purchase and makes something sound more valuable.

Everybody loves the free stuff starting from the samples to buy-one-get-one-free offers. So, when do you ever resist?

CRM system is not an exception and is often promoted as an entry-level platform of the vendor’s paid edition. But, where to get the Top Free and Open Source CRM Software list for Free? Since the companies can get benefits without the cost, especially when the cash is tight, free CRM solutions are great options for startups and small businesses. So, choosing the platform that obtains the essential capabilities and easily fits the organisation's budget is a crucial part of your business success. In this case, one avenue worth exploring is open source CRM software. Even though the solutions may not be as feature-rich as the paid versions, they are usually much cheaper or completely free. Let’s go over the top free and open source ​CRM systems​​to narrow down the choices and help you find the suitable solution.

What Is Free and Open Source CRM Software? ​

CRM platforms at no cost come into 2 categories:

● free but limited or freemium ● open source.

Free CRM​can fall short in some functionality options.

Open source CRM​is highly customizable is often free to download, yet typically requires technical savvy to implement and utilize. So, if your business obtains the specific requirements, this type of software can let you tweak and refine your CRM solution to meet the demands. Besides, you can tailor it to keep up with constantly changing market needs.

Note,​ in case you lack access to cost-effective development talent, and still want a reasonably priced platform, you can stick with the freemium version.

How to Choose the Best CRM Platform? ​

The question of which top free and open source CRM to select is difficult to deal with, largely because the answer can depend on the type of the company. The platform that perfectly fits one organisation may be entirely wrong for your business. In order to focus on exploring the best CRM for your company, it is recommended to examine the objectives and needs, as well as work out what exactly it is that you require a solution to do.

Consider the following criteria you should be looking at when searching for the dream platform:

● Scalability.​​One of the main capabilities to pay attention to is how well CRM scales. You can have a handful of employees on the sales force right now, yet you need a solution that can grow with the business processes. In this case, it is suggested to look for CRM without hefty upgrade fees. ● Integrations. ​Most of the CRM systems perform equally when it comes to basic functionality. The real value lies in the opportunity to integrate with other tools. The modern solutions can work seamlessly with the wide range of third-party applications like MailChimp, Xero, etc. Linking your CRM with other apps can have an immeasurable impact on speeding up your business workflows. Perform a full audit of what software is in use within your company, and search for CRM that directly integrate with as many of them as possible. ● Insights. ​CRM solution enables you with a possibility to make the informed decisions based on the concrete data. Still, this only works if the platform in question lets the company surface relevant insights. Your task is to find the software that obtains the strong reporting features, and efficient archiving that will make use of the large amount of data it harvests. ● Support. ​It is one of the real stumbling blocks for a number of the top free and open source CRM platforms. Frequently, the support is available to the clients with the paid subscriptions or can be provided by the community rather than the enterprise-grade support team. Note, in case the CRM lacks the professional tech support to help when the solution goes down, the company can be faced with days of downtime.

Now, when you’ve got acquainted with the essential capabilities to consider when selecting the CRM, it’s time to look through the potential solutions that can help

your business thrive. And while it’s impossible to state which tool is best for your organisation processes, let’s analyse the CRM systems as a starting point.

5 Top Free and Open Source CRM Platforms to Consider Since CRM world is overwhelmed by the various choices, you can get easily lost in the diversity of tools and fail to select the right software. With the aim to simplify your task of searching the suitable CRM, check out the next list:

#1 HubSpot CRM: Power Business Ambitions with Simple Solution

Powerful and easy to use, ​HubSpot CRM​​offers a number of features at no cost.

The solution provides you with efficient capabilities with as many team members as you desire, as long as you don’t have more than 1 million contacts. Once you add the customers’ name and email address, HubSpot CRM finds their picture and pulls in the details about the organisation automatically. Install Sidekick extension to see contact details alongside your email box. Preview contacts easily with list’s popover and observe the required information without having to open a new page.

HubSpot CRM is free forever.

#2 Odoo: Make Better Decisions with Accurate Forecasts Odoo​ , formerly OpenERP, thrives in a unique and open ecosystem by combining ​ the resources of its open source community, partners’ network and resellers. The solution is a great option to derive the maximum amount of insight from your company sales and workflow data. Simple to generate reports provide you with the more-in-depth picture of your processes. Design the custom dashboards, as well as use the flow charts that anyone can create and share.

You can download the Odoo Community version for free.

#3 Bitrix24: Sell More with Comprehensive Solution Being a solid cloud-based CRM option, ​Bitrix24​​offers the efficient tools designed to manage projects, collaborate and bolster the marketing activities at the flexible price. Among the variety of capabilities, you can benefit from content sharing, time management and threaded communications. Besides, automated processes like notifications, assisted analytics and subscriptions to groups or discussions can help your company track progress and schedule the new opportunities with greater context.

The free edition enables you with 12 users and 5 GB of data storage.

#4 Insightly: Build Lifelong Customer Relationships Easily Simple and intuitive, ​Insightly​​is a cloud-based solution provides you with the detailed view of contacts including background, history of interactions and important information related to sales opportunities and projects. The project management tools offer you to track progress against deadlines, set automated alerts, as well as create milestones and tasks. Besides, you can easily track email correspondence, and automatically surface the social media accounts of any contact. Create custom reports and charts to see the detailed view of the engagement with clients.

Insightly offers a free subscription for 2 users, 2,500 contacts and 200 MB of data storage.

#5 Agile CRM: Your All-in-One CRM Software Being one of the newbies CRM on the market,​​Agile CRM​​already stands out for the powerful functionality: Custom Data Fields support, Lead Scoring, Appointment Scheduling, Custom Deal Milestones, and other. The users get a unified platform that settles all the users' information and their relationships on a single page, ordering their tasks. Also, it improves communication and cooperation, enhances team performance, and outputs it all at individual and collective levels.

Agile CRM is free for up to 10 users.

By and large, the above-mentioned information can help you find the right solution among the mentioned top free and open source CRM to reach the desired business results.

So, when you have selected the solution, your next task is to find the efficient migration tool to move the records from the existing platform to the new one fast and securely. In this case, you can take advantage of the automated migration service Data2CRM to import the information without a headache. The SaaS enables you with an easy-to-use interface to transfer your items in just the several clicks. Take benefit from the detailed data mapping.

Closing Thoughts As you can see, the top free and open source CRM vendors come in the various shapes, sizes and business models. That’s why, it is important to run the CRM market research, analyse your business needs and objectives to select the right platform to reach the heights of success.

Transfer a part of the business information to the desired CRM by running ​a free Demo Migration​​and check how the service works in action