Atomic CRM vs SuiteCRM
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted crm & business apps options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Atomic CRM | SuiteCRM |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 90 · Excellent |
| Category | CRM & Business Apps | CRM & Business Apps |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,271 | ★ 5,764 |
| First released | 2024 | 2013 |
| Replaces | HubSpot, Pipedrive | Salesforce, HubSpot |
What are Atomic CRM and SuiteCRM?
Atomic CRM
Atomic CRM is an open-source CRM toolkit by Marmelab, built with React and Supabase. It manages contacts, deals, tasks, and notes with a kanban-style sales pipeline and is designed to be customized as a starter kit.
- Kanban sales pipeline
- Contact and deal management
- Tasks and notes
- Built on Supabase
SuiteCRM
SuiteCRM is a fully featured, open-source CRM with sales, marketing, and service modules, forked from SugarCRM. It targets businesses wanting a mature, free CRM. It is deployed via Docker or a LAMP stack.
- Sales, marketing and service modules
- Workflow automation
- Customizable modules
- Reporting engine
Atomic CRM vs SuiteCRM: key differences
Atomic CRM is written in TypeScript, while SuiteCRM is built with PHP. Licensing differs — MIT for Atomic CRM versus AGPL-3.0 for SuiteCRM. Atomic CRM is the lighter option, starting around 512 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for SuiteCRM. SuiteCRM is the more established project (first released 2013), while Atomic CRM arrived in 2024. SuiteCRM has the considerably larger community, at 5,764 GitHub stars versus 1,271.
Why pick each one
Choose Atomic CRM if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
Choose SuiteCRM if…
- Feature-complete CRM
- Free and open source
- Mature
Watch out for
- Interface feels dated
- Setup can be heavy
Frequently asked questions
Is Atomic CRM or SuiteCRM better?
Neither is universally better. SuiteCRM has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Atomic CRM and SuiteCRM free and open-source?
Yes. Atomic CRM is licensed under MIT and SuiteCRM under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Atomic CRM and SuiteCRM with Docker?
Atomic CRM: yes. SuiteCRM: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Atomic CRM or SuiteCRM?
Atomic CRM has the smaller minimum footprint at 512 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for SuiteCRM. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.