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.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureAtomic CRMSuiteCRM
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score83 · Excellent90 · Excellent
CategoryCRM & Business AppsCRM & Business Apps
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptPHP
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentdocker, sourcedocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 1,271★ 5,764
First released20242013
ReplacesHubSpot, PipedriveSalesforce, 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

Read the full SuiteCRM guide →

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
Atomic CRM details

Choose SuiteCRM if…

  • Feature-complete CRM
  • Free and open source
  • Mature

Watch out for

  • Interface feels dated
  • Setup can be heavy
SuiteCRM details

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.

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