Cozy vs Group-Office
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted groupware options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Cozy | Group-Office |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 77 · Good |
| Category | Groupware | Groupware |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Go | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker, source | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,270 | ★ 279 |
| First released | 2016 | 2003 |
| Replaces | Google Workspace | Microsoft 365, Google Workspace |
What are Cozy and Group-Office?
Cozy
Cozy is a personal cloud platform that bundles file storage, contacts, calendar, notes, and connectors for importing data from external services into one self-hosted home. It is built around a portable per-user stack.
- Personal cloud server
- Contacts and calendar sync
- App connector ecosystem
- File storage included
Group-Office
Group-Office is a PHP-based groupware suite that bundles email, calendar, contacts, file sharing, and project management. The community edition is open source and self-hostable.
- Email, calendar and contacts
- ActiveSync and CalDAV support
- Project and document management
- Modular and extensible
Cozy vs Group-Office: key differences
Cozy is written in Go, while Group-Office is built with PHP. Group-Office is the more established project (first released 2003), while Cozy arrived in 2016. Cozy has the considerably larger community, at 1,270 GitHub stars versus 279.
Why pick each one
Choose Cozy if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
Choose Group-Office if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in PHP
Watch out for
- Some modules are commercial
- Dated user interface
Frequently asked questions
Is Cozy or Group-Office better?
Neither is universally better. Cozy has the larger community, while Group-Office is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Cozy and Group-Office free and open-source?
Yes. Cozy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Group-Office under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cozy and Group-Office with Docker?
Cozy: yes. Group-Office: yes.