Krayin 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 | Krayin | SuiteCRM |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 97 · Excellent | 90 · Excellent |
| Category | CRM & Business Apps | CRM & Business Apps |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | PHP |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 1,024 MB | 2,048 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 23,938 | ★ 5,764 |
| First released | 2020 | 2013 |
| Replaces | Salesforce, HubSpot | Salesforce, HubSpot |
What are Krayin and SuiteCRM?
Krayin
Krayin is a free and open-source CRM built on Laravel, offering lead management, contacts, and sales pipelines. It targets small businesses wanting a lightweight PHP CRM. It is deployed via Docker or a PHP stack.
- Lead and pipeline management
- Contact and activity tracking
- Built on Laravel
- Email integration
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
Krayin vs SuiteCRM: key differences
Both projects are written in PHP. Licensing differs — MIT for Krayin versus AGPL-3.0 for SuiteCRM. Krayin is the lighter option, starting around 1,024 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for SuiteCRM. SuiteCRM is the more established project (first released 2013), while Krayin arrived in 2020. Krayin has the considerably larger community, at 23,938 GitHub stars versus 5,764.
Why pick each one
Choose Krayin if…
- Lightweight CRM
- Laravel-based and extensible
- Open source
Watch out for
- Smaller community
- Fewer features than big CRMs
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 Krayin or SuiteCRM better?
Neither is universally better. Krayin has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Krayin and SuiteCRM free and open-source?
Yes. Krayin is licensed under MIT and SuiteCRM under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Krayin and SuiteCRM with Docker?
Krayin: yes. SuiteCRM: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Krayin or SuiteCRM?
Krayin has the smaller minimum footprint at 1,024 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for SuiteCRM. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.