Spoolman vs Fat Free CRM
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?
Spoolman
Keep track of your inventory of 3D-printer filament spools
VS
Fat Free CRM
Ruby on Rails open-source customer relationship manager
| Feature | Spoolman | Fat Free CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Category | CRM & Business Apps | CRM & Business Apps |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Python | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,686 | ★ 3,628 |
| First released | 2026 | 2008 |
| Replaces | — | Salesforce |
Why pick each one
Choose Spoolman if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in Python
Choose Fat Free CRM if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in Ruby
Frequently asked questions
Is Spoolman or Fat Free CRM better?
Neither is universally better. Fat Free CRM has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Spoolman and Fat Free CRM free and open-source?
Yes. Spoolman is licensed under MIT and Fat Free CRM under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Spoolman and Fat Free CRM with Docker?
Spoolman: yes. Fat Free CRM: yes.