Open source CRM software like SuiteCRM, Vtiger and EspoCRM handles contacts, leads and deals well, and the core costs nothing. What none of them ship is a contact center. ICTCRM goes the other way: it’s a commercial CRM with the dialer, IVR, agent panel and AI voice agent built in. Which one fits depends on how much of your day happens on the phone.
What you get with free open source CRM
Open source means you can download the code, run it on your own server and change it. There’s no licence fee for the core product. You still pay for a server, for someone to install and patch it, and for any paid extensions you add later.
For a team that mostly emails and meets customers, that’s often a great deal. The three projects people compare most:
- SuiteCRM is a fork of SugarCRM’s old Community Edition, released under AGPLv3. It covers sales, marketing campaigns and customer service, with workflows and reports on top.
- Vtiger has a free open source edition next to its paid cloud product. It includes quotes and invoices, and a PBX Manager module that links it to an Asterisk server.
- EspoCRM is lighter and quicker to set up, also under AGPLv3. Some of its useful extras, like the VoIP integration and the Advanced Pack, are paid extensions.
Where the phone comes in
Here’s the catch. In all three, a phone call is something that happens next to the CRM. You add a telephony add-on or an integration, connect it to a PBX or a cloud calling service, and keep the two in sync. Click to call and call logging work that way. Outbound dialing campaigns, an IVR and a live view of your agents usually don’t, because those belong to a contact center product, not a CRM.
If your sales or support team spends most of the day on calls, you end up running and paying for two systems.
How ICTCRM is different
ICTCRM is built on ICTContact, our contact center platform, so the CRM and the calling share one system. A contact, lead or deal is the same record the dialer calls and the agent sees on screen. Some examples of what that means day to day:
- Agents work in the browser. The agent panel has a phone built in, so there’s no softphone to install. When a call connects, the contact’s record fills in and the agent can correct it while talking.
- The outcome updates the CRM. At the end of a call the agent picks a disposition, like Sale, Interested or Scheduled Callback. That one click writes the contact’s history, moves the lead score and can convert the lead into a contact or a deal.
- Campaigns run from your lists. Voice broadcast, press 1, surveys, reminders, SMS, email and fax campaigns, with progressive, predictive and preview dialing for agent campaigns.
- Inbound calls follow a flow you draw. The IVR designer puts menus, time checks, transfers and voicemail on a canvas.
- Sales stays next to the calls. Deals sit on a pipeline board, and quotes and invoices come out as PDF from the same records.
- An AI voice agent can take calls. It talks with callers and hands them to a person when it should, at $0.14 a minute from your call credit.
The full list is on the ICTCRM features page.
ICTCRM vs SuiteCRM, Vtiger and EspoCRM
| Feature | ICTCRM | SuiteCRM | Vtiger (open source) | EspoCRM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contacts, leads and deals | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Quotes and invoices | Yes, as PDF | Yes | Yes | Paid Sales Pack |
| Calling from the CRM | Built in, browser phone | Third-party add-on | PBX Manager for Asterisk | Paid VoIP extension |
| Outbound dialing campaigns | Built in | No | No | No |
| IVR designer | Built in | No | No | No |
| Supervisor listen and barge | Built in | No | No | No |
| AI voice agent | $0.14 a minute | No | No | No |
| Licence | Commercial | AGPLv3, free | Free open source edition | AGPLv3, free core |
| Self-hosted | Yes, Service Provider licence | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Look at the licence row before you decide. If you need a free CRM and calls are occasional, one of the open source projects is the sensible pick. If your team lives on the phone, the rows above it matter more.
What ICTCRM costs
ICTCRM isn’t free, and we’d rather say so up front. The cloud plans start at $79 a month for 5 concurrent channels and 10 users, and every plan includes monthly call credit and a US number. If you want it on your own server under your own brand, the Service Provider licence starts at $1,500 one time, with no monthly fee. Both come with the whole contact center and the CRM, with no add-ons to buy. The pricing page has the details and the call rates.
Frequently asked questions
Is ICTCRM open source?
The current ICTCRM isn’t. It’s sold as a cloud service or as a self-hosted licence. The original open source ICTCRM is still free on GitHub if you want to look at the code.
Can I keep the CRM I already use?
Yes. ICTCRM has more than 20 CRM connectors, including Salesforce, Zoho, Pipedrive and Dynamics 365. You pull contacts into calling lists and push call results back, so your current CRM stays the system of record.
How do I move my data from another CRM?
Export your contacts to CSV and import them. The import screen lets you match each column in your file to a field, so the layout of the export doesn’t matter. After that, filter out duplicates and do-not-call numbers before your first campaign.
Do I need my own phone system?
Not on the cloud plans. They include call credit, numbers and the agent panel’s browser phone. On a self-hosted licence you connect your own SIP trunks.
Can I try it before I pay?
Yes. The live demo is the real product, so you can load a list and make a call.
Get the source
We publish the parts of our work that are useful on their own. ictcrm-mcp lets an AI assistant work with ICTCRM contacts, and php-crm-connectors is one PHP interface across 21 CRMs. Both are free on GitHub.
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