Sales CRM & Pipeline Management
4.3/5.0
VerifiedFreeLast technical review:
Markdown for AI (.md)

BottleCRM

Open-source CRM with zero per-seat fees for startups and small teams.

Pricing

$0/mo

Free
Score

4.3/5

License
MIT
Certifications
1
Last technical review
2026-11-02
Available plansVisit website (opens in a new tab)

Technical Overview

BottleCRM is a customer relationship management platform built for startups and small businesses, featuring an MIT-licensed open-source core and self-hosting options. It organizes contacts, sales pipelines, support tickets, and invoicing with unlimited users and no per-user fees.

Analyst Evaluation: Pros and Limitations

Verified Advantages

  • Zero per-seat pricing removes cost scaling penalties as team size grows.
  • Open-source core licensed under MIT ensures complete data ownership.
  • Self-hosting capabilities allow full control over deployment infrastructure.

Technical Considerations

  • Smaller native integration ecosystem compared to legacy enterprise tools.
  • Advanced technical support relies on commercial managed hosting options.

Technical Capabilities & Features

5/7
Included:REST & GraphQL API
Not available:SSO / SAML Authentication
Included:Self-Hosted Option
Included:Full Data Export
Included:Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)
Included:Custom Domains & SSL
Not available:Immutable Audit Logs
Scorecard
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Technical Scorecard: BottleCRM

82/100
DX & Tech Documentation
Excellent
80/100
Pricing Fairness
Excellent
95/100
Security & Governance
Favorable
75/100
Data Portability & Sovereignty
Excellent
90/100
Performance & Reliability
Favorable
70/100

Time to Value & Fit by Segment: BottleCRM

Estimated Time-to-Value< 1 hour (Immediate)

Near-instantaneous deployment with minimal technical friction.

Learning CurveLow (Intuitive)

Rapid onboarding for developers without prior training required.

Fit Index by Organization Size

Startup & Agile Teams1 to 50 members
9%
Mid-Market & Scaleup50 to 500 members
6%
Corporate Enterprise500+ members
3%
Pricing & TCO
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Pricing

$0.00/mo

Model: FREE.

Available plans:

  • BottleCRM Core$0/mo

Free Tier Verification:

  • No credit card required
  • Commercial use allowed
  • Unlimited usage with no expiration
  • No mandatory watermarks
Get BottleCRM (opens in a new tab)

Billing Risks & Hidden Clauses: BottleCRM

Free Tier Limits:

Core open-source edition available for self-hosting with unlimited users and contacts at $0.

Audited Billing Critical Points:
  • Cloud-managed tiers may introduce usage or infrastructure limits not present in the self-hosted version.

"BottleCRM Core $0 self-hosted Self-host the open-source core, yours to run and change. Every open-source module Unlimite"

Verified Quote: /pricing
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Projection: BottleCRM$0.00/mo
Deterministic cost estimation at 12 and 36 months based on team size, including SSO tax premiums and annual prepay discounts.
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Licensing Cost (1 to 100+ seats)
$0/forever
Unlimited team members with zero penalties
SSO Tax (SAML Enterprise)
$0no surcharge
No artificial security barriers
3-Year Investment (Software TCO)
$0total
operates under a zero-cost or open-source model. Licensing TCO is identical:
Usage Surcharges & Bill Shock Simulator: BottleCRMWhat usage costs as you scale
Detect overage penalties before they impact engineering budget.
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Prototype / MVP (10 GB)

Included base quota in plan: 10 GB.
Low Risk / Predictable Bill
Base Monthly Rate
$0/mo
Fixed subscription or contracted tier
Overage Penalty
$0/month extra
Usage covered within plan quota
Estimated Monthly Invoice
$0/mo
Total monthly cost before taxes
Technical Mitigation Recommendation:

Suitable for development; verify concurrent connection limits.

Base Production (50 GB)

Included base quota in plan: 50 GB.
Low Risk / Predictable Bill
Base Monthly Rate
$0/mo
Fixed subscription or contracted tier
Overage Penalty
$0/month extra
Usage covered within plan quota
Estimated Monthly Invoice
$0/mo
Total monthly cost before taxes
Technical Mitigation Recommendation:

Implement table compression policies and temporal partitioning.

Active Growth (250 GB)

Included base quota in plan: 250 GB.
Low Risk / Predictable Bill
Base Monthly Rate
$0/mo
Fixed subscription or contracted tier
Overage Penalty
$0/month extra
Usage covered within plan quota
Estimated Monthly Invoice
$0/mo
Total monthly cost before taxes
Technical Mitigation Recommendation:

Offload cold backups to standard object storage (S3).

Large Scale (1.000 GB (1 TB))

Included base quota in plan: 1,000 GB.
Low Risk / Predictable Bill
Base Monthly Rate
$0/mo
Fixed subscription or contracted tier
Overage Penalty
$0/month extra
Usage covered within plan quota
Estimated Monthly Invoice
$0/mo
Total monthly cost before taxes
Technical Mitigation Recommendation:

Migrate to dedicated instance or self-hosted cluster to curtail I/O fees.

Security & Data Exit
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Compliance & Security Standards: BottleCRM

SOC 2 Type IINot reported
ISO 27001Not reported
GDPR / RGPDAudited
HIPAANot reported
PCI-DSSNot reported
Jurisdiction & Legal Sovereignty
🇺🇸United States [US]Subject to US CLOUD ActGDPR DPA Available
SSO Availability (SAML Enterprise)
No SSO Documented
Data Residency
GLOBALSELF_HOSTEDAWS
AI Privacy Policy
Zero customer data retention
Data Liberation & Migration Runbook: BottleCRMCSV · JSON · SQL
Actionable escape runbook and credential export guarantees to mitigate vendor lock-in.
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Supported Structured Export Formats
CSVJSONSQL
Password Hash Portability
Exportable Hashes (Bcrypt / Argon2): Zero Forced Retention

Allows extracting password hashes in standard formats to migrate without forcing user resets.

CLI Command / Rescue Endpoint
docker exec -t bottlecrm pg_dump -U postgres > backup.sql
Exit Protocol & Migration Notes

Direct database-level export without proprietary password encryption.

Deployment & Infrastructure Requirements: BottleCRMMIT
Hardware specs and Docker directives to run on local servers, dedicated VPS, or Kubernetes without telemetry leak to the cloud.
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Minimum Memory1 GB RAM (Recommended)
Compute CPU1 vCPU
Runtime / LanguagePython
Code LicenseMIT
Docker CLI Directive
docker run -d --name bottlecrm -p 8080:8080 bottlecrm:latest
Companion Services & Dependencies:
PostgreSQL 15+Redis 7+
Community & Repository
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Technical Reputation of BottleCRM

80/100 Technical Trust

Frequent Praises in Production

  • Zero per-seat pricing removes cost scaling penalties as team size grows.
  • Open-source core licensed under MIT ensures complete data ownership.
  • Self-hosting capabilities allow full control over deployment infrastructure.

Reported Production Frictions

  • Smaller native integration ecosystem compared to legacy enterprise tools.
  • Advanced technical support relies on commercial managed hosting options.
Commercial Treatment & Vendor Lock-in:Self-Service in Dashboard

Cancellation flow is autonomous via billing portal or subscription settings.

Open source repository activity: BottleCRM2,461
Stars, forks and release cadence
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Stars2.5k
Forks1.1k
Open Issues71
SPDX LicenseMIT
Latest Commit DetectedOct 31, 2026

Frequently Asked Technical Questions (BottleCRM)

Does BottleCRM offer a permanent free tier?

Yes, BottleCRM provides an open-source core available for free self-hosting with unlimited users.

Are there seat limits on the core version?

There are no per-user fees or seat count restrictions when running the self-hosted open-source core.

What license does the source code use?

The core application is distributed under the MIT license, allowing teams to inspect, modify, and host it freely.

Direct Alternatives

All tools in BottleCRM
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