SugarCRM not as sweet as it looks
When I was looking at CRM platforms, I got very interested in SugarCRM early this summer. It’s an open source CRM platform. It’s a core set of functionality that can be extended to do nonprofit specific things. It has a growing business following, and a developer community. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
Then I dug a bit deeper into what you actually get when you download the open source version:
Shoot, it’s Crippleware
The open souce version of the software has no reporting capability. To run and save reports, you have to purchase a per seat licenses of SugarCRM Professional. But who needs reports, right? It’s like a word processor without a save button.
The “open source” Licenses Stink
Some interesting aspects of their licensing:
- If you modify the open source version, you have to put their “Powered by SugarCRM” logo on every page
- You also have to put their current copyright notice on every page, changing it whenever they decide to change it. If you modify the software and burn a CD, you can’t distribute that CD if the copyright notice changes.
- If you pay for Professional, any code changes you make can only be used internally to your company. You can’t distribute your work.
So, in short, it’s a lousy deal for anyone looking for a platform on which to build a movement. The core functions aren’t included in the free version. We can’t “own” the paid version, and we couldn’t build on it and distribute our work. So, it came off the table in the search for the perfect CRM platform.
November 21st, 2005 at 12:45 pm
If SugarCRM caught your eye, you might look at vtiger (http://www.vtiger.com/products/crm/index.html). It is a fork of SugarCRM. The forking resulted in a contentious battle of words between the tiger and SugarCRM developers when it happened (use your favorite search engine for details).
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:33 pm
vTiger is a fork of SugarCRM that looks interesting, although I haven’t dug into it in detail.
There was some discussion of a generalized API allowing CRM systems to connect with CMS systems, that would be useful regardless of which solutions are chosen on both sides. In many ways, this is backoffice vs. outward facing communication channels.