CRM and sales decision
Capsule
A competent developer can build a narrow, self-hosted CRM covering core contact, pipeline, tasks, email and basic reports, but reproducing Capsule's polished UX, mobile apps, premium integrations and AI enrichment would be expensive—keep paying for the full product unless you only need the core workflow.
Visit website↗Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need — the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship.
What a replacement has to do
- Manage contacts -> track opportunities in a pipeline -> create and complete tasks/calendar items -> send/receive emails linked to contacts -> run basic reports
What it still won’t have
- Polished mobile apps (iOS/Android)
- Built-in AI enrichment, summaries and meeting prep
- Many premium integrations and ecosystem connectors
- Hosted SLA, uptime guarantees and enterprise support
- Polish and UX refinements of a mature commercial product
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 1 seat.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal self-hosted CRM in Node.js + Express + React (or Next.js) with a PostgreSQL database and Docker deployment. In scope: contacts CRUD with CSV import/export; opportunities with a kanban pipeline UI and stage transitions; tasks & calendar with repeating tasks and reminder emails; basic email send/receive via SMTP/IMAP (Gmail/OAuth optional); simple workflow automations (if contact/opportunity matches -> create task or send email); reporting endpoints and a dashboard for pipeline and activity counts. Out of scope: mobile apps, advanced AI enrichment, premium third-party integrations, multi-region scaling. Include authentication, role-based simple access control, input validation, error handling, unit tests for backend routes, and end-to-end smoke tests. Provide Docker Compose for local development and a README with migration and backup steps.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 5 cited sources+3
- Evidence score60
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time — so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 5
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productCapsule CRM — official product
- official pricingCapsule CRM — pricing / signup
- official docsCapsule CRM — features
- open sourceoroinc/crm-application
- open sourcekrayin/laravel-crm
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
