Top 10 Open Source ERP Software to Boost Efficiency

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software is the glue that ties all micro-level business systems together. You get all the critical business lifelines, including HR, finance, supply-chain, sales, marketing, and more, under one hood to present a single source of truth.

I should add the disclaimer that contrary to popular opinion, open-source and free ERP isn’t about zero cost.

There are indirect expenses when you implement and maintain any ERP on-premises, which can be more taxing than opting for a cloud ERP, especially for small businesses. So cost isn’t a real USP of any open source ERP system. Instead, enterprise users choose it for top-notch data security, hosting control, and customization.

I researched 18 popular platforms and tested their demos before presenting this list of top 10 ERP solutions, based on business size, industry, and modularity.

• 1. Odoo – Best for Small to Medium Business
• 2. ERPNext – Enterprise-ready All-in-One ERP Solution
• 3. Dolibarr – Simple, Project and CRM-focused
• 4. Tryton – Scalable ERP Platform
• 5. ERP5 – Best for Logistics/Accounting
• 6. Metasfresh – ERP for Midsize Businesses
• 7. Axelor – Industry-based ERP
• 8. OFBiz (Apache) – Developer-friendly ERP
• 9. iDURAR – Premium ERP for Enterprise
• 10. Ever Gauzy – ERP with Flexible Licensing Options
• Show moreShow less

1. Odoo

Odoo provides a suite of 45+ applications to manage every aspect of your business. The individual applications are integrated but can also be purchased separately.

Odoo Features

• Blog, eCommerce, and eLearning platforms builders. Create forums & live chats to directly talk to your customers.
• CRM, quotation, and Point of Sale applications. Rental and subscription management.
• Accounting, invoicing, expenses, eSignatures, etc.
• Inventory and Manufacturing applications for product life-cycle, purchase, maintenance, quality management, etc.
• Recruitments, time-offs, appraisals, fleet, and time off.
• Marketing automation utilities for managing emails, SMS, social media, events, and surveys.
• Projects, field services & customer service, appointments, employee management, helpdesk, and meetings.
• Team chat, VoIP, and IoT management.
• Odoo Studio to build mobile applications.

While it offers a wide range of features, you should note that not all applications listed above are available for the open-source self-hosted community edition. For instance, the free version doesn’t include Accounting, Payroll, and Documents.

In addition, you won’t get Android and iOS apps if you’re self-hosting (though there are no such restrictions on Windows and Linux apps). Another upside of the cloud version is that you can use any single app, and Odoo lets you use it for free, forever, with unlimited users.

That’s why I recommend comparing both, Community and Enterprise, editions before moving ahead. A third option is self-hosting with a third-party Odoo host such as Kamatera or Hostinger.

I have checked the Odoo demo which presents all the apps on the startup screen. From there, you can click to open the dashboards. Every app screen has all the other modules stacked in the left panel. Take a look. 👇

Try Odoo

2. ERPNext

ERPNext from Frappe is a 100% free, open-source ERP software with no paywalled features. You can host it with any cloud provider or in-house on Linux or as a Docker image. Or, pick its own Frappe Cloud to get automated backups, UI-based deployment, activity logs, premium support, analytics, and more.

ERPNext Features

• Real-time accounting books giving key performance indicators. Chart of Accounts (CoA), multi-company accounting, income & expenses tracking, auto-invoicing, multi-currency transaction management, taxes, compliance, budgeting, billing, and more.
• Automated procurement and stock replenishment, compiled supplier quotations and cost comparison, purchase orders, stock ledger, invoicing, account payables tracking, and bulk payments.
• Quotation builder, automatic personalized emails, create sales order, pricing rules, automatic discounts, track late payers, and set auto payment reminders.
• Lead logging & consolidation, auto lead creation, lead profiling, campaign building and performance analysis, lead segmentation with email groups, personalized newsletters, and team collaboration.
• Warehouse simulation, auto re-order configuration, real-time inventory valuation, stock reconcilation, putaway rules, serialised and batch-based inventory, stock aging balance, and ledger report.
• Maintain BOM, manufacturing and capacity planning, work order, and subcontracting.
• Project tracking & project interlinks, task tracking, task dependencies, project mapping with invoices, expenses, timesheets, and project-level inventories.
• POS catalog management, invoicing, dedicated warehouse for every store, profitability tracking per store, separate POS for each billing counter, and shift management.
• SOPs, quality parameters, review documentation, quality meeting management, and feedback collection.

ERPNext has a fully fledged HR module (Frappe HR), which Frappe has also launched as a standalone product. Besides, you can extend ERPNext with its no-code/low-code extension for building custom workflows.

With this platform, you get one of the functional and modern-looking user interfaces. The best part was the dashboard fluidity, which almost instantly responded to my clicks.

Try ERPNext

3. Dolibarr

Dolibarr is one product you can easily customize to fit your business needs. You can unpack the necessary modules, which natively integrates with other active features. Upgrades won’t have you lose or re-enter data.

Dolibarr Features

• Customers & leads management, quotation & proposal builder, order and subscription management.
• Employee management, create expense reports, timesheets, and recruitment assistance.
• Website builder including eCommerce store and Point of Sales application.
• Product/service catalog, warehouse management, performance tracking, purchase orders, procurement management, track shipments, create BOMs, and material resources planning.
• Invoice creation, tracking, and payment management. Reconciliation support to find errors or missed entries. Double-entry accounting to fast-track the process of creating an accounting ledger.
• Email marketing campaigns and surveys.
• Projects tracking and analysis, business prospects, and creating intervention records. Custom calendar to record events and assign resources to specific events.
• REST APIs are used to create, update, or delete data. Integrate custom LDAP & SMTP servers, payment channels (PayPal, Stripe, Paybox, etc.), and Google services (maps, contacts, calendar, etc). Import/export of data via CSV or spreadsheets.
• A no-code/low code utility to build custom modules for developers.

Dolibarr also features a marketplace with tons of third-party apps to extend functionality. In addition, you can check the list of preferred Dolibarr partners for custom developments and/or implementation support.

It has applications for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Docker. You can also run Dolibarr as a Docker image.

Like others on this list, Dolibarr has an official cloud version (DoliCloud) too. Starting from 14€/month, this is aimed at small businesses and enterprise companies and comes with a hands-free implementation, priority support, daily backups, and more.

You can get a taste with the Dolibarr demo, which lets you play with its modular architecture, where you can selectively turn on required sections.

You should be prepared to change language (which is quite a task in itself) as the defaults load in French. Unfortunately, the UI wasn’t as snappy as one would expect. Still, things worked, even if in the old-fashioned way.

Try Dolibarr

4. Tryton

Tryton is a business size-agnostic ERP software with 100% open source code and is free to use. It started as an Odoo (previously TinyERP) fork, with the first version releasing back in 2008. Currently, it’s been run by a federation of 15+ globally dispersed companies.

Tryton features individual modules that you can turn on and scale as required.

Tryton Features

• Take note of all transactions in the chart of accounts.
• Manage quotations and products.
• Oversee shipments, receipts, current stocks with location, etc.
• Calculate revenues and expenses by specific categories.
• Lead management and conversion.
• Quotation tracking and group orders.
• Supply chain management, BOMs, and shipping management.
• Project tracking and profitability monitoring.
• Subscription management and third-party integrations.

Except for these standard features, admins can also extend Tryton with a decent collection of third-party modules. The platform also maintains a collection of hand-picked extensions to shorten the search.

Tryton has clients for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and is also available as a Docker image. There’s also a Cloud edition, which starts at 49 CHF/user/month.

You can get first-hand impressions with the Tryton demo. It has some placeholder data, but also accepts new entries.

Things worked and the dashboard aesthetics, while not great, weren’t bad either. That said, the demo data was limited and there were entire modules (such as inventory) with little to no data, making the assessment challenging.

So I suggest you take the Tryton demo, while putting in the extra data for a clear picture.

Try Tryton

5. ERP5

ERP5 is one of the open source offerings from its France-based developer Nexedi.

Unlike most of its counterparts, ERP5 has deployed a unified business model design for 4 of its major modules, including accounting, warehouse management, production, and human resources management.

This means all these specific modules are tightly integrated and have interconnected functionality. Per ERP5, the idea is to ease the learning curve and reduce data inconsistencies.

ERP5 Features

• Workflow-based Accounting with support for multiple currencies. Role-based multi-entity access. Compatible with multiple General Accounting Plans (GAP). Asset management with auto-generation of amortization events as per asset life cycle. Future cash transaction planning.
• Unified activity view with all third parties like clients, media, suppliers, etc. Event tracking and ticket management. Central document storage with support for major formats. Easy access to records and spreadsheet export. Role-based access, categorical access, and time management.
• HR modules manage job posts, training, and position life cycle.
• Project and inventory management.
• Manufacturing module to streamline procurement, sales, and complaints.
• eCommerce with product catalogs, CPU-efficient shopping carts, subscription support, and rule-based pricing. Multisite inventory with integrated PoS. Mobile commerce, loyalty management, social integrations, multilingual & multi-currency support, etc.
• Product data management to control parameters like selling & cost price, barcodes, dimensions, etc.
• Management of your integrated knowledge base using the most advanced open source search engines and support for popular document formats (DOC, ODT, XLS, ODS, PDF, HTML, etc.). Automatic classification, document versioning, and information unification.

You can self-host on Linux only, with no clients for Windows or Mac yet. Alternatively, Nexedi recommends deploying ERP5 on its browser-based IDE and PAAS, SlapOS Webrunner.

Taking a test ride of ERP5 isn’t straightforward unless you’re on Nexedi’s SlapOS. Though there are detailed instructions for setup, there is no click-to-start demo as was the case with others on this list.

As a quick countermeasure, you can click the modules on the ERP5 homepage. This provides screenshots and an overview of the under-the-hood workflows.

Try ERP5

6. Metasfresh

Metasfresh is an open source ERP aimed at SMEs. It gets updated weekly and is available for Ubuntu and as a Docker image.

Its developers were founding members of the ADempiere Foundation (another ERP solution) before forking out to Metasfresh in 2015.

Metasfresh Features

• Outbound mails, call scheduling, lead management, and sales pipeline.
• Credit limits, order data import, sales order, reports, statistics, and quotations.
• Goods receipt, order planning, procurement, purchase orders & statistics, and proposals request.
• Product management, custom tariffs, discounts, and units of measurement.
• Manufacturing orders, component generator, BOMs, production planning, resources and workflow management.
• Warehouse management, inventory movements, material receipt management, and shipment planning, supply chain management.
• Accounting schema, automatic FACT accounting, credit notes, and invoice management.
• Distribution management, intralogistics, order picking, delivery tours planning, and shipping notifications.
• Electronic payments, incoming/outgoing payments, payment notifications, and payment orders export in SEPA format.
• Contract management, subcontracting, automatic contract extension, commissions, delivery contracts, custom contract terms, and subscription management.

Kudos to Metasfresh for not keeping premium features locked to its cloud version. Besides, its cloud version is open source too. The only differentiator from the self-hosted edition is that the cloud ERP will provide you with a web interface to use your Metasfresh instance from any web browser.

Businesses can implement Metasfresh ERP as a Docker image for free without any cap on the number of members. However, the technical support (if opted for) is based on the number of users and support duration.

Try Metasfresh

7. Axelor

Axelor has specific ERP solutions for manufacturing, services & construction, and retail & distribution. Overall, their open suite of apps has 30+ modules that hardly leave any business-related aspect out of their purview.

The good thing is you can activate specific modules as per need without hogging computing resources.

Axelor Features

• Auto-generation of accounting entries from accounting documents (invoices, bank statements, etc.). Rules-based automatic accounting and reconciliation. Integrate cash flow predictions and monitoring. Multi-bank accounts management. Programmed credit transfers and SEPA direct debits.
• Axelor calendar showing CRM events, holidays, tasks, etc. Sync with external applications such as Google calendar.
• Project management with unlimited hierarchies, role-based access, real-time collaboration, profit analysis, monitoring, and automated invoicing.
• Customer and supplier contract management, subscription management, mass contract rates revaluation, and automated billing management.
• Leads and customer management. Campaigns management and performance analysis. CRM integration.
• Track potential and present sales. Fully customizable quote templates and discount management. Order, deliveries, and invoice tracking. Multiple currency and language support and formula-based adaptable pricing.
• Document management to create, download, classify, and find business documents.
• Creation, assign, and monitor the life cycles of the fleet vehicles. Oversee vehicle rental contracts, track maintenance, and fuel consumption.
• Helpdesk to create, assign, and track support tickets in addition to SLA management. Customer support performance overview.
• Monitor employee contracts, prepare payrolls, time track, and create leave reports. Handle timesheets, acquisition, training, and evaluation.
• Manage invoices and supplier credit notes. Create and distribute mass invoices. Auto calculation and notification about invoice due dates. Financial performance reporting.
• Create and manage BOMs. Scheduling optimization, and consumption visualization. Build production and manufacturing orders. Support for finite and infinite capacity planning. Integrated inventory management application.
• Create, validate and finalize quotations to auto-build purchase orders. Generate receipts, schedule goods movement, and create control invoices. Send quotations to multiple suppliers.
• Build various quality control points and schedule monitoring. Problem notifications. Track each issue with resolution and the complete course of action.

Though it feels very detailed, critical functionality, such as bank connections, e-commerce integrations, Gsuite and Office 365, analytics, and real-time management, is reserved to its cloud editions.

Still interested? Give Axelor a try on Linux, Windows, or as a Docker image.

Try Axelor

8. OFBiz (Apache)

OFBiz comes from the stables of the Apache Software Foundation. You can deploy OFBiz to any industry, regardless of its size, on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

OFBiz Features

• Double entry general ledger with support to multiple organizations, account hierarchies, and segmentation. Contracts, credits, and asset management with depreciation. Budget management, payment gateway support, and financial reporting. Integration with other ERP modules.
• Create BOMs, production & material resource planning. Job costing and manage raw material procurement. Equipment billing and manufacturing reports.
• Oversee job posts, applications, & interviews. Manage present positions with performance ratings. Create company/department hierarchy, monitor expenses, training & contracts.
• Support for multiple warehouses and inventory locations. Package and returns management. Build unlimited stores, & product catalogs. Create specific pricing rules. Integrated online and POS applications.
• Manage prospects and present customers. Sales forecast and email integration. Create support tickets. Email marketing. Quotations and order management.
• Unlimited online stores, cross sell and upsell, pricing rules, discounts, customer portal, and payment gateway integration.

Business owners can instantly go through the OFBiz demo. You can check the image below of the OFBiz Project console. 👇

While the looks of this open-source ERP solution are plain old simple, the user experience was slick. There was no lag, every click responded without any awkward delay or freeze. However, a few things, such as Gantt charts, suffer from over-simplification, and I would love to see Apache polish OFBiz to a more modern-looking UI.

Unfortunately, Apache does offer an official cloud OFBiz implementation. You can still check this list of official OFBiz partners for deployment support.

Try OFBiz

9. iDURAR

iDURAR is a premium open “fair-code” software you can purchase for a one-time fee.

Fair-code is a business-friendly version of open-source. In general, fair code licensing can impose specific restrictions (iDURAR licensing terms)—chiefly on the commercial (~ for profit) reproduction, modification, and distribution.

iDURAR Features

• Manage user accounts, role-based access, and user authentication.
• Lead and customer management, sales opportunities tracking, customer communication history, appointment scheduling, and meeting notifications.
• Sales order management, invoice generation, payment gateway integration, purchase orders, supplier management and sales performance analysis.
• Inventory tracking, automatic stock notifications, barcode scanning, and product categorization.
• General financial ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, payment tracking, and financial accounting reports.
• Project creation and tracking, task management, resource management, expense tracking, document sharing, and real-time collaboration and communication.
• Reporting and analytics, KPI dashboards, custom reports, and data visualization.
• Webhooks and API integration.

You can self-host iDURAR for a one-time payment of $8,000. This gives full code access and 24/7 priority email support, and imposes no limits on iDURAR feature set, including number of users, invoices, quotes, leads, etc. There is a limited features demo version, which is free as well. However, this is only valid for one user.

iDURAR is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, and can also be deployed using Docker.

If you’re interested, iDURAR also features a cloud version you can try without paying. Alternatively, sign up and access its demo for a brief hands-on.

iDURAR’s demo comes without any default data. This makes the evaluation challenging since populating an ERP with placeholder data is a time-consuming task. Still, I have made a few entries in the people section, which you can see in the screenshot below.

Try iDURAR

10. Ever Gauzy

Ever Gauzy clubs key business functions, such as customer relationship management, HR, application tracking system, and project management, into its ERP offering.

Ever Gauzy Features

• Time tracking, members management, automated employee activity screenshots, project timesheets, schedules/appointments, productivity rating, and employee statistics.
• Automated payments, payment gateway integration (PayPal, Payoneer, and Paychex), bookkeeping, and (daily, weekly, and monthly) reports.
• Proposal creation, quotation/estimates management, invoice creation & status tracking, automatic invoices, & invoice records.
• Project tracking, cost monitoring, workload management, prioritizing projects/tasks, and time and cost-based limits.
• Client management dashboard, appointment tracker, contact viewer, and integrated calendar.

Ever Gauzy has flexible self-hosting options based on the licensing requirements. For instance, you can have its 100% open source Community Edition, which comes under the AGPL v3 license.

As of this writing, entrepreneurs can also grab its Small Business Edition for a one-time payment offering lifetime use without any AGPL v3 restrictions.

An even more powerful version is its Enterprise Edition, which further presents 2 tiers: Single Company with unlimited employees or Unlimited Companies with 10 employees. The Enterprise version also provides 24/7 tech support, which is unavailable in the community, as well as one-time payment editions.

Ever Gauzy has apps for Windows, macOS, and Linux, while the Android and iOS apps are listed as coming soon. You can also deploy it as a Docker image. Just so you know, Ever Gauzy has a cloud-based ERP in the works, too.

I found the Ever Gauzy demo as the most complete representation out of the box. In fact, it didn’t feel like a demo as the placeholder data was enough to present a real-time overview. Take a look at the weekly time tracking report in the following screengrab.

Try Ever Gauzy

What Is Difference Between Open Source and Cloud ERP?

You shouldn’t get confused between open source self-hosting and cloud ERP as the distinctions are far too critical and clearly visible. The following section will address any doubts if you’re still on the edge.

Self-hosted Open Source ERP

Open source ERP software that you can self host is an excellent option for enterprises seeking customizable deployments. This route offers unmatched flexibility in hosting, integrations, and data security.

However, you need to know this is far from the “easy” alternative. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Self-hosting requires technical expertise and is only suitable if a business has a dedicated developer team to implement, optimize, maintain, and troubleshoot ERP solutions. I would never recommend self-hosting ERP to any startup with strained financials or without any in-house developers.

For those setups, we have this next 👇 offering.

Cloud ERP

Cloud is best for someone lacking ERP hosting expertise or if you’re simply more inclined towards ready-to-deploy SaaS products.

Zero implementation headaches, hands-free maintenance, and absolutely no security overhead are some key virtues of cloud ERP solutions.

On the downside, you are left with subscriptions that will sting your credit card every now and then 😅. Still, the pros far outweigh the cons if you’re tight on resources or don’t want custom solutions. Another good thing is that cloud ERP often has premium features, which companies generally don’t provide to their self-hosted and “free” ERP users.

To summarize…

Self-hosted ERP is best for custom implementations with an in-house developer team. You’ll have control over hosting, data, and everything else.

On the other hand, Cloud ERP is suitable for anyone who is into hassle-free SaaS products. Security, deployment, maintenance, integrations, etc., are handled in exchange for a subscription fee.

Conclusion

The real cost of implementing an ERP lies with the hosting and support. Unreliable hosting services or support issues can result in heavy losses, especially if there’s a vendor lock-in.

So, ensure a fluid roll-back policy before transitioning to any ERP software.

And while the “free” options seem tempting, implementation support and cloud hosting have proved life saviors in most cases.

On a final note, I would advise you to take your time, do your research, and then choose ERP software that fits your needs.