I believe a valid idea but likely came too late. So what are people doing now with SuiteCRM? It will be interesting to see if there really is a community that can continue and also develop the half baked Suite8 version. There is still a long way to go I believe.
@pstevens Thanks for starting this thoughtful thread. This is definitely a topic that has been on my mind as well. I think the points you laid out touch on the main sticking points.
One additional challenge, through no fault of the platform, is individual user preferences. Iāve had several customers on SuiteCRM, only for a new executive or manager to come in, be accustomed to a different platform, and push hard to migrate.
While āfreeā is a selling point, the actual cost of many paid CRMs is not that significant in the grand scheme of thingsāespecially when considering the limited platform-specific knowledge available for a niche CRM and the costs of customizing it to meet specific needs.
The only other point Iād addāworthy or notāis that the community forums have become pretty caustic over the last several years. I actually got my career started on the original SugarCRM forums. Back then, they were welcoming and helpful. I eventually stopped visiting because of the unwarranted (and often incorrect) snarkiness I was seeingāand sometimes experiencing. For an open-source platform, that kind of environment is as harmful as it gets, in my opinion.
Also, thanks to everyone for the comments hereāthis was a bit therapeutic. 
3 Likes
Hello @pstevens .
A nice, good relevant thread you started. 
I like SuiteCRM - the only thing that bugs me about SuiteCRM is bugs. 
All the small and sometimes big annoying bugs that makes you want to tear your head out until you become bald. This is something I think many people / companies think āto hell with itā and goes for more expensive system where everything just works out of the box. Sure SuiteCRM does lack features as mentioned in the thread but not mission critical things for daily work.
They can also be added anyway so if SalesAgility wants too at some point.
But with that said; I do not think it is critical as the bugs - some of them never been fixed or just been hanging there for a long time.
Kind regards.
1 Like
Recently the development team encourge everyone to upvote the important bugs.
WE SHOULD UPVOTE IMPORTANT BUGS 
What features do you personally use in V7 but are not yet ready in V8 ?
Here are a list of things Iāve noted. I think a couple of them have been addressed (although I havenāt re-tested) like target conversions.
-
Target Conversion to leads does not work
-
Importing/Exporting Customizations in Studio does not work.
-
Email Campaigns, confirm optin not developed
-
Google maps do not embed
-
Image field type does not work
-
Contact āroleā in opportunities does not work
-
Opportunities probability does not change with sales stage
-
Reschedule button missing from call records, no way to reschedule calls
-
Reports module, wider than screen, no horziontal scroll
-
No inline editing in list view.
-
No edit button in list view.
4 Likes
Thatās not too bad for our usage here (still on 7.14) - only 10, 11 weād miss. Plus the bugs 9, 7
For the 9th, we already have solution in the forum or in the GitHub.
1 Like
Hi Paul, Iāve been using SuiteCRM since 2019 with my main client. We ended up using Microsoft Office 365 for calendars, scheduling, etc. and find that by importing emails, we can save things that are relevant to projects, certain cases, etc.
I agree with evveryoneās comments here as being food for thought. The trade off between using SuiteCRM or a SaaS I think depends so much on the types of users, their operational processes, and sales methodology. I like the idea of integrating with Mautic, and n8n, and also like the comment about just letting suiteCRM do basic email and leave the rest.
Weāre still running the latest 7.x but its basic functionality gets the job done. We are B2B, so the marketing hasnāt been as big of an issue. Lots to think about.
Currently planning on using PowerBI to serve the data from the ERP and also from the SuiteCRM. Also planning on integrating suiteCRM with a TalkDesk phone system.
I want to integrate where it makes sense, but am a fan of open source, we run a hybrid Magento Website, SuiteCRM, OpenSoure ERP written in Pick Basic, tied to Epicor for the manufacturing portion.
2 Likes
@office Did you build a custom CRM or looking into having one built out?
In the end I choose another solution, 1 week of tinkering for each simple thing that it should be done under 1 minute.
For that we use a Workflow to change it based on Sales Stage
Things that make the CRM hard to adopt.
Doesnāt work with modern Email Services unless an SMTP relay is used (no official relays exist (virtualisation / images), all must be self implemented)
Ajax Butchers URLās unless it is turned off
The way files are uploaded to SuiteCRM is broken (fix proposed)
parts of the system which could be extended relies on static code (mostly referring to the Calender / allowing other module types with date fields to show but am confident other areas exist)
lack of consideration for HTML5 (integer field is a text field? email field is a text field not of type email?)
Difficult to open new tabs, right clicking on most things and opening in new tab will result in an empty page (due to strange JavaScript on anchor tags instead of using hrefs). user has to duplicate page they are on wait for it to load and then use left mouse clicks on ui elements to get to where they want to go.
Most awesome features of Suite (only available in 8)
GraphQL
and being able to put fields from other modules into the view of a module (Iām building a new field type to hopefully cover this)
Grafana is awesome for reporting and a great alternative for the reporting directly in SuiteCRM
I always recommend to users not to use email campaigns within Suite due to Oauth, and the email template designer, and an issue where emails get stuck in the email queue (tick box to say sending in progress prevents further email attempts without DBA (Database Admin) access). Iāve looked into Mautic however never managed to get it to work with Suite, we do still have users that use the email campaigns
with all that said it is awesome for what you get and it is free.
1 Like
Thanks for your insight. If your not using Mautic with SuiteCRM youāre missing out. The combo of SuiteCRM and Mautic make it a sales and Marketing powerhouse. Its a bit of a struggle to get the sync to work the first time. ,but once you get it, its solid. Ive done it many times for myself and clients.
1 Like
As for emails, they shall be improved in 8.9 and 8.10 - the team is working on it.
Same goes for the campaigns.
Other parts that youāre describing sounds like a fairly technical / dev focused point of view.
Not sure, how many other major open source CRM systems (either Sugar forks or others) are what devs would love code wise.
I assume, that the āolderā code bases are āworseā than the newer ones, if devs apply similar principles.
If you look at the code for a CRM system, youāre in a special situation.
So far, the code was never the decision making criteria in my projects - especially not for leaving SuiteCRM.
Letās just assume, people would leave for Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho etc., there is no dev making this decision based on the code.
(Suite)CRM is mostly for sales and with SuiteCRM 8.9+ marketing is being strengthened as well, which is a very good path.
As for major code improvements / priorities, maybe try to contact SuiteCRM directly and see whether / how you can contribute, if you want to see things prioritized.
As Paul mentioned as well: Look further into Mautic - itās a great combination with SuiteCRM.
My suggestion here, ignore the Mautic plugin, and focus on an API integration with many more features and options.
Iāve got a couple of videos for this integration method coming up:
1 Like
I really like how they have simplified the email campaigns so far. However, the email builder is non existant. I guess you can build an email somewhere else and paste in the HTML at this point. I wish they would consider just plugging in Grape JS like Mautic did. It provides a modern drag and drop responsive email builder and its an open source code base that SalesAgility doesnāt have to maintain with their limited (and precious!) resources. This would really bring email campaigns into 2025 and the future.
3 Likes
I look forward to your Mautic tutorials
So Iāve seen the new 7.14.x update which brings Oauth connectivity for Outbound Email.
Big win, will be trying this out
I can also confirm I have the SuiteCRM-> Mautic Sync working on Mautic 6+ with both SuiteCRM 7 & 8.