Open-core CRM with an AGPL-licensed Community Edition, AI agents, APIs, MCP, and self-hosting.
Website | Demo | Documentation | GitHub | Film
Customermates is a CRM for modern teams that want a clear system for contacts, organizations, deals, services, and tasks without the usual enterprise-heavy setup. It combines practical CRM workflows with API access, webhooks, n8n automation, MCP-based tooling, and AI-agent workflows.
You can use the managed cloud version or run Customermates yourself in your own infrastructure with Docker Compose.
The 70 second film, with sound.
customermates-film.mp4
There are two ways to start using Customermates:
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Cloud | Fastest way to get started. Managed by Customermates. |
| Self-Hosting | Run Customermates on your own server with Docker Compose and PostgreSQL. |
Docs entry points:
- CRM for contacts, organizations, deals, services, and tasks
- API access with OpenAPI documentation
- Webhooks and event-driven integrations
- n8n workflows and automation support
- MCP support for agent tooling and structured tool calling
- Unified inbox for email, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Telegram (Cloud, from the Pro plan)
- Audit logging
- Single Sign-On and Whitelabeling on the Enterprise plan (self-hosted Enterprise deployments by agreement)
- Role-based access control for teams
- Several isolated workspaces per login, each with its own data model, members, billing, API keys and MCP connections
- Self-hosted deployment with Docker Compose and PostgreSQL
- Cloud uses monthly per-seat pricing; see the current plans
Customermates supports both cloud and self-hosted deployment models.
| Criterion | Cloud | Self-Hosted |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | monthly per-seat plans | free core + infra costs |
| Setup Time | 2 minutes | ~15 minutes |
| Maintenance Required | None | Docker, Postgres, proxy, TLS, backups |
| Updates | Automatic | docker compose pull && docker compose up -d |
| EU-hosted | ✅ | wherever you put it |
| Backups | Automatic daily | You configure |
| API and integrations | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unlimited Users | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unlimited Records | ✅ | ✅ |
| Several workspaces per login | ✅ (each with its own plan) | ✅ |
| n8n and automation workflows | ✅ | ✅ |
| Unified inbox and calendar sync | from the Pro plan | ❌ (Cloud feature) |
| Audit log | Included | Included |
| Enterprise (SSO, Whitelabeling) | Enterprise plan | By agreement |
If you want the full decision guide, see the Self-hosting docs.
Self-hosting is two files (docker-compose.yml and .env) plus docker compose up -d. No git clone, no build step. The published image at ghcr.io/customermates/customermates:latest applies pending migrations every time it starts.
- Docker and Docker Compose v2.
- A domain name if you want TLS (optional for local).
- ~2 GB RAM and a couple of GB of disk per thousand records.
mkdir customermates && cd customermates
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/customermates/customermates/main/docker-compose.yml -o docker-compose.yml
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/customermates/customermates/main/.env.selfhost.template -o .env
# edit .env with real values
docker compose up -dRequired .env values:
BETTER_AUTH_SECRET: long random string (openssl rand -hex 32).POSTGRES_PASSWORD: change the default.BASE_URL: your public URL (e.g.https://crm.example.com).RESEND_API_KEYandRESEND_OPERATOR_EMAIL: for signup verification, password reset, and invitation emails.
Optional: uncomment GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID and GOOGLE_CLIENT_SECRET, or AZURE_AD_CLIENT_ID and AZURE_AD_CLIENT_SECRET, to offer sign-in with Google or Microsoft. See Can users sign in with Google or Microsoft?.
Set CRON_SECRET (openssl rand -hex 32) and call /api/cron/lifecycle daily with it, or Trash is never emptied after 30 days. See Which scheduled jobs must I run?.
First boot takes ~1 minute while Prisma applies migrations. Watch with docker compose logs -f app, then open <BASE_URL>/auth/signup.
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d # update
docker compose up -d # apply .env changes
docker compose logs -f app # logsFront the app with a reverse proxy (Caddy, nginx, Traefik) for TLS and set BASE_URL to the public https:// address. Customermates takes the scheme and host for its links from BASE_URL and sets secure cookies when it uses https://, so X-Forwarded-Proto is not required. The proxy must pass on the original Host header, because the app rejects form submissions whose origin does not match it, including sign-in and sign-up.
More docs:
Create an isolated worktree and run Customermates locally:
git fetch origin main
git worktree add ../customermates-my-change -b feat/my-change origin/main
cd ../customermates-my-change
nvm use
yarn db:provision
cp .env.cloud.template .env
# Paste the printed DATABASE_URL and DIRECT_URL into .env.
yarn install --frozen-lockfile
yarn db:reset
yarn devyarn db:provision creates a PostgreSQL 17 container and named volume owned by the current worktree. Re-running it is idempotent. yarn db:reset applies the migrations, seeds the database, and prepares the workflow schemas. Replacing the database volume is destructive and only happens with yarn db:provision --recreate; use yarn db:provision --destroy to remove the worktree's owned database when the worktree is retired.
Useful scripts:
yarn devyarn buildyarn lintyarn openapi:generateyarn db:provisionyarn db:reset
For configurable CRM architecture review, isolated databases, production-build browser journeys and SSH verification, see the browser verification guide.
The docs cover:
- product overview and CRM comparison
- self-hosting and operations
- API integrations and OpenAPI
- MCP and n8n
- architecture and security
Start here: customermates.com/docs
Customermates uses an open-core licensing model, described in LICENSING.md.
The Community Edition (all first-party code outside ee/) is licensed under AGPL-3.0-only.
Other first-party files in ee/ are source-available under the Customermates Commercial License, subject to its AGPL client-material exception. Production use of Commercial Software outside the limited Community Build permission, including any Enterprise Feature, requires a Commercial Agreement.
The official Community image at ghcr.io/customermates/customermates is built from the shared codebase and contains compiled Commercial Software. The limited Community Build permission allows anyone to run its unmodified commercial support components where documented APP_MODE=self-hosted operation necessarily executes them; it does not license Enterprise Feature use.
Contributor terms are available in .github/CLA.md.
Third-party data keeps its own license: the address formats from Google libaddressinput that ship with Customermates and the postal codes it downloads from GeoNames are licensed under CC BY 4.0, see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.