Fat Free CRM added to Bitnami Library

We're happy to introduce Fat Free CRM as part of the Bitnami library!

Fat Free CRM is an open source Ruby on Rails-based customer relationship management platform. Out of the box it features group collaboration, campaign and lead management, contact lists and opportunity tracking. The project goal is to spur CRM innovation by providing a clean code base that can be easily extended by developers.

Fat Free CRM is now ready to install in a few clicks with the Bitnami Fat Free CRM installers (available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X), Virtual Machine images (VMs) and Amazon EC2, Google and Windows Azure cloud images.

If you want to check out Fat Free CRM, simply launch a free cloud demo server. Click the button below to get your own Fat Free CRM instance running for 1 hour, for free!

We also had the opportunity to interview Steve Kenworthy, Maintainer of the project, who was kind enough to answer some of our questions:

What is the goal of the Fat Free CRM application?

The goal of Fat Free CRM is to provide a light-weight customer relationship management platform. It provides a core set of features that can be easily extended through the Admin UI to fit an organization's specific requirements.

What are some of the features of Fat Free CRM?

Fat Free CRM allows users to initiate leads, promote them to contacts and accounts, log opportunities and track campaigns. It provides the ability to extend account, contact, opportunity and campaign data with custom fields more tailored to an organization's needs. There is also a basic task management system to help track actions and help teams collaborate. The software is translated into over 15 languages and has a flexible plugin architecture designed to enable developers to easily write add-ons.

Which projects or organizations are using Fat Free CRM currently?  What kind of projects do they use it for?

We have a wide range of organizations using the system: 

• Corporations working in areas such as real estate, cloud services, healthcare and telecommunications
• Charities, universities and student groups
• Developer and consulting firms customizing for their clients (the software is MIT licensed)

It's usage varies widely as it is tailored to suit an organization's specific requirements. On the whole, it's about contact management.

What do you expect will be the main benefits of having Bitnami packages available for Fat Free CRM?

The Bitnami installers will help those who are wanting to get Fat Free CRM up and running very quickly without needing to set it up themselves. For those wanting to see what it can do, it's a one-click option to try it out.

Developers will be able to get a consistent, standards-based full-stack running much more quickly and the ability to install on cloud hosting providers opens up a huge number of deployment scenarios.

Would you like your favorite app to be part of Bitnami? Be sure to suggest and vote for it in our monthly contest!

SuiteCRM added to the Bitnami Library!

We are glad to announce that SuiteCRM, one of the winners from our monthly apps contest, is now part of the Bitnami Library!

SuiteCRM is a completely open source enterprise-grade Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application. SuiteCRM is a software fork of the popular customer relationship management (CRM) system SugarCRM.


Thanks to their successful effort in promoting the Bitnami contest to  encourage their community to vote, SuiteCRM is now ready to install in  a few clicks with the Bitnami SuiteCRM installers, available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, Virtual Machine images (VMs) and cloud images for the Amazon EC2 and Azure clouds.

We also had  the opportunity to interview Greg Soper, CEO of SalesAgility, who was kind enough to answer a few questions  about the project.

How was the SuiteCRM project started? What are the origins of this project?

SuiteCRM is a fork of the SugarCRM project with a hugely expanded functionality set that competes with SugarCRM's Professional Edition and also with Microsoft Dynamics and SalesForce Professional. At its heart, SuiteCRM is 100% compatible with SugarCRM Community Edition with added modules for Workflow, Reporting, Portal, Products, Quotes, Contracts, Invoices, Teams and more.

SuiteCRM is completely open source from top to bottom and all code released by the project will be open source.

SuiteCRM was developed by SalesAgility, the world's longest established and largest independent SugarCRM Community Edition consultants. It was developed in response to SugarCRM announcing that they no longer wish to be involved in developing or supporting open source in the shape of their Community Edition. SuiteCRM is a complete replacement for SugarCRM Community Edition. Once SugarCRM stops supporting Community Edition in 2015, the SuiteCRM community and project are available as a tailor-made home for the millions of companies and users who have grown to depend on SugarCRM over the last 8 years.

What is the main goal for SuiteCRM?

The goal is simple: To be the most popular and most used CRM application globally.

What are some of the features of SuiteCRM?

It is an enterprise-class application that enables users to service their customers better, to understand their customers better, to respond to their needs more rapidly and to communicate with them more effectively. It is a complete Customer Relationship Management tool with an ecosystem of extensions and integrations to other applications such as Sage, MailChimp and Joomla.

Which projects or organizations are using SuiteCRM currently? What kind of projects do they use it for?

CRM is a horizontally applied business tool. It's functionality has high value across numerous sectors including governments,  third sector, retail, manufacturing and services. Any organisation that services people or deals with customers can benefit. SuiteCRM is used by hundreds of thousands of organisations across the planet.

Our direct customers include governments, global manufacturers, healthcare, finance, distribution, legal, accountancy, distribution, pharmaceuticals, aquaculture, education and many others.

What do you expect will be the main benefits of having Bitnami packages available for SuiteCRM?

Without a doubt it's the ease with which it facilitates exploration of what can otherwise be a daunting and technical deployment. To have a complete working version of SuiteCRM in a couple of clicks without geek-level technical knowledge is convenience cubed.

Would you like your favorite app to be part of Bitnami? Be sure to suggest and vote for it in our monthly contest!

EspoCRM added to Bitnami Library!

EspoCRM is the latest winner of the Bitnami monthly packaging contest and we are happy to announce that it is now available as part of the Bitnami library.


EspoCRM is an open source web application that allows you to see, enter and evaluate all your company relationships regardless of the type. It can assess people, companies, projects or opportunities, all in an easy, intuitive and fast interface. It is accessible on all devices, from smartphones and tablets to large screen desktops.

Thanks to their efforts in encouraging their community to vote during the Bitnami contest, EspoCRM is now ready to install in a few clicks with the Bitnami EspoCRM installers (available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X), Virtual Machine images (VMs), cloud images for the Amazon EC2 and Azure cloud platforms.

We also had the opportunity to interview Alex Avramenko, one of the lead developers of the project,  who was kind enough to answer some of our questions:

How was the EspoCRM project started? What are the origins of this project?

There are no Open Source CRM products that have been implemented with the latest web technologies. That's why we created the Single Page Application, which gives us an advantage in the speed of our CRM.

What is the main goal for EspoCRM?

We have created a CRM that relies on speed, a lightweight user interface, and easy customization. How effective it is will be seen in the near future.

What are some of the features of EspoCRM?

There is still a lot of work ahead. We plan to integrate with Google services, create a report builder, and focus on the analytical information.

Which projects or organizations are using EspoCRM currently? What kind of projects do they use it for?

EspoCRM is a relatively young CRM system, but we have had many companies showing interest in it. The areas of usage vary greatly: medicine, insurance, trade and others. We have customers from all over the world, from North America to Asia.

What do you expect will be the main benefits of having Bitnami packages available for EspoCRM?

We believe that more companies will be interested in EspoCRM  if it is able to be quickly and easily installed. It will increase the quality of our services. This is very important to us.


Would you like your favorite app to be part of Bitnami? Be sure to suggest and vote for it in our monthly contest!

Dolibarr ERP & CRM now available in BitNami

We are happy to announce that Dolibarr ERP & CRM is now available as part of the BitNami library. Dolibarr is an open source, free software Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) package for small and medium companies, foundations and freelancers.

BitNami makes it easy to install and manage Dolibarr by bundling the application with all of its required dependencies (web server, database, and so on) in an easy to deploy package. You can now download free, ready to run native installers for  Windows, OS X and Linux, virtual machines and Azure and Amazon EC2 cloud images.

If you want to check out this new version, you can instantly launch a free cloud demo server with the BitNami Cloud Launchpad by clicking the button below.

Laurent Destailleur, project leader and main developer of Dolibarr, was kind enough to share with us some details about the project.

1. What is the goal of the Dolibarr application?

The goal of Dolibarr ERP & CRM is to provide an integrated and free software package that provides all features you need to manage your company or foundation.

Dolibarr dashboard

2. What are some of the features of Dolibarr?

Dolibarr provides everything you would expect from a modern ERP and CRM system including:

• Customers, prospects and suppliers directory
• Products and services catalog
• Stock management
• Bank accounts management
• Commercial actions management
• Orders management
• and dozens of other features

Dolibarr can also be extended via external modules available on DoliStore.com

3. Which projects or organizations are using Dolibarr currently? What kind of projects do they use it for?

In France alone, over 100 000 small companies and associations/foundations are using Dolibarr.

4. What do you expect will be the main benefits of having BitNami packages available for Dolibarr?

Dolibarr target audience are people at small companies without necessarily much technical knowledge. Having BitNami packages available will address the need of such users: being able to install Dolibarr, a powerful software package, in few seconds by themselves. Also, though there are already competitors that provide packaged installs for Dolibarr, none provide a package for Mac OS X yet. BitNami makes it easier for those users to get started with Dolibarr.

We are glad Dolibarr is now part of BitNami. Would you like your favorite app to be part of BitNami? Make sure to suggest and vote for it in our contest!

Welcome to the Newest BitNami Stack, Zurmo!

We are happy to announce a new member in the BitNami family: Zurmo. Zurmo is a new Open Source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) alternative that is mobile, social, and gamified.

Thanks to the community votes in our community contest, Zurmo was selected to be packaged as part of the BitNami Library. You can now download free, ready to run native installers for Windows, OS X and Linux, virtual machines and Windows Azure & Amazon EC2 cloud images.

Ray Stoeckicht, Co-Founder of Zurmo, was kind enough to answer some questions for those of you who may not be familiar with the project.


1. What is the goal of the Zurmo application?

To build the best open source CRM application in the world by focusing on engineering, quality of the technical infrastructure, and creating innovative feature arcs that will motivate users to use the system.

Zurmo dashboard

2. What are some of its features?

In this link you can find a list with the base features. 

Some unique differentiators include: 

- Gamification (increases user adoption)
- Social Conversations (keeps users engaged in the system)
- Full Testing Infrastructure (more stable and easier to handle upgrades, maintenance, and support)
- Fresh User Interface (increases user adoption)
- Built on a PHP Framework and other Development Platforms (most current technology)

3. Which projects or organizations are using it currently? What kind of projects do they use it for?

Zurmo can be used by anyone from a 1-person freelancer to a 100 user sales organization. As we build the feature set (http://zurmo.org/roadmap), it will become more and more geared towards larger, complex use cases, with many moving parts. The more integrations, high volumes of data, and customizations, the better Zurmo is positioned to handle the use case. We aspire to be the first open source CRM that can scale to the enterprise. Currently, we have a customer that uses Zurmo as the core system for centralizing millions of data points and running the company's entire operations. We also have a rugby team in the UK that uses Zurmo for activity management and sales force automation.

4. What do you expect will be the main benefits of having BitNami packages available for Zurmo?

The main benefit of having Bitnami packages available is that it makes it easy to try out Zurmo and get it up and running without having to worry about the system setup. The ease of installation is something that will benefit any user that wants to get started, and it will also allow existing users to pull down the latest version in order to test new features. We are extremely excited to be a part of the extensive BitNami library.

We are glad Zurmo is now part of BitNami. Would you like your favorite app to be part of BitNami? Be sure to suggest and vote for it in our contest!