MagpieCRM vs SuiteCRM: a lighter open source CRM for outreach

Why do teams look for a SuiteCRM alternative?

Teams look for a SuiteCRM alternative when they need less CRM, not more. SuiteCRM covers a lot of ground: sales, marketing, service and reporting. A small team that mostly sends outbound email may use only a corner of it.

That team often wants three things in one place:

• New contacts. A way to search for companies and people to reach.
• Checked emails. Addresses verified before the first send.
• Simple sending. Campaigns and short follow-up sequences, without a long setup.

MagpieCRM is built around that job. It is not a replacement for SuiteCRM as a CRM. We checked every SuiteCRM fact on this page on 12 October 2026, using SuiteCRM's own website, docs and code repository.

How much do SuiteCRM and MagpieCRM cost?

SuiteCRM is free to download and self-host. Hosted SuiteCRM costs £143 a month on the Starter package, or £130 a month billed yearly, according to the SuiteCRM hosting page. Business is £180 and Premium £280 a month, billed yearly. Dedicated hosting starts from £3,200 a year. Prices exclude VAT.

The hosting page says there are no per-user licence fees. Each package is sized by performance instead: Starter is recommended for up to 10 users, Business for 50 and Premium for 150. The shared packages come with a 30-day free trial.

MagpieCRM also has no per-seat fees. On Magpie Cloud you pay £0.004 per prospect credit (1 for each prospect a search shows you)$0.006 per prospect credit (1 for each prospect a search shows you), 1 prospect credit (£0.004)1 prospect credit ($0.006) per verified email reveal and £0.15 per 1,000$0.25 per 1,000 emails sent. You choose a monthly allowance of each, paid up front, from £10/month$15/month:

• 1,000 prospects found, 600 verified email reveals and 25,000 emails sent a month comes to £10.15 on Magpie Cloud (1,600 prospect credits and the emails)1,000 prospects found, 600 verified email reveals and 25,000 emails sent a month comes to $15.85 on Magpie Cloud (1,600 prospect credits and the emails).
• 40,000 emails sent a month comes to £6.00 on Magpie Cloud, within the £10 monthly minimum40,000 emails sent a month comes to $10.00 on Magpie Cloud, within the $15 monthly minimum.

Unused allowance does not roll over. Self-hosted MagpieCRM is free, and you pay your data and email providers directly. Adding teammates to a Magpie Cloud workspace isn't available yet. Self-hosted copies can add users.

MagpieCRM vs SuiteCRM: feature comparison

SuiteCRM covers far more of the CRM job than MagpieCRM. MagpieCRM adds prospect search and email verification, which SuiteCRM does not list. The table puts them side by side. SuiteCRM details come from its website and docs. "Not listed" means we found no such feature in the SuiteCRM user guide.

The main difference is size. SuiteCRM is a system of record for a whole business. MagpieCRM does one chain of work: find a person, verify their email, send to them, then track the deal.

Where is SuiteCRM stronger than MagpieCRM?

SuiteCRM is stronger as a CRM, in almost every area. The SuiteCRM features page lists sales, marketing, reports, dashboards, workflow, activity management and case management. The SuiteCRM user guide adds quotes, invoices and contracts, projects, events and a knowledge base.

• Reports. The Reports module runs queries across any module and shows the results as a table, a chart or both. Reports can be scheduled and sent by email.
• Workflow. SuiteCRM can run actions automatically when conditions you set are met.
• Customer service. Cases, a knowledge base and a self-service portal sit in the same system as sales.
• Calendar sync. Meetings sync both ways with Google Calendar or a CalDAV server, according to the calendar sync guide.
• Customising without code. System admin tools let you adapt the CRM without development work.

SuiteCRM is the better fit if:

• You want one CRM for sales, marketing and customer service.
• You need reports, quotes, contracts or case management.
• You have a larger team that needs security groups and workflow.

MagpieCRM is early access software, at version 0.9.41. It has no sales reports, automated workflows, help desk, or mailbox and calendar sync yet. Self-hosted users have no roles: everyone can do everything.

How do email campaigns compare?

Both tools send email campaigns. SuiteCRM's Campaigns module runs newsletter, email, survey and non-email campaigns to target lists. It tracks opens, clicks, bounces and opt-outs. You set up an outbound mail account, a bounce handling account and a scheduled job before sending.

MagpieCRM has a drag-and-drop email builder, templates, scheduled campaigns and open and click stats. It also has plain-text email sequences, which send a few emails days apart and stop for a person when they reply, unsubscribe or bounce. It has no automated flows, SMS or A/B tests.

The step before the campaign is where they differ most. MagpieCRM can search for companies and people, and check each work email with the company's mail server. We found no prospect search or email verification in the SuiteCRM user guide.

What do you get with MagpieCRM?

MagpieCRM gives small B2B teams, founders and agencies one open source tool to find verified contacts and email them. Here is what the app includes today, at version 0.9.41:

• Prospect search. Search companies by keyword, industry, headcount and country. Search people by title, seniority, country and keyword.
• Verified emails. Only emails verified with the mail server are saved by default.
• Contacts and lists. Import from CSV or paste, add custom fields, build lists and personas, and export any time.
• Campaigns and sequences. Drag-and-drop campaigns with open and click tracking, and plain-text sequences that stop on reply.
• Deals and pipelines. A drag-and-drop board with a value, owner and close date on each deal, and more than one pipeline.
• Forms and surveys. Sign-up forms, a sign-up API, and surveys with branching.
• AI. A copilot on your own Anthropic or OpenAI key, and an MCP server for Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor and the OpenAI Codex CLI.

How does self-hosting compare?

SuiteCRM installs on a classic web stack. The SuiteCRM 8 repository describes an Angular front end on a Symfony back end. The compatibility matrix for version 8.10 lists PHP 8.2 to 8.4, Apache 2.4, and MariaDB or MySQL. PostgreSQL is not on it.

The install guide has you copy a pre-built package to your web root, set file permissions, run the installer and add cron jobs for scheduled tasks.

MagpieCRM runs as one Docker container, with its data in a single JSON file on a volume. Prospect search and email verification need more setup: your own SocialFetch key, an email provider, and a verification server with outbound port 25. The self-hosting guide has the steps.

How do you use MagpieCRM with SuiteCRM?

You use MagpieCRM with SuiteCRM by keeping SuiteCRM as the system of record and doing prospecting and outbound email in MagpieCRM. There is no built-in sync. SuiteCRM imports and exports records as CSV, according to its record management guide, and MagpieCRM does too.

1. Search for companies and people in MagpieCRM, and reveal their verified work emails.
2. Save them to a list, then send a campaign or a short sequence.
3. When replies turn into real conversations, export those contacts from MagpieCRM to CSV.
4. Import the CSV into SuiteCRM as leads or contacts, and work the opportunities there.