Rating and comments for SugarCRM

I'm a big fan of open-source software, and make a living supporting it. However, while sugarcrm does have a free/open source version, after using the free version for the past two years it seems to me that the free version is deliberately broken by the sugarcrm company to force people to purchase their very expensive proprietary alternative. Alas, the bugs are many and crippling and render the product completely useless for a company who relies on crm for accurate customer and lead generation record keeping.

It does boast a very nice UI, but underneath, it's really buggy and poorly supported by the community and by the sugarcrm company.

I think the previous comment is totally unfair. I'm using SugarCRM 4.5 for 2 organizations and am totally satisfied with it's performance. Note that the community is huge and very efficient at finding/fixing bugs. It's a professional solution available for free and widely used in businesses.

The interface and fields are highly customizable so you can perfectly fit it to your organization's needs. If it still doesn't, hundreds of additional modules are available. Plus the PHP code is well documented, clean and modular so you can add functionalities easily.

One important thing, though, is that your Web host must run PHP as suExec and not as an Apache module. When using an Apache module, some features as e-mails, module loader and document management won't work. This might be the reason for the previous reviewer's buggy installation.

SugarCRM is not just an application: it's a system. If you need an personal contact manager, SugarCRM is way too big.

In order for it to work properly, time and competence has to be put into installation, migration (i.a.), customization and in training the users. Getting a professional SugarCRM installation is a project.

If you can't afford to pay for a decent Web host or host yourself, don't blame it on the SugarCRM community. If you are an IT professional and need a reliable solution to manage contacts, calls and meetings, projects, bugs and so on and you don't want to be locked-in proprietary solutions, start testing SugarCRM.

Hope this review helps.
Thanks to osalt for sharing this site.

The comment by Patrick Ranger is quite apologetic and full of subjective criticisms.

A "buggy" installation after using it for two years? I doubt it...

Go for VTiger if you found SugarCRM unfit/headache software.

At NZ Hosting, we both use and support a range of open source products.
SugarCRM CE is functional, but only barely. We see no significant differences
with the paid versions. We have just a couple of clients using the product and
both have been struggling with it since the start -- and no fault of their own
from what I can see.

Within a modern (circa 2010/11) user interface context, we find SugarCRM to
be especially poor. The UI is exceedingly clumsy and seems very poorly
thought out. Fields slapped "where-ever", with little or no attention given to
user work flow. Even the most basic user interface design rules are broken,
like not even making sure tab order of entry fields is done right, for example.
Just use the trial for 5 minutes and you'll immediately be overwhelmed at just
how unintuitive and awkward the thing is to use.

We also find the tasks and especially case manager modules to be sorely
lacking in everyday features.

Despite all this however, when compared to the only other open source CRM
web app we could find (was it VTiger?), Sugar, somehow, manages to still win
the day with it's richer functionality set -- and even MORE logical user
interface, in spite of the above comments. *shrug*

Overall, the product mandates extensive user training -- just for people to
find their way around it. It makes for high levels of user frustration, with
ongoing support calls (from your OWN staff) and lots of feature requests and
complaints. Total cost of ownership is thus _quite_ high, which rather negates
to "free" nature of the open source of the project in the first place.

The user should come FIRST. With Sugar, it's very clear that the technical
specifications and features were the only real place any design effort went
into. That side of things do indeed seem to be pretty well delivered, once you
get your head around the interface.

If you run an organization of any size and want to appear at all professional -
- in a post 1999 way -- then I would suggest that SugarCRM is definitely not
for you. Instead, why not have a custom-written app made, using MUCH more
modern and well thought out user interfaces. Start small for you most
important needs and grow it from there. I'm sure it will cost less in the long
run and work so much better for your users.

A piece of crap. Buggy beyond all belief. Trying to set-up and
test an email campaign was a nightmare and I ultimately
abandoned the effort.

Horrendously buggy software, especially for the amount of money we're
paying. Active but generally unhelpful community.