What is the difference between SuiteCRM and SugarCRM?
SuiteCRM is a free, open-source CRM that SalesAgility forked from SugarCRM Community Edition in 2013 and still develops under the AGPL. SugarCRM is the original company's proprietary, hosted CRM, renamed SugarAI in April 2026. They share an ancestor, but today they differ in licence, cost, hosting and how much of the product you can change yourself.
Shared history: one fork, two products
SugarCRM began as an open-source project and for years published a free Community Edition beside its paid editions. When SugarCRM stopped developing the Community Edition, SalesAgility took the last open-source release, added its own extensions (workflow, reports, quotes, projects and more) and published the result in 2013 as SuiteCRM 7.0.
Since then the two have gone separate ways. SuiteCRM stayed open source and gained a new Angular front end as SuiteCRM 8. SugarCRM became a fully proprietary, hosted product and, on 13 April 2026, renamed itself SugarAI. Anyone who used SugarCRM Community Edition will still recognise SuiteCRM 7's screens; nobody would mistake SugarAI for either.
SuiteCRM and SugarCRM side by side
| SuiteCRM | SugarCRM (SugarAI) | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Open source, GNU AGPL | Proprietary |
| Software cost | Free, unlimited users | Paid subscription; current plans on sugarai.com |
| Where it runs | Your own server, or managed hosting from SalesAgility or others | Hosted by the vendor |
| Source code | Public, on GitHub; you can change anything | Not available |
| Customisation | Studio and Module Builder for fields and modules; code-level changes; installable packages through Module Loader | The configuration and extension tools the hosted product exposes |
| Look and theme | Compiled themes (SuiteP on 7, suite8 on 8); install your own sub-theme | Set by the vendor; the logo and the settings the product exposes |
| Support | Community forum free; paid support and SuiteASSURED from SalesAgility | Vendor support under the subscription |
| Your data | Your database, on your infrastructure or your host's | Held by the vendor; exported through its tools |
What each one costs
SuiteCRM has no licence fee. What you pay for is running it: your own server, or managed hosting from £50 a month on SuiteCRM's pricing page (October 2026), with optional implementation from £2,520, Standard Support at £1,200 for 10 hours and SuiteASSURED from £3,350 a year. Everything else, from add-ons to a theme, is bought once and runs without per-seat charges. The full breakdown is in What is SuiteCRM?.
SugarAI is sold as a subscription, typically priced per user. Its plans and prices change, and this page does not quote them; check sugarai.com and compare the yearly total for your team size against a SuiteCRM hosting bill.
How much you can change: customisation and theming
This is the difference that decides most choices. On SuiteCRM you own the code, so a developer can add modules, change screens, integrate anything through the REST API, and install packages through Admin > Module Loader. On the hosted product you work inside what the vendor allows.
Branding shows the gap plainly. SuiteCRM lets you add a colour theme of your own: a SuiteP sub-theme on SuiteCRM 7, or a legacy sub-theme plus an Angular stylesheet on SuiteCRM 8. Neither version has a colour setting in Admin, so the theme is compiled and installed, which is what Brandtint does from a logo. On SugarAI you change the logo and whatever appearance settings the product offers.
Which should you choose?
Choose SuiteCRM if you want no per-user fees, must keep data on your own infrastructure, plan to change the product itself, or deliver a branded CRM to clients. Budget for hosting and someone to maintain it.
Choose SugarAI if you want a vendor to run everything, your team is small enough that per-user pricing is acceptable, and the hosted product's built-in features cover what you need without custom development.
Questions
Is SuiteCRM a fork of SugarCRM?
Yes. SalesAgility forked SugarCRM Community Edition, the open-source edition SugarCRM stopped developing, and released it as SuiteCRM 7.0 in 2013 with its own add-ons. SuiteCRM has been developed separately ever since, under the AGPL.
Is SugarCRM still open source?
No. SugarCRM's Community Edition is no longer developed, and the company's products, renamed SugarAI in April 2026, are proprietary. SuiteCRM continues the open-source line.
Who owns SugarCRM?
SugarCRM Inc., the company that created the original product, which rebranded itself and its CRM as SugarAI on 13 April 2026. SuiteCRM is not connected to it: SalesAgility leads the SuiteCRM project.
Can I move from SugarCRM to SuiteCRM?
Data can be exported from SugarCRM and imported into SuiteCRM module by module through CSV import, and SuiteCRM 7 keeps the module layout a SugarCRM Community Edition user knows. There is no supported one-click migration from the current hosted product, so plan it as a data project.
About the author
Muhammad Ilyas builds Brandtint at Techholds, including the SuiteCRM 7 and SuiteCRM 8 theme packages these guides are written from. Muhammad Ilyas on LinkedIn