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Selection Criteria for Best Open Source HR Software:
1
Usability
The topmost consideration for almost all software is how easy it is to use. Software with excellent usability can streamline workflows and boost efficiency.
2
UI
A well-designed user interface should be intuitive and pleasing on the eye, without convoluted workflows. Intuitive design and navigation can also minimize the risk of user errors, which can be costly and time-consuming to correct.
3
Integrations
Open source HR systems allow you to build your own integrations, but it’s also worth noting if they come with any pre-configured APIs as well. This will save you time and energy.
4
Value for money
Each program you acquire should ultimately save more money than it costs. This will usually be seen through improved efficiency.
Key Features of Open Source HR Software:
1
Managing employee leave
There are a few essential features that all the best open HR software for 2023 will cover. Managing employee leave is one of those features, including staff holiday requests, sick days and other time off.
2
Employee information
All companies need somewhere to securely store confidential information about their staff, from date of birth and home address, to work experience and qualifications.
3
ATS
Applicant tracking systems (ATS) are where you manage the hiring process. This can encompass the initial stage of posting jobs ads, all the way to onboarding a new hire.
4
Payroll and compensation system
Some HR software payroll modules will automate the monthly payment of salaries. More advanced systems can also manage incentive schemes and employee reward systems.
5
Tracking employee development and performance
One of the core functions of HR is to oversee staff training and appraisals. This is reflected in the best open source HR software, which will simplify these processes for your team.
Best HR Open Source Software for 2023
Best HR open source software for a broad range of pre-built features
Best for: small and mid-sized businesses
Sentrifugo is a free and open-source Human Resource Management System (HRMS) software that helps businesses manage their employees' information, performance, and HR-related activities.
What makes it unique?
The Sentrifugo open source HRMS comes with a whole host of features that cover most of the major HR functions. That includes leave management, talent acquisition, analytics, performance appraisals and employee data storage. More unique features include tracking background checks, a disciplinary workflow and a system to submit and approve expenses. You can also manage all your service requests related to IT issues through the interface. However, there isn’t a payroll module.
Key Features:
- Employee self-service portal
- Leave management
- Time and attendance tracking
- Performance management
- Recruitment management
- Onboarding
- Expense management
- Reports and analytics
Pricing:
Available for free.
- Highly customizable and can be configured to meet the specific needs of an organization
- Has a broad range of core pre-built HR features
- It has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for users to navigate and use
- It requires some technical expertise to install and configure
- It isn’t a cloud-based solution or mobile friendly for self-service features
- Might not be suitable for large organizations with complex HR needs
Best HR open source software for WordPress-based systems
Best for: small and medium businesses
WP ERP is a free and open-source Human Resource Management System (HRMS) software that runs as a plugin on WordPress. It is designed to help small and medium-sized businesses manage their HR processes effectively.
What makes it unique?
WP ERP is the best open source HR software for 2023 if your company website is built around WordPress. There are three core modules offered: HRM, customer relationship management (CRM), and accounting. The HRM system takes care of storing company and employee info, processing leave requests, and providing staff analytics. Accounting covers an overview of incomings and outgoings, making payments to vendors, invoicing customers and receiving payment, and building flows to automate tax calculations.
If you want to run your payroll through WP ERP, however, you’ll need to purchase one of the out-of-the-box extensions. There are a number of other plugins available as well, such as recruitment, reimbursement, and attendance.
Key Features:
- Employee directory
- Leave management
- Time and attendance tracking
- Payroll management
- Performance management
- Recruitment management
- Onboarding
- Expense management
- Reports and analytics
Pricing:
The core modules are free to use. There’s also a pro tier for $9.99 that features integrations with Salesforce and Zendesk, as well as a more advanced leave management system. Pre-built extensions for things like payroll and recruitment vary between $2.49 and $9.49.
- It can be customized to meet the specific needs of a business
- It is completely web-based
- It is easy to install and use
- Integrates seamlessly with other WordPress plugins
- It is not suitable for larger organizations
- Most core HR features are not free and are a paid extension
- It requires some technical expertise to install and configure
Best HR open source software for PHP language coding
Best for: small businsses
HRM Script is a good HRMS software for small to medium-sized businesses that are new to HR management software. It provides a comprehensive solution for managing HR processes, and the fact that it is free and open-source makes it an attractive option for businesses with limited budgets.
What makes it unique?
HRM Script has developed several different open source modules to help manage HR functions, including time and attendance, payroll, and training. Its Simple HRM product includes several core functions, including storing employee data, pay slip creation, and leave management. As the name suggests, it’s a very simple interface, which means it’s easy to build custom workflows, even if it’s not very attractive to look at. The software is predominantly built using PHP, so if you want to do in-house customization, make sure you have programmers who know this particular scripting language.
Key Features:
- Employee Payroll Management
- Employee Benefit Management
- Centralized HR information
- Onboarding
- Performance management
Pricing:
HRM Script is available for free.
- The user interface is simple and easy to navigate, making it ideal for businesses that are new to HR management software
- It provides a good solution for managing basic HR processes
- The customer support for Simple HRM is limited
- Customisation of the program requires inhouse programming expertise in php
Best HR open source software for scalability
Best for: small, medium and large companies
In the running for best open source HR software for 2023 is OrangeHRM. It boasts a nice, clean-looking UI and great usability. Even its basic functionality is pretty broad, from job posting and management, to 360-degree employee reviews, to leave management, to time tracking.
What makes it unique?
If you upgrade to the paid tier, you can also utilize the interview assistant automation, onboarding task manager and learning management system. The only major thing OrangeHRM lacks is payroll. You can choose to use the standard version on their cloud or download and host on your own server. SMBs can begin with the free Starter package, then scale up to an Advanced subscription as they grow.
Key Features:
- Employee directory
- Document Manager
- Insurance Benefits
- Leave/Time Off
- Time & Attendance Management
- Performance Tracking
- Recruitment Management
- Employment Compliance
Pricing:
Starter package is completely free. Prices for Advanced packages are available upon request.
- It is user-friendly and easy to navigate
- The free version has a range of important core HR features
- It provides businesses with flexibility in terms of deployment options
- It has a large and active community of users who contribute to its development
- The free version of OrangeHRM may not be suitable for larger businesses with more advanced HR needs
- Self-hosted solution requires technical expertise to set up and maintain
Best HR open source software for individual module selection
Best for: small businesses
OpenHRMS offers a wide range of HR features, including employee information management, attendance tracking, leave management, payroll management, recruitment, and performance management, making it a comprehensive HRMS solution.
What makes it unique?
Developed by Cybrosys Technologies, OpenHRMS is built on top of the Odoo platform. Once you’ve downloaded the core system, you can then choose from a range of different modules that cover everything from employee insurance to project management. Options include an employee database, payroll, appraisal, a dashboard for HR metrics, attendance and leave, disciplinary tracking, timesheets and custody management. Essentially, whatever you want, OpenHRMS has an app for that, albeit often one with simple functionality.
Key Features:
- Payroll management
- Employee database
- Applicant Tracking System
- Employee Survey
- Gratuity Settlement
- Loan Management
- Employee Checklist
- Service Request
- Time and Attendance
- Performance Management
Pricing:
While the software is free, OpenHRMS charges for implementation (prices start from $999) and customer support (prices start from $499).
- It is highly customizable
- It has a modern and intuitive user interface
- It can be modified by businesses or developers to add new features or functionality
- Lacks integration with many other software
- There is learning curve for some users who are new to HRMS software
- Support and implementation pricing is quite expensive
Best HR open source software for flexibility
Best for: small, medium, and large organizations
Monday.com is a popular platform that provides teams with the ability to create custom apps for managing workflows, projects, and everyday tasks.
What makes it unique?
Monday.com Work OS enables you to manage workflows for different business cases, including marketing, sales, project development and, of course, HR. Their pre-built templates provide you the ability to set up HR functionality quickly, but in a flexible, tailored manner. Through the sleek-looking platform you can oversee the recruitment pipeline, onboarding tasks, employee wellbeing, leave requests and performance evals. Alternatively, create your own custom workflows.Strictly speaking, Monday.com isn’t open source software, but it does have a Developer tool that allows you to build your own customized apps and integrations.
Key Features:
- Recruitment pipeline
- Onboarding process
- Employee wellbeing
- Leave requests
- Performance reviews
Pricing:
These apps can then be offered to other companies for free or even sold via Monday.com’s marketplace. You can develop and utilize Monday.com apps for free, but the complimentary tier only allows usage by two people. Any more, and you’ll have to purchase one of the paid subscriptions, which start from $8 per seat per month.
- It allows teams to create custom apps to fit their specific workflows and processes
- It has a range of pre-built templates to use if you want to get started quickly
- It has an intuitive and easy-to-use interface, making it accessible for all technical backgrounds
- It promotes collaboration by allowing team members to share updates
- It offers automation capabilities, allowing teams to automate repetitive tasks and streamline their workflows
- It’s not a dedicated HR software and so isn’t designed with all of the functionality you may see in other software solutions
- It can be expensive, especially for larger teams or those that require more advanced features
- It can still be complex to set up and manage especially if you don’t have experience with common features of HR software
Best HR open source software for breadth of apps
Best for: small and medium-sized businesses
Odoo HR is a comprehensive business management software that includes an HR module designed to help businesses manage their HR processes.
What makes it unique?
Odoo HR suite of open source business management software ranges across sales, marketing, productivity and material requirements planning. In terms of HR, the company provides time and attendance tracking, leave management, expense requests and approvals, performance appraisals and recruitment. The comprehensiveness makes it one of the best open source HR software for 2023, with tons of integrations and customizations built by the Odoo community that you can utilize.
Key Features:
- Recruitment Management
- Employee Information Management
- Attendance and Leave Management
- Performance Management
- Payroll Management
- Learning and Development
Pricing:
Odoo allows you to have one of its licensed apps for free, plus access to all the open source apps in its apps store (some are free, others have a price tag). If you want to have access to the full set of Odoo’s licensed apps, however, prices start from $20 per month per user (annual billing).
- It offers a complete set of HR management tools that can help businesses manage all aspects of their HR processes
- It is highly customizable, allowing businesses to tailor the software to their specific needs and workflows
- It is scalable and is designed to grow with businesses
- You also have access to a comprehensive set of third party apps for any niche needs
- It requires technical expertise to set up and configure
- It can be quite expensive if you require their implementation services
- There is a learning curve for some users who are new to HRMS software
Best HR open source software for mobile-friendly HR
Best for: med-sized and large companies
Bitrix24’s offering includes core HR tools, collaboration tools, task management, CRM, a tool to manage social media channels and even a website creator. It is a comprehensive business management software that offers a range of features to help businesses manage their operations.
What makes it unique?
The platform is designed to work well on mobile devices as well as desktop. Plus, there are numerous integrations that have been built using the open source code, including with Xero and Mailchimp The pre-built HR functions mainly focus on time and attendance, though you can create workflows to help you manage leave and oversee the hiring processes. There is also the option to build a knowledge base for your company as well as conduct polls to gauge staff sentiment.
Key Features:
- Employee Directory
- Self-service tools for employees
- eLearning functionality
- Timecards
- And other tools such as CRM, Project Management, Sales Management and E-commerce
Pricing:
While Bitrix24 does offer a free version, some of the HR functions are only included as part of its most expensive tier. This is priced at $199 per month but includes as many users as you like.
- It offers a comprehensive suite of tools to manage a range of business processes in one platform
- It can be customized to fit the specific needs of a business, including branding and workflow customization
- It has a mobile app that allows users to access their account and work on the go
- It has a marketplace of apps which can provide extra functionality
- Very expensive if you only need it for HR purposes
- It can be complex to set up and manage
- Bitrix24 does offer some integrations with third-party software. However, the selection is limited
Best HR open source software for a complete open source ethos
Best for: Small and mid-sized businesses
Not to be confused with Mint HR, MintHCM is another contender for best open source HR software for 2023. Sticking fast to the ‘free for all’ principles of open source, it’s very much a community of developers. There is a broad range of modules available, including recruitment and onboarding, time and attendance, leave management and staff appraisal.
What makes it unique?
There’s also a robust analytics platform where you can build your own reports, or you can take advantage of the pre-existing ‘dashlets’ that track things like absence figures, hiring success and hours worked. Via the MintHCM community, there are integrations and extensions you can access for free or a small fee.
Key Features:
- HR Management
- Recruitment
- Time and Attendance
- Task management
- Performance Management
- Competencies and Skills Transparency
Pricing:
You can use MintHCM for free if you host the platform on your owner server. If you want to have your HR system hosted on the MintHCM cloud, pricing starts from $40 per month for up to 10 employees.
- It can be customized to fit the specific needs of a business
- It has an intuitive and user-friendly interface
- It has an active community of developers and users who provide support and guidance
- It provides core HR features free of charge
- It lacks advanced features as other HR management software
- It does not have payroll functionality
- Not suitable for large businesses
Best HR open-source software for leave management
Best for: small, medium and large companies
Jorani is a free and open-source leave management software that allows businesses to manage employee leave requests and approvals.
What makes it unique?
Jorani helps you manage leave and staff overtime. The focus on just one thing means it has a very simple, clean UI, making for excellent usability. The leave approval is complemented with a calendar feature that makes it easy to get an overview of all requests and approvals, as well as a reporting function that aids managers in monitoring staff absence. All data can be easily exported to Excel. The software can be complex to configure, but there is extensive documentation on the Jorani site to get you up and running.
Key Features:
- Leave Management
- User Management
- Reporting & Notifications
Pricing:
Pricing is completely free.
- It can be used by businesses of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises
- It uses encryption to protect sensitive employee data
- It’s completely free
- It doesn’t offer any other core HR software features such as Employee Directory, Recruitment and Onboarding, or Culture features
- It has limited integration options with other software
- It does not offer formal customer support options
Best HR open source software for self-hosting
Best for: small, medium and large companies
Last but not least on our list of the best open source HR software for 2023 is IceHrm This cool customer offers two different usage models: you can either run it off the IceHrm cloud or download and self-manage the program yourself.
What makes it unique?
Additionally, you can track all learning and development undertaken by staff, as well as manage performance appraisals. There is a free tier, but this doesn’t include the recruitment and payroll modules. This software is a full-service offering, with secure employee data storage, leave management, time and attendance, payroll processing, expenses management and applicant tracking.
Key Features:
- Employee Management
- Leave Management
- Time and Attendance Management
- Recruitment Management
- Performance Management
Pricing:
Pricing for the complete package starts from $9 per month. If you self-host, there is a one-off fee of $699, plus a recurring, optional subscription fee of $349 if you want ongoing IceHrm upgrades and support.
- It has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for employees and managers to navigate and use
- It can be customized to fit the specific needs of a business, including branding and workflow customization
- Strong and versatile features
- Good community support
- Mobile friendly
- It requires technical expertise to set up and customize
- It has limited integration options with other software
- Can be quite expensive if you require ongoing support
FAQ
What is the future of HRM in 2025?
Many of the trends already in evidence today are expected to continue up to 2025. Namely, increased automation and machine learning to facilitate routine tasks and ever more detailed data analytics to help companies continuously improve their workflows. Furthermore, an increased focus on culture and employee-value-proposition to keep companies ahead in the war for talent.
Which is the best software for HR?
The best open source HR software for 2023 is, of course, subjective. If you want a complete solution, IceHrm might be the best choice. For something that specifically focuses on leave management, then Jorani is a more cost effective option.
Which is the best HR software for startups?
While there are lots of good options, Odoo is arguably the best open source HRMS for startups due to its flexibility. You can select the modules that your company needs without paying for anything extra.
Is OrangeHRM open source?
Yes, OrangeHRM is open source. It can either be used via the cloud or download it onto your own systems and host it yourself.
