Mautic vs Monica
| Tagline | Open-source marketing automation and email campaigns at scale | Personal CRM to remember important details about your contacts |
| Category | Email & Newsletters | CRM & Sales |
| Replaces | Mailchimp, HubSpot, ConvertKit (Kit) | HubSpot, Pipedrive |
| GitHub stars | 9.9k | 21k |
| Language | PHP | PHP |
| License | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 4/5 Involved | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 5 days ago | 1 month ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Mautic
- Heavyweight setup with cron jobs and queue workers; not beginner-friendly
- UI feels dated compared to modern SaaS tools
- Deliverability depends entirely on your own mail infrastructure
- Performance tuning required for large lists; upgrades can be fragile
Monica
- Designed for personal use only; lacks sales pipeline management, forecasting, and team collaboration
- No built-in email marketing, lead scoring, or workflow automation
- REST API coverage is limited compared to business-grade CRM platforms
Bottom line
Choose Monica if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Monica for the larger community and ecosystem. Mautic has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.