The Open Source Alternative to HubSpot & Marketo

🩺 Vitals

📦 Version: 7.0.0 (Released 2026-01-20)
🚀 Velocity: Active (Last commit 2026-01-29)
🌟 Community: 9.1k Stars · 3.1k Forks
🐞 Backlog: 293 Open Issues

🏗️ Profile

Official: mautic.org
Source: github.com/mautic/mautic
License: GPL-3.0
Deployment: Docker / LAMP
Data Model: MySQL / MariaDB
Jurisdiction: USA 🇺🇸
Compliance: GDPR
Complexity: High (4/5) - Cron jobs, Email Deliverability
Maintenance: High (4/5) - Frequent updates, PHP dependency hell
Enterprise Ready: High (5/5) - RBAC, Multi-channel, Scalable

1. The Executive Summary

What is it? Mautic is the world's largest open-source marketing automation project. It allows organizations to track contacts (leads), nurture them with personalized email campaigns, and score them based on behavior—all while owning the data. It is the direct functional equivalent of HubSpot Marketing Hub or Marketo.

The Strategic Verdict:

🔴 For Small Lists (<1k): Caution. The overhead of managing your own email server (or connecting SES/SendGrid) and maintaining Mautic is high. Use a cheap SaaS like MailerLite.
🟢 For High Volume (100k+ Contacts): Strong Buy. HubSpot's pricing curve is brutal (charging per 1,000 contacts). Mautic costs the same whether you have 10,000 or 10 million contacts—you only pay for the server infrastructure.

2. The "Hidden" Costs (TCO Analysis)

Cost Component	Proprietary (HubSpot/Marketo)	Mautic (Open Source)
Contact Storage	Very High (e.g., $50/mo per 1k extra)	$0 (Unlimited)
User Seats	Per-seat licensing	$0 (Unlimited)
Email Sending	Bundled (Convenient but expensive)	Wholesale (AWS SES = $0.10/1k emails)
Maintenance	$0 (SaaS)	High (Server + Cron Management)

3. The "Day 2" Reality Check

🚀 Deployment & Operations

Installation: Historically a PHP/LAMP application, but modern deployments use Docker. It is "stateful" (requires a persistent filesystem for assets and logs).
Cron Jobs: Mautic relies heavily on cron jobs (segments, campaigns, emails). If these stop running, your automation stops. Monitoring is critical.

🛡️ Security & Governance

Privacy: Ideal for GDPR. You can host Mautic in your EU region and strictly control tracking pixels and cookie consent.
Ownership: Unlike SaaS platforms that can de-platform you for "policy violations," you own your list and your sending reputation.

Mautic