OpenCATS
HR & RecruitingA self-hosted applicant tracking system and recruiting CRM for managing jobs, candidates, companies, contacts and submissions.
Open-source alternative to:
What the free edition leaves out
We have not been able to confirm enough from official sources to give a verdict. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not say, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Not confirmed | SSO and LDAP are not mentioned on the pages read. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Not confirmed | User roles and access levels are not covered in the docs page read. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Not confirmed | Not mentioned on the pages read. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Not confirmed | The site describes a shared recruiting tool but the pages read do not state user limits; no paid edition exists on the site. | Source ↗ |
| Backups and restore | Not confirmed | Docs advise a CLI database backup plus copying the attachments directory and config.php before upgrading; the dedicated backup section is marked incomplete. No built-in backup tool was found. | Source ↗ |
| API access | Not confirmed | Not covered in the docs page read. The README roadmap mentions API work as future. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Not confirmed | Support is peer-to-peer (forums, subreddit, GitHub). No paid support or SLA is described on the site. | Source ↗ |
Best for
Small recruiting teams and agencies that want a self-hosted applicant tracking system and can run a PHP and MariaDB stack.
Why choose it over Bullhorn
It is free and open source under the MPL-2.0, with no hosted tier or paid edition on the official site, so you pay only for hosting. It keeps candidate records, resumes, notes and status history alongside jobs, companies, contacts and submissions in one tool, and you keep the data on your own server.
Where it falls short
There is no official hosted version, and support is community-only. The project is still active: the latest release is v0.11.1 and the repository had a commit in October 2026, but its own README describes a modernisation roadmap, which suggests an older codebase being brought up to date. Part of the code comes from 2007 under a separate license. The docs say little about roles, SSO or an API, and the backup section is marked incomplete. A feature comparison with commercial applicant tracking systems has not been done.
Open-source alternative to
- Bullhorn — OpenCATS is a self-hosted applicant tracking system and recruiting CRM, which is the kind of tool Bullhorn sells to recruiters.
Category
HR & RecruitingTopics
Tech stack
PHP
JavaScript
DockerLanguages as reported by GitHub for the repository.
