ActiveCampaign
Email marketing and CRM platform for customer experience automation
Mautic
Open source marketing automation software you control completely
Self-hosted marketing automation platform enabling multi-channel campaigns, unlimited segmentation, and full data ownership without vendor lock-in or feature limitations.
Overview
What is Mautic?
Mautic is the world's largest open source marketing automation project, empowering businesses and organizations to deliver fully integrated marketing campaigns while maintaining complete control over their data and infrastructure.
Who Should Use It?
Designed for organizations seeking privacy-focused marketing automation without SaaS dependencies, Mautic serves marketing teams, agencies, and enterprises that require customizable workflows, unlimited segmentation, and multi-channel campaign orchestration. Whether you're a developer building custom integrations or a marketer executing sophisticated nurture sequences, Mautic provides the flexibility to adapt to your exact requirements.
Core Capabilities
Mautic delivers multi-channel marketing automation including email, SMS, social media, and web personalization. The platform supports unlimited contact segmentation, campaign automation, lead scoring, and dynamic content delivery. Both frontend and backend are fully customizable, enabling deep integration with existing systems. Self-hosting ensures you own your database, control your infrastructure, and avoid recurring SaaS fees.
Deployment
Available as a free download for self-hosting via Composer or pre-packaged releases. Cloud trials are available for quick evaluation. Production deployments require PHP, MySQL/MariaDB, and standard web server infrastructure.
Highlights
Self-hosted deployment with complete data ownership and no vendor lock-in
Multi-channel campaigns across email, SMS, social media, and web without extra costs
Unlimited contact segmentation and marketing automation workflows
Fully customizable frontend and backend with extensible integration framework
Pros
- No recurring SaaS fees or feature limitations based on pricing tiers
- Complete control over data, infrastructure, and privacy compliance
- Active global community providing support, plugins, and continuous development
- 100% customizable codebase enabling tailored integrations and workflows
Considerations
- Requires technical expertise for installation, configuration, and ongoing maintenance
- Self-hosting demands server management, security patching, and backup strategies
- Steeper learning curve compared to turnkey SaaS marketing automation platforms
- Development builds may contain bugs; production use requires stable tagged releases
Managed products teams compare with
When teams consider Mautic, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Fit guide
Great for
- Organizations requiring strict data privacy and regulatory compliance control
- Agencies managing multiple clients needing white-label customization
- Enterprises with technical resources seeking unlimited scalability without licensing costs
- Developers building custom marketing workflows and third-party integrations
Not ideal when
- Teams without technical staff or server management capabilities
- Organizations preferring fully managed SaaS with minimal setup effort
- Small businesses seeking plug-and-play solutions without customization needs
- Users requiring immediate deployment without command-line or Composer experience
How teams use it
Privacy-Compliant Lead Nurturing
Healthcare organizations automate GDPR-compliant email sequences while maintaining full data sovereignty on private infrastructure
Agency White-Label Campaigns
Marketing agencies deploy customized Mautic instances per client, delivering branded automation without recurring per-seat licensing
Enterprise Multi-Channel Orchestration
Large retailers coordinate email, SMS, and web personalization campaigns across unlimited contacts without feature tier restrictions
Custom CRM Integration
Development teams build bidirectional sync between proprietary CRM systems and Mautic using open APIs and extensible architecture
Tech snapshot
PHP79%
Twig10%
CSS4%
JavaScript3%
Less2%
HTML1%
Frequently asked questions
Is Mautic completely free to use?
Yes, Mautic is open source software available at no cost. You can self-host indefinitely without licensing fees, though you are responsible for hosting infrastructure and maintenance.
What technical skills are required to run Mautic?
Production deployments require familiarity with web server administration, PHP environments, MySQL/MariaDB databases, and Composer dependency management. Command-line experience is essential for installation and updates.
Can I use Mautic without self-hosting?
Yes, you can request a cloud trial to evaluate Mautic without managing infrastructure. These trials allow quick deployment for testing before committing to self-hosting.
How does Mautic compare to SaaS marketing automation platforms?
Mautic offers unlimited features, contacts, and customization without recurring fees or vendor lock-in. Trade-offs include requiring technical resources for hosting, maintenance, and updates that SaaS platforms handle automatically.
Is the GitHub version suitable for production use?
No, the GitHub repository contains development code that may be unstable. For production environments, use tagged releases or the pre-packaged version from mautic.org/download to ensure stability and compatibility.
Project at a glance
Active- Stars
- 9,076
- Watchers
- 9,076
- Forks
- 3,123
Repo age12 years old
Last commit16 hours ago
Self-hostingSupported
Primary languagePHP
Last synced 12 hours ago