Softwr

ERP · head to head

ADempiere vs Jaggaer

ADempiere logo

ADempiere

ERP

Community-run open source ERP forked from Compiere, with no vendor behind it

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
J

Jaggaer

ERP

Source to pay procurement suite that sits on top of an existing ERP

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only ADempiere has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: ADempiere there is no company behind it, so there is no support contract to buy, no SLA, no escalation path and no roadmap commitment; if your implementation partner leaves the market you own the problem entirely.; Jaggaer this is a spend layer and not an ERP, so it must integrate with the finance system for vendor master, cost centres, budgets and invoice posting, and that integration is a build with ongoing maintenance rather than a configuration setting.
  • They diverge on capability: ADempiere covers Application dictionary, Jaggaer covers Supplier management.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which ADempiere and Jaggaer actually diverge.

Attributes where ADempiere and Jaggaer differ
AttributeADempiereJaggaer
Starting priceFreeOn request
Pricing modelOpen source, no licence feequote
Free tierYesNo
PlatformsWeb, Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hostedWeb

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (ERP).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in ADempiere

  • Application dictionary
  • Financial accounting
  • Order to cash and procure to pay
  • Inventory and warehouse
  • Manufacturing
  • Point of sale
  • Workflow engine
  • Java and PostgreSQL stack

Only in Jaggaer

  • Supplier management
  • Sourcing
  • Contract lifecycle
  • Guided buying and catalogues
  • Requisition and purchase order processing
  • Invoicing and matching
  • Spend analytics
  • Supplier network

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

ADempiere

  • A manufacturer in Latin America with an existing ADempiere consulting partner that needs localised tax and accounting behaviour a global vendor will not buildnot Jaggaer
  • A company that wants to modify ERP screens and document workflows without a vendor change request, using the application dictionary rather than codenot Jaggaer
  • An organisation with a hard requirement to keep financial data on its own servers under its own control with no cloud dependencynot Jaggaer
  • A systems integrator building a vertical ERP product on a permissive base it can fork and ship without paying a licence feenot Jaggaer

Jaggaer

  • A university or research institution that must enforce restricted fund and grant rules at the point of requisition rather than at auditnot ADempiere
  • A multi site organisation trying to consolidate fragmented purchasing onto negotiated contracts it already has but does not usenot ADempiere
  • A regulated manufacturer that must document supplier qualification and keep an auditable record of the sourcing decisionnot ADempiere
  • A finance team that can report what was spent but cannot say what it was spent on or with whom by categorynot ADempiere

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

ADempiere

  • There is no company behind it, so there is no support contract to buy, no SLA, no escalation path and no roadmap commitment; if your implementation partner leaves the market you own the problem entirely.
  • The official website adempiere.net does not resolve, which strands most of the historic documentation and tutorials that search engines still point at and makes onboarding a new developer considerably harder.
  • The last conventional stable release, 3.9.4, is from January 2023, so despite ongoing GitHub activity a buyer evaluating on release cadence sees a project moving slowly.
  • iDempiere, a later fork of the same codebase, absorbed much of the developer community, so ADempiere competes for contributors with its own descendant and is the smaller of the two ecosystems.
  • The interface and the Java Swing heritage feel dated, and staff coming from a modern cloud ERP will need training and will complain; expect resistance from finance and warehouse users during rollout.

Jaggaer

  • This is a spend layer and not an ERP, so it must integrate with the finance system for vendor master, cost centres, budgets and invoice posting, and that integration is a build with ongoing maintenance rather than a configuration setting.
  • The suite is licensed by module, so a demonstration that shows sourcing, contracts, analytics and invoicing working together may represent four separate purchases and a quote for one module tells you little about the cost of the working system.
  • Savings depend on buyer compliance rather than on software, so an organisation without the authority to stop off system purchasing ends up paying a subscription for a reporting tool that describes the leakage it was bought to prevent.
  • Supplier enablement is slow and unglamorous work, because every supplier you want transacting electronically has to be contacted, configured and tested, and low enablement rates leave you running two processes at once.
  • Spend analytics is only as good as the classification behind it, so historic data with inconsistent supplier names and missing category codes needs a cleansing exercise before any report from it can be shown to a board.

Pricing, plan by plan

ADempiere

Free
  • Community editionFree
    • GPL v2 licensed, no licence fee
    • Full ERP, CRM, supply chain and POS modules
    • Self-hosted on your own infrastructure

Jaggaer

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Jaggaer review.

Which should you pick?

Choose ADempiere if

  • You need application dictionary.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hosted.
  • You also want financial accounting.
ADempiere review

Choose Jaggaer if

  • You need supplier management.
  • You also want sourcing.
Jaggaer review

Questions people ask

Is ADempiere or Jaggaer better?
Neither clearly leads. ADempiere starts at Free and Jaggaer at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, ADempiere or Jaggaer?
ADempiere has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for ADempiere and On request for Jaggaer.
Does ADempiere or Jaggaer run on more platforms?
ADempiere runs on Web, Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hosted. Jaggaer runs on Web.
Can I use ADempiere for free?
Yes. ADempiere has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Jaggaer starts at On request.
What is ADempiere best used for?
ADempiere is most often used for a manufacturer in latin america with an existing adempiere consulting partner that needs localised tax and accounting behaviour a global vendor will not build, a company that wants to modify erp screens and document workflows without a vendor change request, using the application dictionary rather than code, an organisation with a hard requirement to keep financial data on its own servers under its own control with no cloud dependency, a systems integrator building a vertical erp product on a permissive base it can fork and ship without paying a licence fee. Of those, a manufacturer in latin america with an existing adempiere consulting partner that needs localised tax and accounting behaviour a global vendor will not build and a company that wants to modify erp screens and document workflows without a vendor change request, using the application dictionary rather than code are not what Jaggaer is typically brought in for.
What can ADempiere do that Jaggaer cannot?
ADempiere covers Application dictionary, Financial accounting, Order to cash and procure to pay, Inventory and warehouse. Jaggaer covers Supplier management, Sourcing, Contract lifecycle, Guided buying and catalogues.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

ADempiere: Should I choose ADempiere or iDempiere?

Look at iDempiere first. It is a later fork of the same codebase with a more active community and a modular OSGi architecture. Choose ADempiere if a specific partner or localisation you need only exists there.

Jaggaer: Do I need this if my ERP already has a purchasing module?

ERP purchasing records transactions well and influences them poorly. If your problem is that buyers ignore negotiated contracts, or that you cannot analyse spend by category, a dedicated suite adds something. If your problem is purchase order processing, your ERP module is cheaper and already integrated.

ADempiere: Is ADempiere free?

The software is GPL licensed with no licence fee. The cost is implementation, customisation and permanent in-house maintenance, which for a real deployment is substantial.

Jaggaer: How does it compare with SAP Ariba or Coupa?

All three cover the same ground. The differences that matter in practice are which one your ERP integrates with most cheaply, which has real depth in your sector, and which suppliers are already transacting on the network. JAGGAER has an unusually deep footprint in higher education and research purchasing.

ADempiere: Is the project still alive?

Development continues on GitHub with commits into 2026, but the official website is down and the last stable release is from January 2023. Treat it as maintained rather than actively advancing.

Jaggaer: What does implementation actually involve?

Supplier data cleansing, category taxonomy design, approval workflow design, ERP integration and supplier enablement. The software configuration is the smallest of those. Expect the services engagement to be comparable to the first year of subscription.

ADempiere: What is the application dictionary?

It is the metadata layer inherited from Compiere that stores the definition of every window, field and validation rule as data, so you can change the application without touching source code.

Jaggaer: Is it sold direct or through partners?

JAGGAER sells direct and also works with implementation partners on larger programmes. Whichever route you take, ask specifically who will hold the integration work and whether that team has connected to your ERP version before.

Share

Related pages

More on ADempiere

More on Jaggaer

Keep looking

Other head to heads