Is Affinity or EspoCRM better?

Neither clearly leads. Affinity starts at $2000/year and EspoCRM at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Affinity or EspoCRM?

EspoCRM has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $2000/year for Affinity and Free for EspoCRM.

Does Affinity or EspoCRM run on more platforms?

Affinity runs on Web. EspoCRM runs on Web, Linux, Docker, iOS, Android.

Can I use EspoCRM for free?

Yes. EspoCRM has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Affinity starts at $2000/year.

What is Affinity best used for?

Affinity is most often used for deal sourcing and pipeline management for venture capital and private equity, automatic capture of email and meeting activity into relationship records, finding warm introductions through existing relationship networks, investor relations and fundraising tracking. Of those, deal sourcing and pipeline management for venture capital and private equity and automatic capture of email and meeting activity into relationship records are not what EspoCRM is typically brought in for.

What can Affinity do that EspoCRM cannot?

Affinity covers Contact management, Deal tracking, Intelligence engine, Relationship mapping. EspoCRM covers Entity manager, Dynamic logic, Email integration, Sales pipeline.

CRM · head to head

Affinity vs EspoCRM

Affinity

CRM

Relationship intelligence platform for professionals

From: $2000/year
Rated: -

Full review Website

EspoCRM

CRM

AGPL open source CRM in PHP that you can self-host free or buy as cloud with seat minimums

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only EspoCRM has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: Affinity enterprise tier requires custom quote, pricing not transparent; EspoCRM the AGPLv3 licence obliges you to publish source modifications if you make the modified software available over a network, which blocks resellers who want to offer a customised hosted version without opening their code.
They diverge on capability: Affinity covers Contact management, EspoCRM covers Entity manager.
Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Affinity and EspoCRM actually diverge.

Attributes where Affinity and EspoCRM differ
Attribute	Affinity	EspoCRM
Starting price	$2000/year	Free
Pricing model	subscription	Per user per month
Free tier	No	Yes
Platforms	Web	Web, Linux, Docker, iOS, Android
Founded	2013	Unknown

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

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 Affinity

Contact management
Deal tracking
Intelligence engine
Relationship mapping
Integration aggregation
Gmail
Outlook
LinkedIn

Only in EspoCRM

Entity manager
Dynamic logic
Email integration
Sales pipeline
Case management
Reports and dashboards
Workflow automation
REST API

What people use each for

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

Affinity

Deal sourcing and pipeline management for venture capital and private equitynot EspoCRM
Automatic capture of email and meeting activity into relationship recordsnot EspoCRM
Finding warm introductions through existing relationship networksnot EspoCRM
Investor relations and fundraising trackingnot EspoCRM
Portfolio company support and reportingnot EspoCRM

EspoCRM

A small business that wants a CRM on its own hosting with no per-seat fee and no vendor holding its customer datanot Affinity
A public sector or healthcare team with data residency rules that rule out US-hosted commercial CRMnot Affinity
A developer or agency needing a CRM whose data model can be extended into a bespoke entity structure through configurationnot Affinity
An organisation with many light users, where self-hosting avoids paying seat prices for people who open the CRM twice a monthnot Affinity

Where each one falls short

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

Affinity

Enterprise tier requires custom quote, pricing not transparent
Scale tier API calls capped at 100000 per month
All plans charge per user annually

EspoCRM

The AGPLv3 licence obliges you to publish source modifications if you make the modified software available over a network, which blocks resellers who want to offer a customised hosted version without opening their code.
Cloud plans carry seat minimums of three, five and ten users, so a two-person consultancy pays for three seats and a small team wanting the Ultimate features pays for ten.
Record ceilings are real on the cheaper cloud tiers, with Basic capped at 100,000 records, and hitting the cap means a tier upgrade rather than a small overage charge.
Marketing automation, sequences and native telephony are thin compared with HubSpot or Zoho, so most deployments end up wiring in a separate mailing tool and a separate dialler.
Self-hosting shifts the entire cost to your own team: PHP version upgrades, database backups and security patching are yours, and a neglected instance becomes an internet-facing liability holding your customer list.

Pricing, plan by plan

Affinity

$2000/year

Essential$2000/year
- Activity capture (email and calendar)
- Relationship scoring and interaction history
- Deal pipeline tracking
Scale$2300/year
- Automatic meeting capture (Notetaker)
- AI Chat conversational access
- Affinity Ascend agent platform
Advanced$2700/year
- Third-party data enrichment (PitchBook, Dealroom, Crunchbase)
- Company growth insights
- Packaged integrations (Slack, Salesforce, Box)
Enterprise$null/year
- Fund-level permissions
- Enterprise SSO
- Custom data retention

EspoCRM

Free

Self-hostedFree
- AGPLv3 licence, no fee
- Runs on PHP with MySQL or MariaDB
- Advanced Pack, Sales Pack and other extensions sold separately as one-off purchases
Cloud Basic$15/month
- Three-user minimum
- 3GB storage per user
- Up to 100,000 records
Cloud Enterprise$25/month
- Five-user minimum
- 10GB storage per user
- Up to 10 million records, extendable for a fee
Cloud Ultimate$69/month
- Ten-user minimum
- 400GB total storage
- Unlimited records

Which should you pick?

Choose Affinity if

You need contact management.
You also want deal tracking.

Affinity review

Choose EspoCRM if

You need entity manager.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Web, Linux, Docker, iOS, Android.
You also want dynamic logic.

EspoCRM review

Questions people ask

Is Affinity or EspoCRM better?: Neither clearly leads. Affinity starts at $2000/year and EspoCRM at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Affinity or EspoCRM?: EspoCRM has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $2000/year for Affinity and Free for EspoCRM.
Does Affinity or EspoCRM run on more platforms?: Affinity runs on Web. EspoCRM runs on Web, Linux, Docker, iOS, Android.
Can I use EspoCRM for free?: Yes. EspoCRM has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Affinity starts at $2000/year.
What is Affinity best used for?: Affinity is most often used for deal sourcing and pipeline management for venture capital and private equity, automatic capture of email and meeting activity into relationship records, finding warm introductions through existing relationship networks, investor relations and fundraising tracking. Of those, deal sourcing and pipeline management for venture capital and private equity and automatic capture of email and meeting activity into relationship records are not what EspoCRM is typically brought in for.
What can Affinity do that EspoCRM cannot?: Affinity covers Contact management, Deal tracking, Intelligence engine, Relationship mapping. EspoCRM covers Entity manager, Dynamic logic, Email integration, Sales pipeline.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Affinity: How much does Affinity CRM cost per user?

Affinity CRM pricing starts at 2000 USD per user per year for the Essential plan, 2300 USD for Scale, and 2700 USD for Advanced. Enterprise tier requires custom pricing.

Source

EspoCRM: Is the self-hosted version really full featured?

The core CRM is, but several paid extension packs including Advanced Pack for reports and BPM are sold separately as one-off purchases and are not in the free download.

Affinity: What is the API call limit on Affinity's Scale tier?

The Scale and Advanced tiers provide 100000 API calls per month. Enterprise tier customers receive unlimited API access.

Source

EspoCRM: What are the cloud seat minimums?

Three users on Basic, five on Enterprise and ten on Ultimate, so the advertised per-user rate is not the smallest bill you can pay.

Affinity: Which Affinity tier includes Notetaker and MCP integration?

The Scale tier (2300 USD per user per year) includes automatic meeting capture via Notetaker and Model Context Protocol server integration for AI tool connections.

Source

EspoCRM: What does it need to run?

PHP, MySQL or MariaDB and a web server. It installs on ordinary shared hosting or a small VPS, which is unusual for a modern CRM.

Affinity: When does Affinity offer Enterprise SSO capabilities?

Enterprise SSO (single sign-on) capability is included only in the Enterprise tier, which requires custom pricing and is designed for established firms with multi-fund complexity.

Source

EspoCRM: Can I move from cloud to self-hosted later?

Yes. EspoCRM states customers own their database and data files, so an export and reinstall is possible, though you take on all maintenance when you do.

Affinity vs EspoCRM

Affinity

EspoCRM

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Affinity

Only in EspoCRM

What people use each for

Affinity

EspoCRM

Where each one falls short

Affinity

EspoCRM

Pricing, plan by plan

Affinity

EspoCRM

Which should you pick?

Choose Affinity if

Choose EspoCRM if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Affinity

More on EspoCRM

Keep looking

Other head to heads