Third price increase in two years. We're a 6-person team and just got notified our HubSpot plan is going up again. At this point I'm paying for a brand, not a product. Agree?

Started looking at self-hosted options last month. First It looks doable: spin up a VPS, export contacts from HubSpot, import, done. I even ended up putting together a comparison of self-hosted CRMs you can run on your own server.

Then I had testing a few on a cheap instance on Serverspace, $9/month for 2GB RAM, and it actually ran fine. Some of the UIs are pretty dated, but the core functionality is all there.

What's making me hesitate is the maintenance side. Updates, backups, potential downtime with HubSpot someone else deals with all of that. I set up a daily backup cron job during testing, but if anything goes wrong, I'm the one taking on all the risk. Do you guys think it’s worth it?

For those who've actually moved off HubSpot or Salesforce to something self-hosted CRM - was the maintenance overhead worth the savings? Did anything break badly at a critical moment? And did your non-technical teammates adapt to a different interface without too much friction? I’m trying to figure out if this is a smart move or if I'm about to trade a monthly bill for a different kind of headache…

Im an automation guy and recently got into GTM engineering so im interacting with the CRM alot.

Obviously my CRM is like 80% automated. Everything from tracking buying signals, filling in lead context, and even enrichment and messaging. Only real work is handling the replies when they come in (no AI of course)

I thought this was standard practice but this sub is telling me otherwise...

So question is, what CRMs are you guys using? Are you not taking advantage of the automation features in them?? If not, why not? For context Im using Twenty on a small VPS

Building CRM architecture has been the highlight of my days recently

I built this mainly around keeping the sales side organized when you're managing multiple leads and deals.

It has:

→ Follow-ups, so you can quickly see what needs attention

→ Deal health to get a quick overview of how things are progressing

→ Weighted pipeline to estimate the value of your current opportunities

→ Connected companies, contacts and deals

→ Won/Lost views to keep the active pipeline clean

→ A “Why Lost” field to keep track of patterns over time

I’ve been refining the workflow for a while and thought I’d share it here in case it’s useful for anyone managing a similar pipeline.

I’m also doing a small discount for the first 5 people who pick it up

Hey guys,

The #1 reason people abandon CRMs isn't missing features — it's friction. Nobody wants to spend 5 minutes typing client context into form fields after a coffee meeting or phone call.

I wanted a personal relationship tool that felt as fast as sending a quick voice message, so I built Shaks.

What makes it different:

• Voice Memos -> Relationship Data: Speak 15 seconds about your conversation. AI automatically tags client interests, promises made, and follow-up dates.

• Morning Coffee Digest ☕: A clean daily briefing of all follow-ups due today with 1-click batch outreach.

• Human-Sounding AI Drafts: Generates non-generic follow-ups tailored to your context, ready to send on WhatsApp or Email.

• WebRTC Card Scanner: Instant camera scanner for physical business cards.

• Spotlight Command Palette (Ctrl+K): Fast desktop search and quick action triggers.
check it out
Would love to hear how you manage your relationship pipeline on the go!