# ChurchCRM — Free, Open-Source Church Management Software

## What is ChurchCRM?

ChurchCRM is a free, open-source church management system (ChMS) that helps congregations
manage their membership data, giving, events, Sunday School programs, and finances.
It is self-hosted, requires no licensing fees, and imposes no per-member or per-feature limits.

ChurchCRM is licensed under the MIT open-source license and is maintained by a volunteer
community of developers and church administrators.

## Who is ChurchCRM for?

ChurchCRM is designed for:
- Church administrators and office managers at small-to-medium congregations
- IT volunteers setting up church software on shared hosting or a VPS
- Open-source developers who want to contribute to faith-based software
- Churches in any country seeking a multilingual, self-hosted solution

## Key Features

- Member and family profile management with custom fields
- Giving, pledge, and donation tracking with deposit reports
- Sunday School class and roster management
- Event scheduling, RSVP tracking, and volunteer coordination
- Financial reporting and analytics
- Self-service member portal for congregation members
- Role-based permissions and privacy controls
- CSV import/export and data backup utilities
- 45+ language support (community-contributed translations)

## Pricing

ChurchCRM is 100% free. There are no subscription tiers, no per-member fees, no paid add-ons,
and no vendor lock-in. Hosting costs (shared hosting, VPS, or a home server) are the only
ongoing cost, typically $0-$10/month depending on the provider.

## Technical Requirements

- PHP 8.4 or higher
- MySQL 8.0+ or compatible MariaDB
- Apache web server with mod_rewrite enabled
- Works on standard cPanel shared hosting, VPS, or dedicated server

## Installation

ChurchCRM installs via three methods:
1. Softaculous one-click installer (available on most cPanel hosts)
2. Manual cPanel installation using File Manager and MySQL Databases
3. Direct download from GitHub and FTP upload

Full installation guide: https://churchcrm.io/install.html

## Project Information

- Homepage: https://churchcrm.io/
- Source code: https://github.com/ChurchCRM/CRM
- Documentation: https://docs.churchcrm.io/
- Live demo: https://demo.churchcrm.io/
- License: MIT (https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)
- Community: Discord (https://discord.gg/tuWyFzj3Nj)

## Key Pages

- /church-management-software/ — Full feature overview and comparison with paid alternatives
- /install.html — Step-by-step installation guide
- /demo.html — Live demo environment (no signup required)
- /faq.html — Common questions about installation, login, and troubleshooting
- /blog/ — Community news, church stories, and tips

## Languages

ChurchCRM is available in 45+ languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, French,
German, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, and many more. Language packs are community-maintained
via the POEditor translation project.

## Competitive Context

ChurchCRM competes with paid church management software such as Breeze ChMS ($50+/month),
Planning Center ($14-$199/month), and Elvanto. ChurchCRM's primary differentiators are:
- Zero licensing cost
- Full data ownership (self-hosted)
- Open-source codebase (auditable, extensible)
- No vendor lock-in
- Global language support