# CiviCRM Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is CiviCRM the right Nonprofit CRM solution for you? Explore 41 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/79192/CiviCRM/reviews --- CiviCRM 3.9 (41) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/79192/CiviCRM/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of CiviCRM Ease of use 3.5 Customer Service 3.3 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews Sebastian G SoftwareengineerComputer Software, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “It's very flexible and integrates well with CMS systems (which is also a security issue).“ January 15, 2024 Graham and Christine C volunteer helpNon-Profit Organization Management, 2 - 10 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months. “The software is more complex than the needs of a small group with few volunteers. Although open-source, the set, up, running and maintenance of the software is not cheap.“ December 12, 2024 RM Richard M PresidentNon-Profit Organization Management, 11 - 50 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Overall, CiviCRM is a great choice for those organizations that have the qualified staff to maintain the backend intricacies along with those who can perform the customizations and those to enter the data.“ September 11, 2020 BC Bethany C OwnerFund-Raising, Self-employedUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “There is a completely unreasonable expectation that users will have time and expertise for extremely complicated customizations and processes.“ October 14, 2024 YY Youssef Y Chief AdministratorReligious Institutions, 501 - 1,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “The user interface is what lets this platform down.“ October 14, 2020 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 41 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Jonathan L. Owner Internet Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Our go-to for Associations and others" May 20, 2016 5.0 CiviCRM integrates CRM functions for associations, affiliation groups and others as an add-on for the top GPL content management systems WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. We have been installing and hosting CiviCRM for several years and it has become a standard part of our toolbox. It is especially strong on event registration and membership management. CiviMail does an excellent job with bounce and subscription management, but it's not as user friendly as a service like MailChimp or Constant Contact for HTML mail composition. CiviContribute handles payments for memberships, donations and events. CiviCase brings case management into to application and CiviVolunteer helps you keep track of the eager beavers who want to help your cause. We have used CiviCRM for projects ranging from an international arts group to our son's Boy Scout troop. We have used it for camping registrations and conference registrations for thousands of users. The real gem, as in any CRM tool are the reporting tools. You can pull membership, attendance or other reports in minutes. Think of a data related question and get an answer quickly and simply. Pros Excellent event registration and membership management at a price that can't be equaled. Best of all, it works in and with our client's websites. Cons It's not an intuitive tool. You need to learn the logic of CiviCRM to get things done. It's not hard, but I wouldn't give it to a client without a few explanations and probably training. Review Source ST Sandra T. IT Support Consultant Airlines/Aviation Used the software for: 2+ years ### "CiviCRM Software" May 6, 2025 4.0 Overall we're very pleased with CiviCRM - we're a not for profit and we've used the software for around 10 years. Pros CiviCRM is a very sophistiacted product with almost everything you could need for storing client data, creating and selling tickets to events, mailings and membership details. The invoicing facility is also very good. Cons There's a lot in there so you have to learn it a bit at a time and you do need some expertise as back up if you're unsure of things. Switched from [Microsoft Access](https://www.capterra.com/p/233275/Microsoft-Access/) Access was unyieldy and not easy to maintain for non technical people. It also needed a lot of customising and when anything changed everything had to be updated. There was a lot of data redundancy and having retention policies was almost impossible. Review Source JL John L. Donations Manager Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "DO NOT USE THIS CRM" May 8, 2025 1.0 It was an headache. The CRM would constant break and we would have to get outside support to fix. The constant issues was costing us donors and volunteers. When we needed to pull reports, the data it pulled was always incorrect. If I could give negative star, I would. Pros What we liked most is that the CRM was free. Beyond that I would not recommend this CRM to anyone. Cons It is archaic, broke all the time, and lack many modern features that other CRMs had. Review Source BS Brian S. IT Manager Libraries Used the software for: 2+ years ### "serves its purpose" October 3, 2022 4.0 Overall, it's done what we've needed it to do, reliably, for a long time. Pros We've used CiviCRM for years to handle all of our even registrations. While it may not be the slickest thing out there, it's been very capable of taking on this task. Cons This may or may not be a con for some, but it's been largely unchanged for years. The consistency makes it pretty easy to use, but it's probably aging a bit. Switched from [Peopleware](https://www.capterra.com/p/201913/Peopleware/) Need something with better/more options that fit our specific needs. Review Source YY Youssef Y. Chief Administrator Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great potential and features" October 14, 2020 5.0 Pros The flexibility of this platform is truly amazing. You can customise it to your exact needs and the range of features is unbeaten. Most powerful CRM I have come across. Cons The user interface is what lets this platform down. It is not responsive and although a developer has made a mobile app, it is too late to the game and does not properly give you the power of CiviCRM in your mobile. Considering most people now will want to access these platforms from phones, this is what makes CiviCRM unfortunately not really future proof. Alternatives considered [Rock RMS](https://www.capterra.com/p/141654/Rock-RMS/) Reason for choosing CiviCRM Civicrm was compatible with our server, was free to use and more powerful with its portfolio of features and customisability. Review Source Graham and Christine C. volunteer help Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Not suitable for small not-for-profits" December 12, 2024 3.0 I recently set up civiCRM on a wordpress site as my contribution for a small not-for-profit in my small remote town. My experience was that (free) on-line support for set up and use of the software was scant and mostly out-of-date. The civi written instructions assume detailed IT knowledge. Although I did manage to set up civi on a hosted-site and it was functioning well, I decided not to procede with it for my group. It seems that the software is prone to "glitches" that can become time-comsuming to troubleshoot. In the end, the software maintemance was beyond our group's technical and financial resources. Pros I love that CiviCRM is an open-source community project aiming to assist not-for-profit community groups. Becoming part of this project is a great way for coders and IT professionals to give back to their communities across the world. When it is set up and fully funcitioning, the software offers everything that a not-for-profie organisation needs to recruit and manage volunteers, to organise events and to fund-raise. Cons The software is more complex than the needs of a small group with few volunteers. Although open-source, the set, up, running and maintenance of the software is not cheap. It is not accessible for a small organisation without IT support or the budget to outsource. Even with IT support, organisations need to spend significant effort to train staff in the use of the platform. This can be an additional financial cost. Review Source Kitty T. Office Coordinator Public Relations and Communications Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Pretty fantastic for doing the essentials" October 31, 2019 3.0 It's not a terrible software to have and allows you to carry out ticketing and patron service management at a fundamental level. Wouldn't recommend it at the higher tiered levels of with theatres/spaces that are more complex and demand more. Pros While it is not the most integrated system, Civi's platform allows for the essential patron ticketing needs. The following being the strongest aspects: -Easily accessible patron accounts - Format is very fundamental in account management and ticketing management - Allows for seamless EOD reporting and comp lists Cons Here are the biggest drawbacks that I have seen with this ticketing software: -It cannot retrieve events/reservations once deleted. The recovery process of anything really is very difficult with regards to patron and account management. - Very difficult to change seating arrangements once reservation is secured. - Can be cumbersome with the website interface and do not allow for intuitive browsing. Review Source Armando I. Network Manager Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "On-the-go solution to manage elections campaign and manage data responses." December 10, 2021 5.0 Pros CiviCRM allowed me to manage as many as possible thanks to the registration forms, follow up with the CRM and customize your preferences. With the Reports module I was able to obtain voting statistics and focus on undecided voters. An agile solution of multiple applications. Connected to my Joomla Portal. Cons I had problems connecting to my big data server to process the collected information together with other databases. Specifically Kafka. Review Source Joseph W. CEO Marketing and Advertising Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Exceptional value" February 8, 2019 5.0 We have had a wonderful experience with installing/implementing CiviCRM for a nonprofit client. We're very thankful for the community's help when we needed help with an issue, which was quickly resolved. Pros Other than the fact it's open source, which is extremely beneficial to nonprofits, the community is vibrant and quick to offer sound advice. Cons It's truly an excellent CRM for nonprofits. What could be a huge step forward would be a templating system for front-end design. Review Source Isabelle F. Director Music Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "CiviCRM: The Future Of Political Campaigns Organizing" December 11, 2018 5.0 I would recommend with reserve. Still very useful, if you do not have the budget to opt for better services. Pros CiviCRM is free as compared to other providers (NationBuilder, NGP Van, other) who are really pricey. CiviCRM enables organization and campaign to build their lists, organize their constituent and ace their tools for campaign time. Cons The software is difficult to self-install on own servers. Some bugs. User interface is also not optimal. Review Source SR Stefano R. Digital Project Manager Furniture Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "CRM e Email Marketing" January 16, 2023 1.0 Non consiglio a nessuno questo software. Pros Nulla! Non ho trovato niente di bello, funzionale e utile in questo programma. Cons L'interfaccia utente è brutta e poco intuitiva, la gestione e ricerca dei contatti è macchina e il modulo newsletter è pessimo Review Source FA Fatima A. IT Manager Civic & Social Organization Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Quick-start CRM" September 13, 2015 5.0 Pros CiviCRM includes everything you'd expect from a robust, comprehensive non-profit CRM solution: mailings, memberships, contributions, pledges, volunteer management, contact groups, activity tracking, events, and more. Its extensible, open-source nature means its always evolving and can be adapted to your needs. Cons Like most CRMs, it does draw upon server resources--and since it must be integrated with your site, that means it's drawing upon the same resources as your CMS-based website. I wouldn't want to use it on budget shared hosting, which is unfortunately the kind of hosting most small non-profits have. Review Source RR Rennie R. Business Manager Used the software for: ### "Excellent CRM!" August 21, 2015 5.0 We consolidated a range of spreadsheets into CiviCRM and use it for donor management and email management. We're growing into memberships and events now, and CiviCRM out of the box continues to meet our needs. We're not super technical, so there are times when we need support. The online documentation and community is responsive and helpful. Review Source BC Bethany C. Owner Fund-Raising Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Unusable product. Don't do it." October 14, 2024 1.0 This is an absolutely awful product. Its not worth considering. If you're looking at it, I recommend looking at products former CiviCRM users have switched to! Pros This CRM has lots of capabilities, but honestly none I particularly like. No features are better than any other CRM I've used. Cons I genuinely dislike just about everything about this product--the UX and UI are awful. There is a completely unreasonable expectation that users will have time and expertise for extremely complicated customizations and processes. There are frequent errors that render the system unusable and are often unfixed for weeks. Do not choose this product. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Softwareengineer Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Very flexible, free, but unfortunately also buggy" January 15, 2024 3.0 It's a tradeoff between being free and customizable and stability & security. If you just need something simple to get up and running this is probably not the best tool for you. If you need something very customizable and you have the technological knowledge to customize and maintain it or you can pay somebody to do it for you it is a nice tool. For most small companies it is probably overkill. Pros It's very flexible and integrates well with CMS systems (which is also a security issue). We've created multiple extensions for CiviCRM and made a lot of custom adjustments which is relatively easy to do. It's free and OpenSource and offers a lot of features. The CiviCRM volunteers/engineers I had contact with were very friendly and helpful, but given you don't pay for it you also can't expect and will not get enterprise support. It has a good API to retrieve and update data. Cons It's buggy. After every update there are things that break. We have a customer that has a lot of data (~1 million contacts) stored in CiviCRM and updates are always a nightmare which is why we only do it once per year. It takes me a couple of days to actually update the system and fix all of the bugs that occur during the upgrade and after the upgrade. The update takes a couple of hours and it never runs through without issues. With smaller instances the update usually works better and is done in a couple of minutes. You will need to to be a software engineer to maintain CiviCRM because you will need to be able to go into the code and analyze and fix issues yourself. I've also contributed back a fix to the CiviCRM core. There are few automated tests that catch bugs so old features get broken with updates on a regular basis without anybody noticing. That it integrates with CMSes is a nice feature but it is also a major concern. If you run it behind your website it means your customer data stored in CiviCRM can get stolen if your website is hacked. This is not an uncommon thing to happen to Wordpress and Drupal sites. Also because of the bugs as I said we avoid updating more often than once a year so we also don't get security fixes. This is why we moved our CiviCRM away from the website to a separate server that is not accessible to the internet. Review Source AM Ashley M. Annual Giving Manager Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Decent open sourced CRM " October 9, 2018 3.0 This is a free software program that can for the most part, make it do what you want it to do as long as you are experienced enough. If you have database experience with a limited budget, this would be a good route to go. Pros CiviCRM is an open sourced database, so there are no fees or contracts associated with it, which is nice. If you have previous database experience, it can be pretty intuitive on how to use for donor management. Although there is no customer service as it is open sourced, there are several forums that are helpful. Cons The open source can be a double edged sword. While it is nice that you can build yourself, unless you have a developer/script writer on hand things can get complicated and messy quick. The reporting is alright, but does not do anything extravagant (unless again you have a developer on hand that can help you write more canned reports). The import feature works okay, but often times still creates duplicates. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Database Officer Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Not a product that I could recommend." January 31, 2019 2.0 The problem I had with CiviCRM was more due to the organisation I was working in trying to adapt it for their own sector, rather than using something that was appropriate to their requirements and location. CiviCRM reminded me of a ball of thread that could tangle and loop back on itself very easily, and was almost impossible to unpick. Pros It is adaptable to the requirements of the organisation. Cons This product isn't designed to be used in the sector that I was working in. Review Source RM Richard M. President Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A great option for a CRM if you have the staff to maintain the software" September 11, 2020 4.0 Overall, CiviCRM is a great choice for those organizations that have the qualified staff to maintain the backend intricacies along with those who can perform the customizations and those to enter the data. Pros I liked that it was open source and maintained by volunteers. It was fairly easy to add to our Wordpress website and very flexible as far as customizations and shaping it to match our processes. Cons It was hard to upgrade if too many releases went by since you were supposed to do one at a time. I almost had a database disaster during one of the updates and lost a couple days to recover the data. Since that point, we had to just run with the last working version. Also, it doesn't integrate with QuickBooks Online, so there was double bookkeeping involved. Review Source SD Shirley D. Volunteer Environmental Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "High functionality at low costs" July 26, 2017 4.0 Very functional so long as you don't need something new Pros Cost -- our volunteer run organization could afford it (we pay for hosting which includes administrator and user coaching) Highly functional and generally very easy to use Very flexible with extensions that are much more advanced than found in cost-comparable products -- membership, events, etc. Very good API Ability to fully get all data out of it Cons Import of large quantities of data using supplied import procedures is painful at best. That said, a person who understands the database can bypass the worst of it -- however, we could do this, and the closest competing product priced itself out of our reach by an excessive import fee. While existing reports are easy to use, creating truly new ones is nearly impossible (need to create a new extension) Sadly lacking documentation on creating extensions Review Source HK Heather K. Executive Director Non-Profit Organization Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Moved away from this for a simpler option" August 19, 2020 3.0 It was brief that I actively used it, and it holds a lot and has a lot of capacity, but the flip side of that, like Salesforce, is that you have to have the resources to invest in doing it well and there are just easier options. Pros This was chosen before I got here and was universally recognized as very complicated and buggy. In going back into it for old records, I do like the theoretical capacity if you had the time to figure it out. Cons Complicated and open source is great if you're a programmer, but less helpful when you just need a program to do a specific thing. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer India Office Director | Structural Engineer Architecture & Planning Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Great general use database" August 20, 2019 4.0 Still learning it, but it is a great tool for managing our volunteer and client database Pros Super flexible, can be used with nearly any type of data Cons it is not very user friendly / self explanatory Review Source VR Verified Reviewer CEO Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Specifically designed for a variety of Non Profits" April 19, 2018 4.0 The flexibility of working with a strong team that understands the business requirements gets the non-profit up to speed faster. Pros Great Business Rules, Forms and Integrations. The setup is complicated as the Non-Profit needs to understand its business processes. Being forced to understand what works and best practices is a significant benefit. Cons Be prepared to spend time on setting CiviCRM on the right path. The user interface is old fashioned compared to Program Management tools I'm used to for software development. Search is in the fashion of a database query rather than as a blob search. You have to know what you are looking for in a number of different areas rather than have the search self-develop, Review Source RD Rusty D. Membership coordinator Used the software for: 2+ years ### "We have continued to use more features over time " April 20, 2017 4.0 Good program Pros Flexibility. It can do almost anything for non computer people, that flexibility can also be a disability Cons It can be complicated. It has such flexibility that it can be daunting . Consultants can help but are costly. Review Source CS Chelsea S. Communications Coordinator Environmental Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "A wonderful experience with CiviCRm" April 26, 2016 4.5 Pros I work for a very small and relatively new non-profit organization and CiviCRM has been the perfect combination of intuitive/ user-friendly, as well as adaptive to our unique needs as we continue to define our direction, expand our scope, and grow to reach a larger audience. Civi has allowed us to track and maintain well-rounded profiles of our constituents, donors, participants, and volunteers -- many of whom fit into multiple of these categories. I have a lot left to learn about Civi and when I get stumped, I can almost always find the answer in the forums online or through our vendor. Cons I've had the most difficulty with CiviCRM integrating into our Mailchimp account and newsletter. Overall, it's worked quite well but there have been several glitches and several times where the solution or steps to take to fix a problem were not at all obvious (to me, at least!). Review Source AM Alex M. Treasurer Religious Institutions Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A versatile but clunky CRM software" July 22, 2016 3.5 Pros CiviCRM is extremely versatile and customizable. We use it to produce letters to donors and large mailing lists for various functions. If you have a fair amount of technical web knowledge, you can integrate your database with other online software like MailChimp. It is also FREE! Cons CiviCRM is pretty clunky and not pleasing to the eye. While you can segment your database in almost any way with the search features, it's often nearly impossible to know which version of the search interface you should use: Advanced Search? Search Builder? Full-text Search??????? 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