Freedom251 › Recruiting Software
OpenCATS
What OpenCATS is
OpenCATS is free, community-maintained applicant tracking and recruiting CRM software for staffing agencies and internal recruiting teams. It manages candidate records, resumes, notes, status history, jobs, companies, contacts, submissions, and follow-up activity. Listed recruiting tools include a career site, interview scheduling, workflow automation, and job-board distribution. Resume parsing is not included. OpenCATS is self-hosted and web-based, allowing teams to inspect the code and keep recruiting data under their own operational policies. The documented runtime requires PHP 8.4.1 or later within PHP 8, MariaDB, a web server, and required PHP extensions. MariaDB is the recommended and tested database family; MySQL is not the documented target. Optional utilities such as Antiword, pdftotext, html2text, and unrtf can improve document extraction and search. Version 0.11.1 is identified as a security and maintenance release. Documentation covers installation, configuration, upgrades, and maintenance, with peer support available through the OpenCATS subreddit.
Who it suits
OpenCATS suits recruiting teams that can manage a self-hosted web application and want control over code and data. It fits workflows needing job distribution, interviews, records, and automation without a paid plan.
What it does well
- Free open-source software
- Self-hosted data control
- Career site included
- Interview scheduling and workflow automation
- Job-board distribution supported
What to know first
- Resume parsing is unavailable
- Server and runtime setup required
- MariaDB is the documented database target
- Security updates require monitoring
Plans
| Plan | Billed and limits | Price |
|---|---|---|
| OpenCATS | Free, open-source software · Self-hosted; runtime and server setup required | Free |
As opencats.org lists them, read 12 Oct 2026. The maker's own page has the final word.
Verdict
OpenCATS provides a broad free recruiting workflow with self-hosting and inspectable code. Its setup requirements and lack of resume parsing matter when assessing fit.
Facts from OpenCATS's own pages
- Candidate records
- It manages candidate records, resumes, notes, status history, and recruiting activity. · opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Career site
- Yes · opencats.org, 20 Sept 2026
- Database limit
- MariaDB is the recommended and tested database family; MySQL is not the documented database target. · documentation.opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Data control
- Teams can host OpenCATS themselves, inspect its code, and keep recruiting data under their own operational policies. · opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Distribution
- Prepared full release archives are published through GitHub Releases in .tar.gz and .zip formats. · github.com, 12 Oct 2026
- Documentation
- Public documentation covers installation, runtime requirements, configuration, upgrades, and maintenance tasks. · opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Free plan
- Yes · opencats.org, 20 Sept 2026
- Interview scheduling
- Yes · opencats.org, 20 Sept 2026
- Job board distribution
- Yes · opencats.org, 20 Sept 2026
- Optional utilities
- Antiword, pdftotext, html2text, and unrtf can improve resume and document text extraction and search, but are not required for installation. · documentation.opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Product
- OpenCATS is a free, community-maintained applicant tracking system and recruiting CRM. · opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Recruiting workflows
- It supports jobs, companies, contacts, submissions, and follow-up activity for staffing agencies and internal recruiting teams. · opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Release
- The maker site identifies OpenCATS v0.11.1 as the latest release. · opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Release security work
- Version 0.11.1 is described as a security and maintenance release with additional security hardening. · github.com, 12 Oct 2026
- Resume parsing
- No · opencats.org, 20 Sept 2026
- Runtime
- The documented runtime requires PHP 8.4.1 or later within PHP 8, MariaDB, a web server, and required PHP extensions. · documentation.opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Security
- The maker advises monitoring GitHub Security Advisories and applying security releases promptly to production instances. · opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Support
- The maker points users to the OpenCATS subreddit for peer-to-peer support and troubleshooting discussions. · opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Tested baseline
- Project CI tests PHP 8.4.1 and PHP 8.5 on Linux/Unix with MariaDB 10.7 for Docker-backed integration and Behat testing. · documentation.opencats.org, 12 Oct 2026
- Workflow automation
- Yes · opencats.org, 20 Sept 2026
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