Horilla Review, Pricing & Features

Horilla is a free, open-source HRMS with recruitment, payroll, attendance, and performance modules. See 2026 pricing, features, and alternatives.

Category
HR
Pricing
Freemium (Open Source self-hosted, plus paid Cloud and Enterprise tiers), from Free (self-hosted); Cloud from $7/user/month
Verified
Not yet
Last updated
July 18, 2026
Headquarters
Kozhikode, Kerala, India
Free PlanWeb AppFree TrialAndroidAPIOpen SourceFreemiumSelf-Hosted

Overview

Horilla is an open-source human resource management system designed to give growing companies the functional depth of a commercial HRIS without a recurring per-employee license fee. Built by Cybrosys Technologies, an established Odoo implementation partner based in Kerala, India, Horilla brings ERP-style modularity to HR: each function, from recruitment to payroll, is a self-contained app that can be enabled, configured, or extended independently.

Unlike many single-purpose HR tools, Horilla also bundles a lightweight CRM for tracking leads and sales pipelines, making it appealing to small businesses that want one open-source system covering both people operations and customer relationships rather than stitching together separate SaaS subscriptions.

The software is distributed under the LGPL-2.1 license and hosted publicly on GitHub, where an active community contributes bug fixes, translations, and new modules. Organizations can self-host it for free, or offload infrastructure management to Cybrosys via a managed Cloud or Enterprise plan.

Key Features

Horilla covers the full employee lifecycle: applicant tracking and recruitment pipelines, structured onboarding checklists, a central employee database, biometric-friendly attendance tracking, configurable leave policies and approval chains, IT and physical asset assignment, payroll processing, goal-based performance management with 360-degree feedback, and formal offboarding workflows.

On the CRM side, Horilla adds lead capture, pipeline stages, and deal tracking, letting small teams manage sales alongside HR from the same login and permission system rather than paying for a second platform.

Because it is open source, Horilla exposes a REST API and a customizable module system, so technical teams can build integrations with payroll processors, accounting software, and job boards, or modify workflows to match country-specific labor rules that off-the-shelf SaaS HRIS tools often fail to support out of the box.

Pricing

Horilla's self-hosted edition is free forever with unlimited users and companies, making it one of the few HRMS platforms with no user-count ceiling on the free tier; the tradeoff is that the organization must provision servers, apply updates, and handle its own backups and security.

Teams that want the same feature set without operational overhead can subscribe to Horilla Cloud starting at $7 per user per month with a 30-day free trial, which adds managed hosting, daily backups, automatic updates, SSL, and priority support. Enterprises with compliance or scale requirements can move to a custom-priced Enterprise plan with SSO, dedicated support, and on-premises or private-cloud deployment options.

Key Features

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Free, unlimited-user self-hosted edition with no per-employee licensing cost
  • Combines HR and CRM functionality in a single open-source platform
  • Broad module coverage spanning the full employee lifecycle
  • Active GitHub development community and regular updates
  • Managed Cloud tier removes the need to run your own infrastructure

Cons

  • Self-hosting requires technical staff to install, secure, and maintain the application
  • Third-party integrations and documentation are less mature than established HRIS incumbents
  • Community support on the free tier has no guaranteed response time
  • Newer project with a smaller long-term track record than BambooHR or Zoho People
  • Advanced payroll compliance for some countries may require custom development

Pricing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Horilla really free to use?

Yes. The self-hosted, open-source edition of Horilla is free forever with unlimited users and companies, licensed under LGPL-2.1. Paid Cloud and Enterprise tiers are optional for teams that want managed hosting and support.

Who develops Horilla?

Horilla is built and maintained by Cybrosys Technologies, an Odoo implementation partner headquartered in Kerala, India, along with an open-source community of contributors on GitHub.

Does Horilla include payroll?

Yes, Horilla includes a payroll module that calculates pay based on attendance and leave records and generates payslips.

Can Horilla be self-hosted?

Yes, self-hosting is the default free option. Organizations download the source from GitHub and deploy it on their own servers or cloud infrastructure.

What does Horilla Cloud cost?

Horilla Cloud starts at $7 per user per month, billed monthly, with a 30-day free trial and managed infrastructure, backups, and support.

Does Horilla have a CRM?

Yes, Horilla bundles a lightweight CRM module for lead and sales pipeline tracking alongside its HR features.

Comparisons

Related Tools