Self-hosted CRM, on your own server
Vrge is self-hostable, and it is not open source. For one person there is nothing to host: the desktop app keeps its SQLite database on your machine, and no Vrge server holds your records. A Team licence adds a server you run yourself, in Docker, from two published images or a source tarball.
14-day free trial, no account, no card. Mac and Windows.
Local for one person, self-hosted for a team
- Not open source
- The source is private and there is no open-source licence. What you get is a compiled desktop app and, with a Team licence, a tarball of the server and web-client source under the same licence, so you can read and build what runs on your server. If open source is the requirement, Vrge is not it. Three that are, each describing itself that way on its own site as of 5 September 2026: Twenty and EspoCRM for a business CRM, Monica for a personal one.
- One person: local, not hosted
- The desktop app for Mac and Windows stores every record in a SQLite file on your own disk. No server, ours or yours, holds those records, so there is nothing to deploy and nothing to keep patched. For one person this is the whole answer, and it is the default.
- A team: a server you run
- A Team licence unlocks the server: Node and SQLite in one container, nginx serving the browser client in a second. Both images are published to GitHub’s container registry for amd64 and arm64, and the purchase includes a tarball of the same code to build from instead. Teammates use it from a browser on any device, and the desktop app can be pointed at it from Settings → Team.
- What you operate
- Docker, one compose file, one
.env. Five values are required: three secrets you generate withopenssl rand -hex 32, the licence key from your purchase email, and the tier. HTTPS enforcement is on by default and everything else has a default. The guide walks through it, and this page does not repeat it. - Where the data is
- One SQLite file in a Docker volume, at the path
DATABASE_PATHnames. Attachments are files on disk in a second volume, or in an S3-compatible bucket if you opt into one. Backing both up is your job. The in-app backup controls stay hidden in team mode, because they act on a solo install’s local database; the guide has the commands. - Export
- Settings → Data Management → Export Data writes portable JSON or CSV of everything. It works in solo and team mode, and on the desktop app with an expired licence or no connection.
- Seats
- The licence names a seat count: five, fifteen or forty by tier. The server trusts the tier you set in
LICENSE_TIER, asks Lemon Squeezy at start-up and once a day whether that matches what was bought, switches to the tier Lemon Squeezy definitely names when the two disagree, and keeps running on your word when there is no answer. - AI on a self-hosted team
- The observer is a desktop role, not a server job. Whoever connects the business’s sources does it in the desktop app pointed at the server, reviews proposals on that machine, and what they accept lands on the shared server. A browser seat reads and edits records and extracts nothing, so it has no AI settings at all. Each observing desktop seat brings its own provider: an Anthropic, OpenAI or Google key in that machine’s keychain, or Ollama running on it. If the organisation subscribes to Managed AI, an admin activates it once on the server and the server relays the calls, so the subscription key never reaches a seat.
| Licence | Seats | One-time |
|---|---|---|
| Team Starter | Five people | $299 |
| Team Studio | Fifteen people | $699 |
| Team Agency | Forty people | $1,499 |
Launch pricing through November 2, 2026. The struck-through figure is the regular price and applies after that. A Solo licence has no server to host; self-hosting starts at Team Starter. The tiers are seat counts, not feature gates.
What you cannot host yourself
- The Managed AI proxyVrge Managed AI runs at ai.getvrge.com and nowhere else today. A self-hostable image is on the roadmap, not shipped. A self-hosted team loses nothing by skipping it: every seat can use its own key or Ollama, and no feature needs the managed tier.
- Cloud BackupThe hosted backup service is ours to run, not yours, and it is a solo-install feature: it uploads an encrypted copy of the desktop app’s local database. In team mode the app hides backup and restore. Your server’s SQLite file and uploads volume are yours to copy on whatever schedule you like.
- The licence checkWith a licence key set, the server asks Lemon Squeezy about it at start-up and once a day. Only the key is sent. No answer changes nothing. If Lemon Squeezy definitely rejects the key for seven days running, the server drops to one seat; records and export are untouched. Unlike the update check, there is no switch to turn this off.
- A Solo licenceCovers the desktop app on your own devices and does not include the server. Self-hosting in the usual sense is a Team licence.
- Linux and phonesThe desktop app ships for Mac and Windows. There is no Linux build and no mobile app. On a team server, a Linux laptop or a phone uses the browser client like any other seat.
What the server sends
Two addresses by default. Lemon Squeezy, for the licence check described in the list. And once a day updates.getvrge.com, to fetch a static file naming the newest server version. That request carries no version, no key and no identifier. The server compares locally, shows the admin one line in Settings, never downloads or applies anything, and UPDATE_CHECK=0 turns it off.
Everything else is something you switched on: Resend or your own SMTP server, if you configured one to email invites; an S3-compatible bucket, if you chose one for attachments; Stripe, if you added a key for invoice payment links; and ai.getvrge.com, only after an admin has activated a Managed AI subscription on the server. The transparency page covers the desktop app’s paths in the same detail.
Run it where you like.
One machine with no server at all, or a team server in Docker on hardware you control. Either way the records sit in a SQLite file you can copy, and export is one click.
One-time payment. Every 1.x update included. 14-day free trial, no card. Mac and Windows.