Answers about running an open-source ATS

Software that holds every open role, every applicant and every stage of your hiring process in one place. It replaces the spreadsheet, the shared inbox and the calendar thread with a pipeline where each candidate has an owner, a status and a written record.

It is open source and self-hostable, so the full product is free and the data stays in your database. There is no seat cap on the free edition, no procurement cycle to start, and the interface is built on a modern stack rather than a decade of legacy screens. See the full comparison.

Startups hiring their first twenty people, recruiting agencies running many clients on one install, and small to mid size teams that want speed and data ownership without a vendor contract.

Yes. Publish a role and it appears on a hosted careers page you can point at your own domain. Applications land straight in the pipeline with their source attached.

Docker, a Postgres database and an S3 compatible bucket for attachments. One compose file brings everything up, and a small instance comfortably handles a team hiring at normal volume.

Pull the new image and run the migration command. Releases are tagged, the changelog lists breaking changes, and database migrations are reversible within a release.

Self-hosting keeps applicant data in the region you choose. Retention windows, deletion requests and consent records are handled on the candidate record, and there is no third party tracking on applicant data.

Import candidates, jobs and stage history from a CSV export, or script it against the REST API. Attachments come across with the records. Read the migration steps.

They read every resume against the role, score and rank the shortlist, and write a short summary of why. A recruiter reads twenty ranked candidates instead of a hundred and fifty unsorted ones.

No. Agents rank and summarise, they never move a candidate between stages or send a decision. You can switch them off per pipeline.

Scores are tied to the criteria you write for the role, the reasoning behind each score is visible, and every agent action is logged. Treat it as a reading aid with a paper trail, not an automated decision maker.

Yes, MIT licensed and free forever with unlimited jobs, candidates and team members. Paid plans start at $20 per user per month and add AI agents and managed hosting. See pricing.

You drop back to the Community Edition with everything intact. Export it, or point the open-source build at the same database and keep hiring. There is no lock-in and no export fee.

Community support through GitHub issues and discussions, where the core team answers in public. Paid plans add email support, and Enterprise adds a dedicated contact with an SLA.