A WhatsApp CRM You Can Actually Own, Installed With One Command
You've probably looked at Kommo, Octadesk, or Intercom and winced at the monthly bill. Or worse, you've built something on a platform where your customer data lives on someone else's servers and half the useful features sit behind a paywall. DeskcommCRM is an open-source answer to that: a sales CRM with AI agents that handle WhatsApp conversations, running entirely on your own VPS.
What It Does
DeskcommCRM is a self-hosted CRM built around WhatsApp, with AI agents that attend to, qualify, and sell to your leads. The pitch is straightforward: no monthly subscription, no locked features, and your data stays with you. It positions itself directly as the open alternative to Kommo, Octadesk, and Intercom.
The stack is modern and boring in the good way. It's built on Next.js 16 with strict TypeScript, and Supabase handles Postgres, auth, and storage. The whole thing is designed to run on a single VPS, and the project was developed in partnership with HostGator. The install kit in hostgator-setup-kit/ brings up the full stack, the app plus WhatsApp plus the database, with a single command. There's also a production runbook in docs/runbooks/waha-hostgator.md that assumes this environment, which tells you the maintainers actually run this setup rather than just documenting it.
Why It's Cool
The install story is the real feature. Most self-hosted CRMs ask you to install Node, a package manager, maybe Docker, then fight with environment variables for an afternoon. DeskcommCRM's installer skips all of that. You clone the repo, run bash hostgator-setup-kit/install.sh, and you're done. The app image comes prebuilt, so there's no compilation step, and if Docker is missing, the installer offers to install it for you. That's a meaningful reduction in the usual self-hosting tax.
The onboarding respects that you might not know what you're doing yet. There's a helper script you can run on your own machine before you even have a server. It asks about your situation and tells you which VPS plan to buy, using the numbers from the runbook instead of a vague "it depends," then hands you the exact command for your case. You can pipe it straight from GitHub or clone the repo and read it first, since it doesn't install anything without your confirmation. That's a nice touch for anyone who's rightly suspicious of curl | bash.
The README teaches you to use a terminal. There's a whole section walking you through SSH, including the part where your password doesn't show up as you type and that isn't a freeze. It explains the Are you sure you want to continue connecting? prompt on first connection. If you've been avoiding VPS hosting because the terminal felt like a wall, this documentation is written for you specifically.
Your data and your costs stay yours. No monthly fee, no features gated behind a higher tier. The tradeoff is that you're responsible for the server, but the project leans into making that responsibility manageable rather than pretending it's zero.
The requirements are honest. Four gigabytes of RAM recommended, a domain with an A record pointing at your VPS, and a free Supabase account. That's the whole checklist, laid out in a table instead of buried in prose.
How to Try It
-
Get a VPS with Docker. The project recommends 4 GB of RAM, and there's a HostGator partner link if you want to support the project while you're at it. Any VPS with Docker works.
-
Point a domain at it. Set up an A record (something like
crm.yourcompany.com.br) pointing to your VPS IP. -
Create a free Supabase account for the database.
-
Connect to your VPS:
ssh -p PORT root@YOUR_IP
- Clone and install:
git clone https://github.com/melgarafael/DeskcommCRM.git
cd DeskcommCRM
bash hostgator-setup-kit/install.sh
If you don't have a server yet and want guidance before committing, run this on your own machine (macOS, Linux, or WSL):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/melgarafael/DeskcommCRM/main/hostgator-setup-kit/comecar.sh | bash
The repo lives at github.com/melgarafael/DeskcommCRM. It's MIT licensed, and there are Portuguese, English, and Spanish versions of the README. If you want to go deeper, there's a VISION.md, ARCHITECTURE.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, and a roadmap linked from the top.
Final Thoughts
DeskcommCRM is best suited to small teams and solo operators who sell through WhatsApp and are tired of subscription pricing or platform lock-in. If you're comfortable with (or willing to learn) basic server administration, the one-command install removes most of the friction that usually makes self-hosting feel like a second job. The project is honest about what it needs from you, which is more than a lot of self-hosted tools manage. If the tradeoff of owning your stack appeals to you, this is a reasonable place to start.
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