Migrate your OpenCATS data
Self-hosted, open-source ATS for recruiting firms and HR teams. No vendor lock-in, no pricing, but full ownership of hosting, upgrades, and data exports falls on you.
In its favor
Why people choose OpenCATS
The signal that keeps OpenCATS on the shortlist. Sourced from G2, Capterra, and customer scoping calls.
Free and open-source under GPL — entirely eliminates enterprise ATS licence costs that start at $300+/month for commercial alternatives.
Self-hosting gives complete data control — sensitive candidate PII stays on customer infrastructure, which matters for regulated industries.
Source-available codebase lets developers customise workflows, fields, and integrations to match specific recruiting processes.
Active GitHub community at opencats/OpenCATS provides ongoing patches and community-contributed enhancements.
Good fit for SMBs and startups with limited budgets who need core applicant tracking without enterprise feature bloat.
Missing modern ATS essentials — no built-in interview scheduling, candidate assessments, or background-check integrations.
Security concerns: MD5 password hashing is a documented vulnerability that fails modern security audits.
Steep installation and admin learning curve — non-technical teams struggle to stand it up without IT or DevOps help.
No bulk-recruiting features — high-volume teams find the per-record workflow prohibitive at scale.
No native calendar integration — OpenCATS cannot sync with Google Calendar, Outlook, or any external calendar system, forcing manual coordination outside the tool.
Reasons to switch
Why people leave OpenCATS
The recurring reasons buyers give for replacing OpenCATS. Presented as facts, not knocks.
Platform scorecard
Strengths, weaknesses, and where OpenCATS fits
Grades across six dimensions, plus a SWOT-style view of where the platform shines and where it falls short.
SWOT — strengths, weaknesses, and use-case fit
Strengths
Weaknesses
Where it works
Where it struggles
Pricing tiers
OpenCATS pricing overview
OpenCATS is completely free and open source with no commercial licensing, no subscription, and no vendor relationship. There are no tiers, no upsells, and no sales team. The only costs are the customer's own hosting infrastructure and internal IT support for installation, maintenance, and upgrades.
Free
Tier 1 of 1
$0 one-time and forever
What's included
Need help selecting your HRMS?
Book a free 30 minute consultationPricing is informational. FlitStack AI does not bill on OpenCATS's schedule — see our quote-based pricing →
What gets migrated
OpenCATS object support
Object-by-object support for OpenCATS migrations. Per-pair details surface during scoping.
Candidates
Mapping requiredCore ATS object. Stores resumes as file references and Skills as tags rather than parsed fields. We extract all candidate fields and map them to the destination schema, flagging any custom fields for manual review.
Job Orders
Fully supportedStandard job posting records with title, description, status, and assigned Recruiters. Schema is stable and maps cleanly to most ATS platforms.
Companies
Fully supportedClient companies tracked independently from Job Orders. Supports multiple departments and locations per company record. Maps 1:1 to most CRM/ATS destinations.
Contacts
Fully supportedHiring manager and client contacts separate from Candidates. Includes Cold Call List functionality. Exports cleanly to Contacts in most platforms.
Activities
Mapping requiredInteraction log entries tied to Candidates and Job Orders. Activity type and date map to standard activity/timeline fields. Notes content may need field mapping review.
Saved Lists
Mapping requiredUser-curated candidate lists exported as CSV. We extract the list membership and recreate associations in the destination, though order and ranking may not transfer.
Calendar Events
Mapping requiredInternal calendar entries. We map event titles, dates, and associations but calendar-specific fields like recurrence and reminders are not fully supported.
Reports
Not in this platformOpenCATS generates reports from live data using its own report engine. These are not exportable artifacts — we do not migrate report definitions.
Users/Recruiters
Mapping requiredUser accounts with role-based access. We map active users to Owner/Admin fields in the destination, but role-permission structures vary significantly between ATS platforms.
Attachments
Mapping requiredResume files and other document attachments are stored as file paths on the OpenCATS server filesystem. We flag these for separate file transfer and re-link them post-migration.
| Object | Support | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Candidates | Mapping required | Core ATS object. Stores resumes as file references and Skills as tags rather than parsed fields. We extract all candidate fields and map them to the destination schema, flagging any custom fields for manual review. |
| Job Orders | Fully supported | Standard job posting records with title, description, status, and assigned Recruiters. Schema is stable and maps cleanly to most ATS platforms. |
| Companies | Fully supported | Client companies tracked independently from Job Orders. Supports multiple departments and locations per company record. Maps 1:1 to most CRM/ATS destinations. |
| Contacts | Fully supported | Hiring manager and client contacts separate from Candidates. Includes Cold Call List functionality. Exports cleanly to Contacts in most platforms. |
| Activities | Mapping required | Interaction log entries tied to Candidates and Job Orders. Activity type and date map to standard activity/timeline fields. Notes content may need field mapping review. |
| Saved Lists | Mapping required | User-curated candidate lists exported as CSV. We extract the list membership and recreate associations in the destination, though order and ranking may not transfer. |
| Calendar Events | Mapping required | Internal calendar entries. We map event titles, dates, and associations but calendar-specific fields like recurrence and reminders are not fully supported. |
| Reports | Not in this platform | OpenCATS generates reports from live data using its own report engine. These are not exportable artifacts — we do not migrate report definitions. |
| Users/Recruiters | Mapping required | User accounts with role-based access. We map active users to Owner/Admin fields in the destination, but role-permission structures vary significantly between ATS platforms. |
| Attachments | Mapping required | Resume files and other document attachments are stored as file paths on the OpenCATS server filesystem. We flag these for separate file transfer and re-link them post-migration. |
Gotchas
What to watch for in OpenCATS migrations
Issues we've hit on past OpenCATS migrations, tagged by severity. FlitStack AI handles every one — surfacing them up front because buyer engineering teams want to know.
No REST API forces database-direct migration
Resume files are filesystem references, not embedded blobs
One-week import review delay in OpenCATS native imports
MySQL is unsupported — MariaDB is required
| Severity | Issue |
|---|---|
| High | No REST API forces database-direct migration |
| Medium | Resume files are filesystem references, not embedded blobs |
| Low | One-week import review delay in OpenCATS native imports |
| Medium | MySQL is unsupported — MariaDB is required |
Leaving OpenCATS?
Where OpenCATS customers move next
5 destinations OpenCATS can migrate to.
How a OpenCATS migration works
Four steps, OpenCATS-specific
Connect
None documented — no REST API into OpenCATS. Scopes limited to read-only on the data we move.
Map
We translate OpenCATS-specific structures (custom fields, objects, value lists) to the destination's model.
Sample
Test with a 50–200 record subset to validate OpenCATS quirks before production.
Migrate
Full migration with OpenCATS rate-limit handling. Rollback available throughout.
FAQ
OpenCATS migration FAQ
Answers to the questions buyers ask most during OpenCATS migration scoping. Not seeing yours? Book a call.
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Ready when you are
Migrate OpenCATS.
Without the rebuild.
Free scoping call with a migration engineer. Tell us about your OpenCATS setup and destination — written quote back within a business day.