ONLYOFFICE Groups (CommunityServer): a self-hosted hub for documents, projects, CRM and mail
Free open source office suite with business productivity tools: document and project management, CRM, mail aggregator.
At a glance
- What is it?
- ONLYOFFICE Groups is the Apache 2.0 C# platform behind a self-hosted document, project, CRM and mail stack. It solves coordination across those four areas, but the README points elsewhere for the actual deployment steps.
- Who is it for?
- Adopt ONLYOFFICE Groups if you want an Apache 2.0 licensed hub that keeps documents, projects, CRM and mail inside your own infrastructure and you accept that the deployment path runs through the Docker image and the help center rather than this repository. Skip it if you only need an online editor, since ONLYOFFICE Docs is the separate component for that, or if you want a single binary with no surrounding services.
- Can I use it commercially?
- Yes. Apache-2.0 is a permissive licence: you can use, modify and sell software built on it, as long as you keep its copyright and licence notices.
- Is it still maintained?
- Yes. The repository last received commits 148 days ago.
- What is it written in?
- Mainly C#, according to GitHub's language statistics.
Answers come from the project's GitHub data, last synced on September 29, 2026, and from our analysis. They are not legal advice.
Editorial analysis
What ONLYOFFICE Groups actually bundles
The README describes ONLYOFFICE Groups, formerly Community Server, as a free open-source collaborative platform that acts as the central hub for a team. Four areas sit under that hub: document management with access permissions and integrations for Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, OneDrive and ownCloud; project management with milestones, tasks, subtasks, Gantt charts and time tracking; CRM with a customer database, invoices, payment tracking and web-to-lead forms; and collaboration tools covering blogs, forums, a wiki, a shared calendar, a mail aggregator and an employee directory. The intended user is a team that wants those functions on its own infrastructure rather than spread across four SaaS accounts. The repository itself is the C# server side, published under Apache 2.0 since version 11.0.
Why the server is only one piece of the Workspace
The README is explicit that Groups is the foundation of ONLYOFFICE Workspace and that other components extend it. ONLYOFFICE Docs handles online editing of documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs. Mail Server creates and manages a corporate mail domain. Talk provides real-time messaging. Control Panel is the central administration tool. That split is the single most important architectural fact about this project: installing CommunityServer alone does not give you document editing. You get the file storage, permissions and module shell, and the editor lives in a separate repository and a separate service. Teams that expect one install to cover everything will be surprised by how many moving parts a full Workspace deployment has.
Installing ONLYOFFICE Groups with the official Docker image
The README does not list build or run commands for the C# solution. It points to the official Docker image as the quickest and easiest way to deploy ONLYOFFICE Groups, and to the help center for installation options. The repository layout confirms the source-first nature of the project: Studio.sln sits at the top level next to common/, module/, web/ and build/, with a NuGet.Config and a redistributable/ folder, which is a Visual Studio solution rather than a scripted installer. Because no concrete command appears in the README, the honest starting point is the Docker image repository rather than a command copied from here:
# The README links to the official Docker image for deployment:
# https://github.com/ONLYOFFICE/Docker-CommunityServerWhat you should expect after a successful deployment is the Groups interface with its document, project, CRM and collaboration modules. What the README does not give you is the port, the compose file or the environment variables, so treat the Docker image repository and the help center installation page as the source of truth for those values.
The dependency chain is the real cost
A full Workspace is at least five services: Groups, Docs, Mail Server, Talk and Control Panel. Each has its own release cadence and its own container. The README presents this as a benefit, and for a team that wants an integrated suite it is, but it also means an upgrade is rarely a single action. The release history supports the point about cadence: v12.7.0 arrived on 2024-10-21, v12.7.1 on 2024-12-23, and v12.8.0 on 2026-05-05. That is a gap of roughly seventeen months between the last two releases, which is worth knowing if you plan to track upstream closely. The last push to the repository was on 2026-05-05, so the project is not archived, but the pace is not continuous either. Plan upgrades around the component versions you actually run, not around the Groups version number alone.
Where ONLYOFFICE Groups is the wrong choice
If your only requirement is editing documents in a browser, Groups is more than you need. ONLYOFFICE Docs is the component that does that, and it can be deployed on its own. If you want a single self-contained binary with no database, no mail service and no separate editor service, this stack will fight you. The presence of a T-SQL topic and a redistributable/ directory in the repository also signals a Microsoft-oriented deployment story on the server side, which is a real constraint for teams standardized on a different stack. Finally, if you need a hosted service with no operational burden, a self-hosted platform of this size is the wrong shape regardless of licence.
How this differs from Nextcloud or a wiki plus a tracker
The common alternative is assembling separate tools: Nextcloud or similar for files, a tracker for projects, a CRM and a mail client. The difference in approach is integration versus composition. ONLYOFFICE Groups puts documents, projects, CRM, mail, wiki, blog, forum and calendar behind one account and one permission model, and the README treats that hub role as the product. The composed approach gives you best-of-breed pieces and independent upgrade paths, at the cost of separate logins, separate permissions and integration work between them. Neither is strictly better; the choice depends on whether you value one permission model over independent components. Note that Groups still depends on a separate editor service, so the integration promise is about the surrounding modules, not about editing.
Licence, modifications and what to verify
The project is Apache 2.0, and the README states it is free and open-source to use and modify. That licence also covers the custom module path: the README links to help center documentation on creating and connecting your own modules, which is the supported extension route if the built-in modules do not fit. The repository includes a licenses/ directory and a 3rd-Party.txt file, so third-party components carry their own terms and should be reviewed alongside the Apache 2.0 grant. This is not legal advice; if you redistribute a modified build, check those files and the licence text yourself. Verify the current release tag from the releases page before pinning a version, since the README badge and the release list can drift apart.
Editorial conclusion
Adopt ONLYOFFICE Groups if you want an Apache 2.0 licensed hub that keeps documents, projects, CRM and mail inside your own infrastructure and you accept that the deployment path runs through the Docker image and the help center rather than this repository. Skip it if you only need an online editor, since ONLYOFFICE Docs is the separate component for that, or if you want a single binary with no surrounding services. Before committing, verify which Workspace components you actually need (Docs, Mail Server, Talk, Control Panel), confirm the current version tag from the releases page, and read the help center installation page for the platform you run.
Frequently asked questions
How do I install ONLYOFFICE Community Server?
The README does not give build or run commands. It points to the official Docker image as the quickest and easiest way to deploy ONLYOFFICE Groups, and to the help center for installation options per platform.
What is the difference between ONLYOFFICE Groups and ONLYOFFICE Docs?
Groups is the collaborative hub for documents, projects, CRM and mail, while Docs is the separate component that provides online editing of documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs. The README lists Docs as one of the components that extend Groups inside ONLYOFFICE Workspace.
Which components make up ONLYOFFICE Workspace alongside CommunityServer?
The README names ONLYOFFICE Docs for editing, Mail Server for a corporate mail domain, Talk for real-time messaging, and Control Panel for central administration. Groups is described as the foundation of the suite.
What licence does ONLYOFFICE Groups use?
The README states the project is licensed under Apache 2.0 and has been distributed as ONLYOFFICE Groups under that licence since version 11.0. The repository also contains a licenses/ directory and a 3rd-Party.txt file for third-party components.
Can I add my own modules to ONLYOFFICE Groups?
Yes. The README links to help center documentation on creating and connecting custom modules, which is the supported extension path when the built-in document, project, CRM and collaboration modules do not cover a requirement.
Official sources
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