HumHub
HumHub is a Munich-based open-source social intranet and collaboration platform built on Yii 2.0, offering a free Community Edition and commercial Professional and SaaS editions. It serves enterprises, public institutions, nonprofits, and universities with a modular architecture and 80+ marketplace extensions.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2012
- HeadquartersMunich, Germany
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What HumHub does
HumHub is an open-source social network and collaboration platform that enables organizations to run internal intranets, project workspaces, and member communities. The core product is built on the Yii 2.0 PHP framework with a modular architecture that ships a fixed set of core modules (activity, content, space, user, stream, etc.) and is extended through an integrated Marketplace of 80+ extensions covering communication (Messenger, Calendar, Polls), collaboration (Wiki, Files, OnlyOffice, Collabora Online), identity (LDAP, SAML-SSO, JWT SSO), and search (Apache SOLR, Advanced Search). The platform is available in a free Community Edition under AGPL v3, a commercial Professional Edition with exclusive modules such as Enterprise Theme, SAML-SSO, Advanced LDAP, Whitelabel, and Translation Manager, and a SaaS managed hosting option with data centers in Germany, Canada, and Singapore.
The business model is a classic open-core monetization: the AGPL Community Edition drives adoption, while revenue is generated through annual Professional Edition licenses, legacy Enterprise Edition licenses, paid marketplace modules, and monthly SaaS managed hosting. Go-to-market is primarily product-led growth via direct website download, free demo, GitHub distribution, and self-serve activation of the Professional Edition inside the admin panel, supplemented by direct commercial licensing for larger buyers. HumHub does not publicly disclose pricing, revenue, or funding, and operates as a bootstrapped, privately held German limited partnership (HumHub GmbH & Co. KG) with 1–10 employees.
The company serves four primary segments: enterprise companies needing internal communication and knowledge sharing, public institutions and government agencies requiring GDPR-compliant secure intranets, nonprofits and associations coordinating members and volunteers, and universities. Named customers include Scania, SPD, Plan International, Antenne Bayern, Diakonie, ASB, EUDA, AWO, Enercoop, Kraft, and the City of Goslar, spanning enterprise, public sector, and nonprofit verticals across global markets.
HumHub firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- HumHub
- Legal name
- HumHub GmbH & Co. KG
- Website
- https://humhub.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2012
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- HumHub is a Munich-based open-source social intranet and collaboration platform built on Yii 2.0, offering a free Community Edition and commercial Professional and SaaS editions. It serves enterprises, public institutions, nonprofits, and universities with a modular architecture and 80+ marketplace extensions.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where HumHub is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Munich
- HQ country
- Germany
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
HumHub business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Professional Edition License: Commercial license for the Professional Edition with exclusive modules and features including Enterprise Theme, SAML-SSO, JWT SSO, Advanced LDAP, News Module, Email Whitelist, Apache SOLR, Whitelabel, and Translation Manager. Does not require source code disclosure unlike AGPL Community Edition.
- Enterprise Edition License: Legacy enterprise tier with advanced features for larger organizations including enhanced LDAP capabilities, Space Types, Enterprise Theme customization, and Solr search integration.
- SaaS Managed Hosting: Fully hosted solution where HumHub handles server management, software updates, security, and backups. Updates are applied automatically 2-3 weeks after release. Data sovereignty is maintained with full export capability.
- Module Marketplace: Some marketplace modules are paid offerings available for purchase and installation on top of the core platform.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Community Edition - Free open-source version |
| Subscription | Annual | Professional Edition - Commercial license with advanced features |
| Subscription | Monthly | SaaS Managed Hosting - Fully hosted solution |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels7 records
HumHub product offering
Product offeringCore offering
HumHub provides an open-source enterprise social network and social intranet platform that organizations can self-host or consume as a managed cloud service. The product is delivered in tiered editions (free Community Edition under AGPL v3, commercial Professional Edition, and Enterprise Edition) and is extended through a marketplace of 80+ official, partner, and community modules covering collaboration, project, and knowledge-management use cases.
Product overview
HumHub is an open-source modular social network and collaboration platform available in Community, Professional, and SaaS editions. The Community Edition (AGPL V3) provides core functionality including user profiles, spaces, content management (posts, articles, wiki pages, files), notifications, and basic search. The Professional Edition adds commercial-licensed exclusive modules including Enterprise Theme, SAML-SSO, JWT SSO, Advanced LDAP, Apache SOLR, Whitelabel, Translation Manager, Email Whitelist, and News. The platform extends via an integrated Marketplace with 80+ modules covering communication (Messenger, Calendar, Polls), collaboration (Wiki, Files, Collabora Online, OnlyOffice), productivity (Advanced Search, RESTful API), and identity (LDAP/Active Directory integration). SaaS managed hosting option provides infrastructure-free deployment with automatic updates and data sovereignty.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- HumHub Professional Edition: Commercial edition with exclusive modules including Enterprise Theme, SAML-SSO, JWT SSO, Advanced LDAP, News Module, Email Whitelist, Apache SOLR, Whitelabel, and Translation Manager.
- HumHub Community Edition
- HumHub Enterprise Edition
Products and services
- HumHub Community Edition Free, open-source social network and intranet platform released under the AGPL v3 license; intended for self-hosting by organizations and individual users that want a customizable, vendor-independent collaboration platform.
- HumHub Professional Edition Commercial, supported edition of the HumHub social intranet platform that adds professional features, premium modules, and vendor support on top of the open-source Community Edition; sold as a subscription license to organizations.
- HumHub Enterprise Edition Legacy top-tier commercial edition of the HumHub platform for larger organizations, offering extended features, premium modules, integration capabilities, and dedicated support beyond the Professional Edition.
- HumHub Cloud (Managed Hosting) Fully managed SaaS version of HumHub where HumHub operates and hosts the platform for the customer in EU data centers, providing the social intranet as a subscription service without requiring customer-side infrastructure.
Quantifiable outcome
- Trusted by organizations worldwide including SPD, Scania, Plan International, Enercoop, and government agencies
Companies that use HumHub
Customer profileNamed customers13 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
HumHub technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration14 records
Feature6 records
HumHub partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Four partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- Yii FrameworkcoreHumHub is built on the Yii 2.0 PHP Framework. The platform extends Yii base classes for controllers, models, views, and asset bundles.
- BootstrapcoreHumHub frontend uses Bootstrap 5.3 for responsive UI design and styling.
- jQuerycorejQuery is used for client-side JavaScript functionality in HumHub.
- MariaDB/MySQLcoreHumHub requires MariaDB 10.11+ or MySQL 8.0+ with utf8mb4 character set and InnoDB storage engine for database storage.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
HumHub competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Workplace from Meta: Workplace was Meta's enterprise social network product and the most direct social-intranet incumbent to HumHub's core social network architecture — directly comparable in feature set and target use case.
- Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is the dominant enterprise collaboration and chat incumbent bundled with Microsoft 365 — overlapping with HumHub's social intranet use case across most large organizations.
- Slack: Slack (Salesforce) is the flagship enterprise team messaging platform competing for the same internal-communication and collaboration budget HumHub targets, though without open-source or on-premise flexibility.
Direct peers
- Element (Matrix): Element is built on the open-source Matrix protocol and offers self-hosted and SaaS secure team messaging with end-to-end encryption — comparable regulatory compliance and deployment flexibility.
- Rocket.Chat: Rocket.Chat is an open-source team chat and collaboration platform offering self-hosted and SaaS deployment with strong customization — directly overlapping HumHub's target market and architecture.
- Mattermost: Mattermost is the closest direct peer to HumHub — an open-source team collaboration platform with self-hosted and SaaS deployment, targeting developer and regulated-enterprise teams with similar extensibility and data sovereignty positioning.
- Nextcloud: Nextcloud offers open-source self-hosted file sharing, groupware, and collaboration (Talk, Groupware, Office) with comparable GDPR-first, sovereign-cloud positioning serving European enterprises and public institutions.
Emerging players
- Wire: Wire is a European secure messaging and collaboration platform with end-to-end encryption, targeted at regulated industries — comparable to HumHub's privacy/GDPR-led positioning for European enterprises and government agencies.
- Discourse: Discourse is an open-source discussion and community platform with self-hosted/SaaS deployment and a strong plugin ecosystem — adjacent to HumHub's Spaces/social-network use case for community engagement.
- OpenSocial: OpenSocial provides open-source social networking and community software similar in architecture and use case to HumHub, though with a narrower enterprise footprint and community-focused positioning.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
HumHub social profiles
Digital presenceHumHub compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
HumHub financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
HumHub leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
HumHub funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
HumHub M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about HumHub
What does HumHub do?
HumHub provides an open-source enterprise social network and social intranet platform that organizations can self-host or consume as a managed cloud service. The product is delivered in tiered editions (free Community Edition under AGPL v3, commercial Professional Edition, and Enterprise Edition) and is extended through a marketplace of 80+ official, partner, and community modules covering collaboration, project, and knowledge-management use cases.
Is HumHub a public or private company?
HumHub is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was HumHub founded?
HumHub was founded in 2012. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is HumHub based?
HumHub is headquartered in Munich, Germany, in the Europe region.
How does HumHub make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Professional Edition License is the primary driver. The others are enterprise Edition License, saaS Managed Hosting and module Marketplace.
Who are HumHub's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Workplace from Meta, Microsoft Teams and Slack. Direct peers are Element (Matrix), Rocket.Chat, Mattermost and Nextcloud. Emerging players are Wire, Discourse and OpenSocial.
Does HumHub have an API?
Yes. HumHub provides a RESTful API module available through the Marketplace that enables programmatic access to the HumHub installation. The API allows developers to build integrations and automate workflows. Additionally, HumHub features a live updates system (live module) that pushes real-time updates to connected clients, and supports webhook-style integrations via its content notification system. Authentication options include SAML-SSO and JWT SSO (Professional Edition features). Developer documentation is at docs.humhub.org/docs/develop/overview.