Maintenance software offered free is trading something, and the useful question is which of three things: how many people can use it, how long it keeps your history, or whether you can get your data out. Each trade is fine for some sites and disqualifying for others, and the mistake is not choosing free but choosing without noticing which trade you made. This page sets the three out with the specific consequence of each, so that free is a decision rather than a default you discover in month fourteen.
The user trade: free for one, priced from two
The commonest shape, and the sharpest, because the second user is exactly the point at which you needed software. If occupants or operators also raise jobs, check whether a raise-only user is free; in some products it is, and it changes the arithmetic completely.
The retention trade: history that expires
Some free tiers keep closed work orders for twelve months. A maintenance history is worth more the older it gets, because two years is roughly what you need to judge whether an interval is right. Expiring history is the most expensive thing in this category and the least visible.
The export trade: your data, their disk
If a full export of assets, tasks, schedules and completions is not something you can do yourself, you cannot leave, and you will not know that until you want to. Ask for the export before you load anything, and try it.
When free is genuinely right
One keeper, a small register, and a habit of exporting monthly. That describes a lot of buildings and a lot of small plants, and this site would rather say so than sell a subscription. On the worked example published here, the trigger for paying is the second person needing an answer, not an asset count.
Questions people ask about maintenance software free
Is low cost CMMS software a false economy?
Not inherently. The false economy is a cheap plan whose history expires or whose export does not exist, because both cost you the thing you were accumulating.
What about open source?
Real and free of licence cost, with hosting, backups and upgrades as the price. Cost that honestly at your own hourly rate and it is often not the cheapest option for a small team.
Can we start free and move later?
Yes, if the export works. Test it in week one with real data rather than assuming it in year two.