Gold Vision CRM
Gold Vision CRM ships monthly releases on a consistent cadence — changelog details aren't surfaced in the feed.
Comparison · CRM
Easy!Appointments vs Phorest
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Easy!Appointments and Phorest — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Easy!Appointments vs Phorest: at a glance
What is Easy!Appointments?
Easy!Appointments 1.6 lands video conferencing, GDPR tools, and a serious security overhaul across its CalDAV and booking stack.
Easy!Appointments, an open-source self-hosted scheduler, is shipping its 1.6 major version through a long pre-release cycle that has introduced Jitsi and Google Meet integration, CAPTCHA and ALTCHA anti-abuse protection, GDPR features, and a rebuilt CalDAV synchronization stack. The 1.6.1 security hardening pre-release then landed a concentrated batch of serious vulnerability fixes: LDAP injection in directory search, SSRF in CalDAV URL handling, cross-account appointment takeover, provider credential exposure to secretary accounts, and CAPTCHA bypass — a set that suggests the expanded surface area of 1.6.0 brought corresponding security debt.
What is Phorest?
Phorest keeps handing salon owners the settings they used to phone support about
Phorest is salon and clinic management software shipping small, well-scoped changes every week or two, written in the voice of the front desk. The recent run is dominated by giving owners control they previously had to request: adding product brands without contacting Phorest, per-staff-per-service pricing, per-staff online booking visibility, and finer permissions on who may edit service versus retail prices. Around that sit operational tools like geofenced clock-in on the mobile app.
Easy!Appointments vs Phorest: editorial side-by-side
Easy!Appointments 1.6 lands video conferencing, GDPR tools, and a serious security overhaul across its CalDAV and booking stack.
◆ Current state
Easy!Appointments, an open-source self-hosted scheduler, is shipping its 1.6 major version through a long pre-release cycle that has introduced Jitsi and Google Meet integration, CAPTCHA and ALTCHA anti-abuse protection, GDPR features, and a rebuilt CalDAV synchronization stack. The 1.6.1 security hardening pre-release then landed a concentrated batch of serious vulnerability fixes: LDAP injection in directory search, SSRF in CalDAV URL handling, cross-account appointment takeover, provider credential exposure to secretary accounts, and CAPTCHA bypass — a set that suggests the expanded surface area of 1.6.0 brought corresponding security debt.
◆ Where it's heading
The 1.6 release line is expanding Easy!Appointments from a simple booking page into a more complete scheduling platform: video conferencing links, richer calendar sync, GDPR compliance tooling, and hardened multi-provider access controls all move it closer to commercial alternatives. The security work in 1.6.1-beta.1 is as important as the features — self-hosted deployments that serve real customer data need these fixes before anyone should run 1.6 in production.
◆ Prediction
A stable 1.6.1 release is the next step, clearing the pre-release label once the security fixes are confirmed across the beta testing community. After that, the CalDAV and video conferencing integrations will likely expand — CalDAV push notifications or two-way Google Calendar sync are the natural follow-ons.
Phorest
5.0CRM
Phorest keeps handing salon owners the settings they used to phone support about
◆ Current state
Phorest is salon and clinic management software shipping small, well-scoped changes every week or two, written in the voice of the front desk. The recent run is dominated by giving owners control they previously had to request: adding product brands without contacting Phorest, per-staff-per-service pricing, per-staff online booking visibility, and finer permissions on who may edit service versus retail prices. Around that sit operational tools like geofenced clock-in on the mobile app.
◆ Where it's heading
The through-line is decentralising configuration to the salon and making the booking model match how these businesses actually run. Nearly every recent release either removes a support ticket or lets one staff member be treated differently from another — different price, different online availability, different qualifications. The multi-service booking flow extends the same thinking to the client-facing side, where a visit involving two practitioners was previously modelled as an edge case.
◆ Prediction
Per-staff settings have now landed for price, online visibility and qualifications separately; the obvious next step is a single staff-level view that shows all three together, since the release notes already admit owners are hopping between screens to check them.
Alternatives to Easy!Appointments and Phorest
Other CRM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Easy!Appointments or Phorest.
Twenty
Twenty's sprint through v2.39-v2.40 stabilizes yarn pull and relicenses UI components as MIT.
Close CRM
Close is systematically expanding Chloe from Q&A into an operational CRM layer
Lime Connect
Lime Connect adds time-based workflow triggers and interactive UI elements for its AI Agent, deepening its bet on AI-augmented customer communication.
Streak
Streak wires automations to email and call activity, turning Gmail CRM into an event-driven workflow engine.
Snov.io
Snov.io adds ChatGPT and Claude AI, then ships AI-powered web enrichment in consecutive monthly drops
See all Easy!Appointments alternatives → · See all Phorest alternatives →
Recent activity from Easy!Appointments and Phorest
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 9d agoEasy!AppointmentsEasy!Appointments 1.6.1-beta.1: Security hardening and CalDAV polish ⚡
- 14d agoPhorestBooking multiple services with multiple staff? Now way easier to mix up who's doing what 💇
- 20d agoPhorestChoose which team members show up for online bookings — service by service
- 26d agoPhorestPermissions to change service / retail prices
- 27d agoEasy!Appointments1.6.1-alpha.1
- 29d agoPhorestAdd New Brands
- 29d agoPhorestPricing just got personal
- 1mo agoPhorestGeofencing Clock In/Out on Phorest Go
- 5mo agoEasy!AppointmentsEasy!Appointments 1.6.0-beta.2: Video conferencing, CAPTCHA, GDPR, and CalDAV ⚡
- 6mo agoEasy!Appointments1.6.0-beta.1
- 6mo agoEasy!Appointments1.6.0-alpha.1
- 1y agoEasy!Appointments1.5.2-beta.1
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Easy!Appointments and Phorest?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Easy!Appointments is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Easy!Appointments better than Phorest?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Easy!Appointments is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other CRM products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Easy!Appointments?
Top Easy!Appointments alternatives in CRM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Easy!Appointments alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/easyappointments for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Phorest?
Top Phorest alternatives in CRM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Phorest alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/phorest for the full list with editorial commentary on each.