What is HumHub?
HumHub is free, open-source software for building a private social network: a company intranet, a member community or a network of volunteers. It is developed in Germany since 2014, and you either install it on your own server or have it hosted for you.
What HumHub does, in plain words
Think of a private Facebook for your organization, organized like an intranet. Every member has a profile. Every team, project, branch or class gets a space with its own stream of posts, its own documents, calendar and tasks. Members follow what concerns them and receive notifications by email, in the browser or on their phone.
- Communicate: posts with comments and likes, announcements, private messages, email digests.
- Collaborate: tasks, polls, meetings, shared files, a wiki per space.
- Organize: calendars with participants, a member directory, groups and permissions.
- Extend: surveys, courses, maps, paid memberships, single sign-on and more from the module marketplace.
Key facts
| Publisher | HumHub GmbH & Co. KG, Munich, Germany (humhub.com) |
|---|---|
| First public code | 2014 (GitHub repository) |
| License | GNU AGPL v3 for the community edition; commercial license for the Professional and Enterprise editions |
| Current version | 1.18 (stable), 1.19 in beta, September 2026 (releases) |
| Technology | PHP and the Yii framework, MySQL or MariaDB; runs in any browser |
| Mobile app | Official app for iOS and Android, open source (github.com/humhub/app) |
| Modules | About 120 on the marketplace, from HumHub GmbH, the community and publishers such as CUZY |
| Languages | More than 30 interface languages |
| Used by | Companies, associations, universities, public bodies and networks of every size |
Who uses HumHub, and for what
- Companies as a social intranet: company news, a space per department, procedures in the wiki, frontline staff on the mobile app. Intranet use case.
- Associations, clubs and federations to replace WhatsApp groups and mailing lists. Non-profit use case.
- Schools and training organizations for classes, cohorts and courses. Education use case.
- Member, alumni and professional networks for directories, events and paid memberships. Community and alumni use cases.
Three ways to run HumHub
| Option | What you get | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted community edition | The free software on your own server; you handle installation, updates, backups, email and security | Free license; a server and the time of a technical person. Managed vs self-hosted |
| HumHub Professional Edition | HumHub GmbH's commercial edition with extra modules (LDAP, SAML, Enterprise Theme…), support, SaaS in the EU or on-premise | From €144 a month for 50 users on HumHub's price calculator, per user tier. When to choose it |
| Managed hosting by a partner | CUZY runs the community edition for you in Germany (EU), the USA or Singapore (APAC), with updates, backups, monitoring and every CUZY module | Team €90/month or €900/year, Business €450/month or €4,500/year, unlimited members. Pricing |
What HumHub is not
- Not a chat tool. It has private messaging, but real-time team chat is the job of Slack, Mattermost or Rocket.Chat. When a chat tool fits better.
- Not a document management system. It stores and shares files, and connects to Nextcloud or Collabora for heavy document work.
- Not a course marketplace for creators. It can run courses for members, but platforms such as Circle or Mighty Networks are built to sell courses to the public.
Questions
Is HumHub free?
The software is free and open source under the AGPL: anyone can download and install it. What costs money is running it (a server, updates, backups, someone to do the work), paid modules, and HumHub GmbH's Professional Edition. A managed host such as CUZY does the running for a flat monthly price.
Who makes HumHub?
HumHub GmbH & Co. KG, a company based in Germany, develops the core and the official modules, with contributions from a community of developers and module publishers such as CUZY.
Is HumHub an intranet or a social network?
Both. It is built like a social network (profiles, posts, comments, likes, notifications) and organized like an intranet (spaces per team or project with wiki, files, calendar and tasks). Organizations use it for either purpose, and often both.
Do I need technical skills to use HumHub?
Not to use or administer it: spaces, members, permissions, modules and design are managed from the web interface. Installing and maintaining it on a server does need a technical person, which is what managed hosting replaces.