Case management software tracks work items that do not follow a fixed sequence, such as support tickets, investigations, incidents and legal or citizen service files. It keeps the evidence, tasks, participants and history for each case in one place, with workflow rules and audit trails.
Because 'case management' covers different use cases, this page spans a case-oriented process engine (Flowable, Bonita), a government and legal case platform (ArkCase), incident response case handling (DFIR-IRIS) and customer-case helpdesks (Zammad, Frappe Helpdesk). All were checked for OSI licences on their repositories.
Tools, licences and pricing checked against vendor and repository pages on November 7, 2026.
What to look for
•Case model: CMMN support, custom case types and flexible task rules
•Document, evidence and comment handling per case
•Roles, permissions and a full audit trail
•Integrations and API for email, identity and other systems
•Self-hosting requirements and licence terms (including enterprise-only features)
Support teams already on the Frappe or ERPNext stack
Free, open source (self-hosted); Frappe Cloud hosting available (see vendor pricing)
AGPL-3.0
1. Flowable
Apache-2.0
Best for: Developers building custom case workflows with CMMN · Free, open source (Apache-2.0 engine); commercial Flowable products also available (see vendor pricing)
Flowable is a business process engine that supports BPMN, CMMN and DMN, making it suitable for building case management applications. Developers can embed it in Java apps or run it as a standalone service.
Best for: Government and legal case and records workflows · Free, open source (community code); commercial support available
ArkCase is a case management platform used for government and enterprise scenarios such as FOIA requests, investigations and legal matters. It combines case records, tasks, documents and reporting.
Best for: Security teams running incident investigations · Free, open source
DFIR-IRIS is a collaborative incident response platform for tracking investigation cases, assets, evidence, IOCs and timelines. It exposes an API and modules for integrations.
Strengths
+ Built for DFIR case work
+ Collaborative with timelines and evidence tracking
Best for: Customer support case handling · Free, open source (self-hosted); hosted plans available (see vendor pricing)
Zammad is a web-based helpdesk and ticketing system that handles email, chat, social and phone channels. It organises customer requests into tickets with automation and reporting.
Strengths
+ Multi-channel ticketing
+ Polished interface
Trade-offs
− Customer-support oriented rather than generic case modelling
Best for: Low-code process and case applications · Free community edition (open source); paid subscription editions (see vendor pricing)
Bonita is a process automation platform with an open-source Community edition for building business applications around BPMN processes. It supports case-style workflows, forms and connectors.
Best for: Support teams already on the Frappe or ERPNext stack · Free, open source (self-hosted); Frappe Cloud hosting available (see vendor pricing)
Frappe Helpdesk is an open-source customer service and ticketing app built on the Frappe framework. It offers ticket management, SLAs and a knowledge base.
