"Free and open source" describes four different products: a permissive licence, a copyleft licence with real obligations, an open-core split where the useful half is paywalled, and a project that looks alive but is not. LogChimp is the clearest case of the third, and its own LICENSE file settles it, not its badge.
This page is one part of a larger guide. For the whole subject in one place, see self-hosting a feature request board.
Licences, prices and repository states below were checked directly against each project's LICENSE file, source tree and pricing page on 22 August 2026, not read from a badge or a summary.
What does LogChimp's licence actually say?
GitHub reports the LogChimp repository as "Other" rather than as AGPL, the first sign something is not straightforward. The LICENSE file, copyright Shinkly Private Limited, is specific: packages/server/ee and packages/theme/src/ee are carved out under a separate licence defined inside packages/server/ee/LICENSE. Everything outside those two directories is AGPLv3.
That detail matters more than it looks. The open-core split in LogChimp is written into the source tree itself, not only onto the pricing page. An ee directory, short for "enterprise edition", is a naming convention common enough across open-core projects to be a faster tell than any pricing copy. This site's own facts file called LogChimp "plainly AGPL-3.0" until the LICENSE was read directly on 22 August 2026, proof enough that the badge on a repository page is not the licence.
What that split buys you, in practice: Boards, Roadmaps and Comments, the parts most people mean when they picture a feature request board, are Pro-only at $24 a month billed yearly, on the build you host and run yourself. The free self-hosted tier gives posts, customers, one admin role and a custom domain. LogChimp has 1,119 stars at the time of checking, and none of them change what the LICENSE file says. For the full state of all four self-hosted projects side by side, see the open source options compared.
What happened when Fider tried open core?
Fider is not open core today. It is AGPL-3.0, 4,478 stars and 844 forks at the time of checking, last pushed 9 August 2026. But it was open core for six weeks, and that is worth knowing before treating "currently fully open" as a permanent state. Version 0.33.0, shipped March 2026, gated moderation and SEO indexing behind a paid tier. Version 0.34.0, released 27 April 2026, reversed it, in the project's own words: "the open core licensing model that we started to move towards was aborted, and we moved back to making everything FULLY open source."
Give Fider credit for that. A project that tries open core, hears from its users, and undoes it within two months shows the model is a choice a maintainer makes, not something that happens to a project by gravity. It also means a roundup post written between March and April 2026 describes a state that no longer exists; several still do.
One separate wrinkle: the pricing page for Fider's hosted Cloud Instance, which its own documentation now recommends ahead of self-hosting, shows two different numbers for the same tier, $25 a month on the tier card and $49 in the FAQ. A pricing-page fault, not a licence question, and a reminder to check the primary source rather than the marketing copy.
Why does AGPL versus Apache-2.0 actually matter?
Fider, Quackback, Astuto, and everything outside LogChimp's two ee directories, carry the AGPL-3.0 licence. Quackback, 238 stars at the time of checking and last pushed 22 August 2026, has no such split anywhere in it. AGPL is copyleft: if you modify the code and run that modified version as a network service other people use, even without ever distributing a binary, you must make the source of your modifications available to the people using that service. That clause is what stops someone quietly building a hosted, closed competitor on top of an AGPL feature request board.
ClearFlask, Apache-2.0, sits on the other side of that line entirely. Apache-2.0 is permissive: modify it, run it as a paid hosted service, keep every line of your changes closed, with no obligation to release anything back. A genuinely different property from AGPL, not a smaller version of the same one, which is why ClearFlask gets its own row on any comparison table rather than sitting beside the AGPL projects. It has 448 stars at the time of checking and was last pushed 5 August 2026.
Is Astuto still worth considering?
A licence only matters if a project stands behind it. Astuto is AGPL-3.0, archived read-only on 8 February 2026, last pushed 9 January 2026, 2,349 stars at the time of checking. Its maintainer posted an end-of-life notice pointing people at Fider instead, and Astuto's own hosted service had run for under a year before it shut, with a last release back in March 2025. The licence on an archived repository is still valid. Nobody is patching it, though, and several roundup posts still list it as live. The wider pattern of tools and vendors that have shut down in this category is covered in the feedback tool graveyard. Do not deploy Astuto.
So which of these is actually free?
| Project | Licence | Shape | What you get for free |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fider | AGPL-3.0 | Fully open source | Everything: roadmap, voting, private boards |
| Quackback | AGPL-3.0 | Fully open source | Everything, actively pushed |
| ClearFlask | Apache-2.0 | Permissive, fully open | Everything, plus the right to keep changes closed |
| LogChimp | AGPLv3, two ee directories carved out | Open core | Posts, customers, one admin role, custom domain |
| Astuto | AGPL-3.0 | Source available, archived | Nothing worth deploying; archived 8 February 2026 |
One payment, no subscription, unlimited products.
What should you check before you deploy any of these?
Ten minutes with the source tree settles all of this.
- Read the LICENSE file itself, not the badge on the repository page or a search engine's summary of it.
- Search the source tree for an
eeorenterprisedirectory before assuming the whole repository carries one licence. - Check which features the pricing page sells specifically against the self-hosted build, not against the vendor's own hosted cloud version.
- Check the last commit date, not the star count. A star count only ever goes up; a repository can sit abandoned with thousands of them still attached.
Docket is not part of this comparison, because it is not open source. It is a one-time purchase, $99 for Pro or $249 for Studio, and what it gives you is a working support centre delivered as files in your own repository. That is a different property from an open licence: you can read, edit and redeploy every file, but there is no LICENSE granting the wider public the same right the way AGPL or Apache-2.0 does.
Frequently asked questions
Is LogChimp open source or open core?
Both. Everything outside packages/server/ee and packages/theme/src/ee is AGPLv3; those two directories carry a separate licence, and that is where Boards, Roadmaps and Comments live, priced at $24 a month billed yearly even on the self-hosted build. GitHub reports the whole repository as "Other" rather than AGPL because of that split.
Is Astuto safe to deploy?
No. Its repository was archived read-only on 8 February 2026, its maintainer posted an end-of-life notice pointing people to Fider, and its own hosted service shut after under a year of running. Its last release was March 2025.
What's the real difference between AGPL and Apache-2.0?
AGPL, used by Fider, Quackback and most of LogChimp, requires you to release the source of any changes you make if you run a modified version as a network service. Apache-2.0, used by ClearFlask, carries no such requirement.
Did Fider ever paywall part of itself?
Yes, briefly. Version 0.33.0 in March 2026 gated moderation and SEO indexing behind a paid tier. Version 0.34.0, on 27 April 2026, reversed it, stating the open-core move "was aborted" and the project returned to being "FULLY open source." Some older roundups still describe the gated version.
How do I tell open core from fully open source before I install anything?
Read the LICENSE file rather than the badge, and look for an ee or enterprise directory in the source tree; that naming convention is a fast tell. Then check the pricing page against the self-hosted build specifically, not the vendor's hosted cloud version.