Fider is the largest project here and still the most actively patched, but it now markets a hosted cloud instance ahead of self-hosting. LogChimp is open core: boards and roadmaps sit behind a paid tier even on the self-managed build. Quackback is newest and cheapest to run. ClearFlask is small. Astuto is dead, whatever the listicles still say.
This page is one part of a larger guide. For the whole subject in one place, see self-hosting a feature request board.
Which of these projects is actually alive?
Checked 21 August 2026, against each project's own repository.
| Project | Licence | Stars | State |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fider | AGPL-3.0 | 4,476 | Active, last pushed 9 August 2026 |
| LogChimp | AGPLv3, ee/ carved out | 1,119 | Open core: boards, roadmaps and comments are paid |
| Quackback | AGPL-3.0 | 237 | Recently launched, actively marketed |
| ClearFlask | Apache-2.0 | 448 | Alive, very small |
| Astuto | AGPL-3.0 | archived | Dead. Do not deploy it |
Astuto is the one worth naming precisely because it keeps turning up anyway. The repository was archived read-only on 8 February 2026. Its maintainer posted an end-of-life notice and pointed people at Fider instead. The hosted version of Astuto had run for under a year before it shut, and its last release was back in March 2025. Several roundup posts of open-source feature voting tools still list it as live. It is not.
Is Fider still the safe default?
Fider is the largest and most active project in this group: AGPL-3.0 licensed, with 4,476 stars, 842 forks and a last push of 9 August 2026. Running it means Docker, PostgreSQL 12 or later, and your own SMTP provider or Amazon SES; there is no lighter-weight option inside the project itself. What it gives you in return is genuine: roadmap, voting and private boards.
Two things have changed underneath the same project, though. The domain getfider.com now redirects to fider.io, a commercial hosted SaaS run by Northern App Labs Ltd, a UK company, with its own pricing page. Fider's own self-hosting documentation puts the paid option first: "the easiest way to get started with Fider is to use our Cloud Instance." That pricing page currently contradicts itself, showing $25 a month on the tier card and $49 in the FAQ, on the same page.
The second change is that Fider briefly moved toward an open core model and then walked it back. 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: "the open core licensing model that we started to move towards was aborted, and we moved back to making everything FULLY open source." The code is fully open again. But the project tried the other direction once, under the same company that now runs a paid Cloud Instance, and that is worth knowing before you build on it.
Patching is genuinely active, which cuts both ways. Version 0.35.0 fixed a critical authentication vulnerability. Version 0.36.0 fixed SSRF and cross-site scripting. Version 0.36.1 shipped further security work. All three landed within three months of each other. Someone is finding and fixing these fast, which is reassuring; there was a lot to find, which is not. Either way, self-hosting Fider means tracking its releases yourself, not relying on a vendor to do it quietly.
One gap stays constant regardless: Fider has no changelog feature at all. Roadmap and voting, yes. A changelog, no.
What does LogChimp actually give you for free?
LogChimp has 1,119 stars, and it is open core in the way that matters most: Boards, Roadmaps and Comments are Pro-only, priced at $24 a month billed yearly, even on the self-managed build you host and run yourself. Paying a monthly fee to unlock features on software already running on your own server undercuts a fair amount of the reason to self-host in the first place.
What the free self-hosted tier gives you is posts, customers, one admin role and a custom domain. No roadmap view and no comment threads, on your own infrastructure, unless you pay LogChimp specifically for them.
What about Quackback and ClearFlask?
Quackback is AGPL-3.0 licensed, has 237 stars, and is the most recently launched of the four. It is also the only open-source project in this category doing anything that looks like real content marketing, and its pitch is entirely about cost: it argues that "a $20/month VPS can run a feedback platform that would cost $200+/month on a SaaS plan," costing a small deployment at "$10-20/month" and a larger one at "$50-100," against SaaS pricing it puts at "$29-999+/month." Those figures are Quackback's own, not independently verified, and a project with 237 stars has not yet had the years of production use that would test them.
ClearFlask is Apache-2.0 licensed, a real difference from the AGPL licence the other three carry: you can modify it and run it as a hosted service without any obligation to release your changes back. It has 448 stars and was last pushed 5 August 2026, so it is maintained. Beyond licence and activity, little else about it is documented well enough to state here.
One payment, no subscription, unlimited products.
What is actually missing from each one?
| Project | What is missing |
|---|---|
| Fider | No changelog. Its own docs now lead with paid hosting, not self-hosting |
| LogChimp | Boards, roadmaps and comments, unless you pay $24/mo even when self-hosted |
| Quackback | A track record; the cost claims are the project's own |
| ClearFlask | Documented detail; the project is small and thinly covered |
| Astuto | Everything. It is archived |
Where does Docket fit against these four?
Docket is not one of these four, and it does not sit in the same operational category as any of them. There is no Postgres to run, no Docker container, no SMTP server to configure: Docket ships as static files plus two small endpoints. The free edition never expires, needs no card and no account, and includes bugs and feature requests, a roadmap, a changelog, an FAQ, testimonials and a custom domain.
That does not settle the choice on its own. Fider's roadmap and voting are real and well used. LogChimp's free tier, thin as it is, still has 1,119 people who starred the project anyway. Quackback is worth watching as it matures. The honest way to choose is to match the operational model to whoever is actually going to run it, not to pick whichever project has the most stars.
Frequently asked questions
Is Fider still a good choice for self-hosting a feature request board?
Yes, if you are comfortable running Docker and PostgreSQL yourself. It remains AGPL-3.0, actively maintained, last pushed 9 August 2026, and gives you a roadmap, voting and private boards. Its own documentation now leads with a paid Cloud Instance rather than self-hosting, and there is no changelog feature, so weigh both before committing to it.
Is Astuto still worth using?
No. The repository was archived read-only on 8 February 2026, its maintainer posted an end-of-life notice pointing people to Fider instead, and its hosted version shut after under a year of operation. Its last release was March 2025. It still appears on some open-source roundup lists that have not been updated since. Skip it, whatever a listicle says.
What do I actually get for free with LogChimp?
Posts, customers, one admin role and a custom domain, self-hosted at no cost. 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, even on the build you host and run yourself. Read the free tier carefully before assuming open source means the whole product is free.
Is Quackback mature enough to run in production?
It is new: AGPL-3.0 licensed, with 237 stars at last check, and the only project here doing real content marketing about its own cost advantage over SaaS tools. Its VPS-cost figures are the project's own, not independently verified. That does not make them wrong, but a small, young project has not had the years of real-world use that Fider or LogChimp have already had.
How is ClearFlask different from the others?
It uses the Apache-2.0 licence rather than the AGPL licence that Fider and Quackback use, and that LogChimp uses everywhere except its two enterprise directories, so you can modify it and run it as a service without any obligation to release your changes back. It has 448 stars and was last pushed 5 August 2026. Beyond licence and activity, little else about it is independently documented yet.