VoteraSelf-Hosted Feedback Board, Roadmap & Changelog
Your own feedback board, public roadmap, and changelog — unlimited voters, no per-user monthly bill.
No sign-up, no password — the demo opens already signed in, on sample data.
- Full PHP source included
- Instant download + licence key
- It never phones home
- Compare vs SaaS pricing →
Rent or own A year on Cloud is $144.00; the licence alone is $59.00. Cloud is the licence plus a year of hosting, backups and updates — and after twelve paid months the perpetual licence is yours.
Read before you buy The file tree and a real module from inside the download
the tree as the zip ships it — the working leftovers the packager deletes are not listed
.htaccess API.md Dockerfile LICENSE.txt QUICKSTART.txt README.md assets/ bin/ config.sample.php controllers/ deploy/ index.php install/ manifest.json offline.html router.php src/ sw.js tests/ views/
src/Board.php — the first 24 of 257 lines. Chosen as the largest module in src/ that is not one of the shared cores — this product's own logic, not a file every product carries.
<?php
/**
* Board.php — Votera domain logic: posts, voting, statuses/roadmap, changelog.
* Vote integrity: one row per (post_id, voter_key), enforced by a UNIQUE index AND re-checked
* here; voter_key is an anonymous per-browser cookie token (never a raw IP/email).
*/
declare(strict_types=1);
final class Board
{
/* ------------------------------------------------------------------ voter identity */
/** Stable anonymous voter key for this browser (cookie-backed). */
public static function voterKey(): string
{
$k = $_COOKIE['votera_vk'] ?? '';
if (!preg_match('/^[a-f0-9]{32}$/', $k)) {
$k = random_token(16);
// 1-year cookie; SameSite=Lax so it survives normal navigation (and works in the demo).
if (!headers_sent()) {
setcookie('votera_vk', $k, [
'expires' => time() + 31536000, 'path' => '/', 'httponly' => true, 'samesite' => 'Lax',
'secure' => (($_SERVER['HTTPS'] ?? '') !== '' && ($_SERVER['HTTPS'] ?? 'off') !== 'off'),
]);
The rest ships in the zip. Manual · API · the test run.
The problem it solves
Every product needs a place for customers to suggest ideas, vote on them, and see what's shipping. The hosted tools that do this — Canny, Featurebase, Nolt — bill by "tracked users," and those users never reset. The moment your public roadmap gets traction, every new voter permanently inflates your bill: the Pro plan starts at $99/month for the first 100 tracked users, and the tier ladder climbs toward $474/month as voters accumulate — exactly as you succeed.
You also hand those tools your customers' emails and your roadmap data, on their servers, for as long as you keep paying.
Both Canny figures above are quoted from their published billing plans, checked 2 August 2026.
What you get
A voter can leave their address on one idea and be told once, when it ships — unique per idea and address, rate-limited, one-click unsubscribe, and never used for anything else. Marking an idea shipped is what sends it.
Customers post ideas and upvote them with no signup wall — one vote per browser, kept honest by a UNIQUE database constraint on the anonymous voter key. Sort by Top, Trending, or New.
A clean Kanban of your own statuses — Under review, Planned, In progress, Shipped — so people see where their idea stands.
Publish what you ship with New / Improved / Fixed tags, and link each entry back to the request it resolves.
Public discussion per idea, staff replies, and admin-only internal notes. Pin, set status, merge, or delete from one console. v1.1 adds optional email-verified voting, a per-IP vote rate limit, and a vote-velocity panel.
Drop the board into your app or marketing site with a single script tag.
Set the name, tagline, and accent color. Unlimited ideas, voters, and boards — one-time purchase, self-hosted, no subscription.
Add it to a phone or tablet home screen straight from the browser — a full-screen app served from your own server, with no app store involved. Business data is never cached offline, so what you see is always live.
Votera 2.0 adds the 2.0 owner layer. Upgrade by replacing the files — the database migrates itself, and it is still the same one-time purchase.
- REST API with an OpenAPI spec and signed webhooks
- Two-factor sign-in (TOTP)
- Email notifications through your own SMTP
- CSV import with a mandatory dry run
- One-click backups
- Dark mode
Verified voting closes the loophole: with verification on, a vote is held until a link sent to that address is clicked — proving someone there voted without ever recording which way, because the confirmation lands on the same salted hash the vote uses. Agents read the board over MCP under the same rules.
- Roles with email invitations and a last-admin guard
- Append-only audit trail across browser, API and agent
- Your logo and colours throughout
- Scheduled backups with a guided dry-run restore
- Optional single sign-on (OIDC)
The 3.1 wave gave the catalogue a way to reach the other side of the transaction: counterparty email through your own SMTP server, calendar feeds your own calendar subscribes to, attachments filed where the paperwork belongs, and export presets other people's software imports. Every outbound path ships switched off, runs on your own credentials, and can never break the thing that triggered it. What this app gained is listed at the top of this section.
See it running — right now, on sample data
No sign-up, no password — it opens already signed in, and resets itself. Click around freely.
Open the live demoIs Votera right for you?
Before the price, not after it: what Votera deliberately does not do. We publish this on every product because the wrong purchase costs you more than the price.
- Voter identity is an anonymous per-browser cookie key by default (one vote per browser); the email gate and verified voting are the opt-in escalations.
- Voters can opt in per idea to one ship notification; there is still no marketing list and no bulk mail.
- Single sign-on hand-off to your own app is on the roadmap.
- Team members are managed in the app: roles and single-use invite links.
- HTTPS recommended in production (standard for any login-bearing app).
Still the right fit? See the price → · Not sure — see who should stay with the SaaS →
Pricing — one-time, yours forever
- ✔ Full source included — PHP you can read and change
- ✔ No subscription. One payment, yours forever
- ✔ It never phones home
- ✔ Your data stays on your server
- ✔ 14-day refunds — we’d rather refund than argue
- ✔ Offline test suite in the box — run it before you rely on it
- ✔ If we ever stop: after 1 year the domain limit lifts, after 3 years your copy relicenses to MIT — it’s in the licence
Not ready to own it? Ownware Cloud runs selected apps from $12/month — and after 12 paid months the perpetual self-host licence is yours.
AlternativeTo 
SaaSHub 
Uneed 
PeerPush 
Smithery 
SourceForge Read before you buy — what the zip looks like inside
votera/
README.md · QUICKSTART.txt · LICENSE.txt
app/
index.php · router.php · config.sample.php · Dockerfile
src/ the classes — plain PHP 8, no framework, no Composer
controllers/ every route handler
views/ every screen
tests/ the offline test suite — run it yourself: php tests/run.php
bin/ packaging · seeding · maintenance scripts
API.md the REST + webhook + MCP reference
Nothing is obfuscated or encoded. What you read is what runs.
What the same job costs rented
Every figure is read from the vendor’s own pricing page and carries the date it was read.
Startup $25/month, Business $49/month, Growth $149/month, Enterprise $349/month, with a monthly/yearly toggle. "Plans from $25/mo. Unlimited admins and unlimited widgets on every paid tier" — what the tiers ration is active ideas and surveys, not people
3 months of Frill equals the one-time $59.00.
Source, read 2026-09-03 →Pro $99/mo month-to-month at 100 tracked users ($948/yr billed annually, i.e. $79/mo); ladder climbs with tracked users, which never reset, to $1,349/mo month-to-month; free plan capped at 25
1 month of Canny equals the one-time $59.00.
Source, read 2026-09-03 →Free plan; $29/seat/mo (Growth) to $99/seat/mo (Enterprise), billed yearly; AI resolutions $0.49 each
3 months of Featurebase equals the one-time $59.00.
Source, read 2026-09-03 →The full table — every competitor, what each does better than us, and who should stay with them: Votera vs renting →
Replacing one of these? Frill alternative · Canny alternative · Featurebase alternative · Nolt alternative
Which licence do I need?
It comes down to how many installations you need. Running your own business on one site is the Single licence. Building or running sites for other people — a second domain of your own, or an installation a client keeps — is the Extended licence.
Single licence
One (1) domain or subdomain
One business, running it on one site.
- Install it on one domain or subdomain you own or operate
- Change the source however you like for that installation
- Run your own business on it commercially, client work included
- Re-download the current build any time from your buyer portal
- A second site, or an installation you hand to a client as theirs, needs the Extended licence
- No reselling, redistributing or sublicensing the source
- Not for offering it to other people as a hosted service
Extended licence
Unlimited sites you own or operate
Agencies, and anyone running it on more than one site.
- Everything the Single licence grants
- Install it on as many domains as you own or operate — no cap on the number
- Build and hand over one installation per client project
- Still no reselling or redistributing the source itself
- Running it as a multi-tenant service others sign up for needs a SaaS agreement
Every download carries the full terms as LICENSE.txt, and the licence you bought is
named on your order and in your buyer portal. The complete wording lives on the
terms page, and the live demo is free for as long
as it takes to decide.
No reviews yet — so here is what we offer instead. Every competitor price on our comparison pages is source-linked and dated, and when a vendor’s price won’t load we say so rather than guess. See the sources for yourself →
After you buy
The four things people ask right before they decide.
Your download link always serves the current build at the time you fetch it — re-download any time from your order page or the buyer portal. No renewal fee to keep what you bought.
Email support for installation and for defects in the code as delivered — a person answers, usually within a day or two. It does not cover custom development or server administration. What support covers →
Refunds are handled by Lemon Squeezy as Merchant of Record, case by case — if something is broken and we can’t fix it, we’d rather refund than argue. EU consumers additionally hold the statutory 14-day right until delivery starts. Refund terms →
Nothing stops. You hold the full PHP source, it runs on your own server, and the software does not phone home — there is no licence check that can fail and no cloud that can be switched off. LICENSE.txt ships inside the zip, so your right to keep running it never depended on this site existing.
Covered in these guides
The limitation-smash release: your tools now write to the people they serve — client emails through your own SMTP, calendar feeds, attachments, export presets — every one of them off until you switch it on.
The complete, honest guide to the hosted tier: what we run for you, what stays yours at every moment, the 12-month license promise, and when self-hosting is still the better call.
The complete guide to public roadmaps on software you own: the tracked-user meters, the open-source boards, why the feedback loop compounds, and what a buy-once board covers.
An honest field guide to self-hosted Canny alternatives: the open-source boards reviewed on their real strengths, and where a paid, owned tool fits.
Canny bills by tracked users that never reset — so your feedback-tool bill climbs as your roadmap succeeds. Here is the self-hosted, buy-once alternative and the honest trade-offs.
Questions about Votera
How is this different from Canny or Featurebase?
Same three things — feedback board, roadmap, changelog — but you host it and pay once. Those tools bill by tracked users that accumulate permanently, so the cost grows as your roadmap gets popular. Votera has no per-user fee and no monthly bill.
Do voters need to create accounts?
No. Voting works with an anonymous per-browser key, so there is no signup wall; you can optionally require an email to post or comment.
Will it run on my hosting?
Yes — PHP 8.1+ with PDO, MySQL or SQLite, on standard shared hosting or any VPS. Two-minute web installer, no Node, no build step.
Can I put the board inside my own app?
Yes — copy the one-line embed snippet from Settings and paste it anywhere; it drops in as a widget.
Is my data mine?
Entirely. It lives in your database on your server, and admins can export all posts to CSV at any time.
Are voters notified when an idea ships?
If they asked to be: each public idea has an opt-in — one address, one idea, one notification when you mark it shipped, with an unsubscribe link in the mail. There is deliberately no mailing list and no bulk email.
Is Votera a subscription?
You buy it once and own that copy. There is no subscription, no per-user fee and nothing that renews — the licence tier decides how many sites you may run it on, not how many people use it. The product page puts it plainly: unlimited voters and no per-user monthly bill.
Feedback boards charge per voter or per admin seat. What changes?
Neither is metered here — voters are unlimited and the licence governs sites. It gives you the board, the public roadmap and the changelog; it does not do in-app surveys or session recording. Read your own quote for its terms.
What exactly do I get for the money?
The download is the complete PHP source with the database schema. Read it, change it, keep it. If we vanished tomorrow the copy on your server keeps working, because nothing in it phones home to us.
Can I get the votes and roadmap out?
Yes. There is a CSV export, a CSV audit trail and a JSON privacy export, so the board and its votes leave together.