A fresh take on cards and columns from the makers of Basecamp — honestly reviewed for founders tired of paying Jira by the migraine.

TL;DR

What it is: Open-source kanban board from 37signals (Basecamp, HEY) — pure cards-and-columns, no sprints, no Gantt charts, no dashboards [2].
Who it’s for: Solo founders, indie studios, and small teams tracking bugs, ideas, or lightweight projects who want Trello-era simplicity without Trello-era cruft [2][3].
Cost savings: Hosted Fizzy is $20/month flat for unlimited cards and unlimited users. Self-hosted is free forever. Jira’s cheapest paid plan starts at $8.15/user/month and climbs fast; Asana’s free tier caps at 10 seats [4][2].
Key strength: Deliberately minimal — no AI features, no analytics dashboards, no “enterprise” pricing tiers. Ships with a full REST API and webhook system from day one [1][2].
Key weakness: The O’Saasy License prohibits offering Fizzy as a competing hosted service, which matters if you’re building a SaaS on top of it. No data import from other tools yet. Not the right fit for teams that need sprints, roadmaps, or Gantt views [1][3].

What is Fizzy

Fizzy is a kanban tracking tool built by 37signals — the company behind Basecamp and HEY — and launched in December 2025. The pitch on the homepage is blunt: “every issue and idea tracking tool you loved slowly morphed into boring, sluggish, corporate bloatware. Trello put on 40 pounds of cruft. Jira started charging by the migraine.” Fizzy is the reset button [2].

The core is straightforward: boards with columns, cards that move between them. No sprints. No velocity charts. No OKR frameworks. Jason Fried, CEO of 37signals, describes it as “perfect for tracking bugs, issues, and ideas” and explicitly says the team has been using Fizzy for lighter projects alongside Basecamp for heavier ones — and that they half-expect Fizzy to cannibalize Basecamp on the lighter end [2].

What separates it from the typical weekend-project kanban clone is that it ships with a complete REST API and webhook system on day one, with the full git history open [1]. The webhooks emit events for new cards, assignments, completions, and more — ready to pipe into Slack, Campfire, or any service that accepts HTTP POST [homepage]. The community has already built Ruby, Python, and Go API clients around it, plus an n8n community node [1].

The tech stack is Ruby on Rails with Hotwire (Turbo + Stimulus). The Docker image runs at around 100MB. PostgreSQL for storage, optionally Redis for caching [5]. It’s a conventional Rails app — not a microservices labyrinth.

As of this review, the GitHub repository sits at 7,265 stars.

Why people choose it

The three reviews we found land in roughly the same place: Fizzy wins on simplicity, pedigree, and price — and loses on breadth and missing import tools.

The 37signals trust factor. This isn’t a bootstrapped side project that might go dark in six months. Fizzy is backed by the same company that has been running Basecamp since 2004. Jason Fried’s launch post [2] promises the hosted version is “fully subsidized by Basecamp and HEY” — the implication being that Fizzy doesn’t need to extract money from you to survive. That’s a different risk profile from most open-source kanban tools.

The bloat argument resonates. Mark Masavage [3] describes exactly the pattern that pushes people toward Fizzy: years of using Asana, watching it accumulate features, ending up with thousands of tasks going nowhere, abandoning it for a Moleskine notebook. He watched the Jason Fried walkthrough video, self-hosted Fizzy in under 20 minutes with Claude’s help, and switched. The appeal isn’t that Fizzy is more powerful — it’s that it’s intentionally less powerful.

Auto-close as a philosophy. One feature that gets mentioned in both the homepage and the serverspace.io guide [4] is auto-close: old inactive cards get pruned automatically. That’s a deliberate design choice rooted in a specific belief — that most task management tools turn into archaeological sites of abandoned intent. Auto-close prevents the Asana graveyard scenario.

The API-first openness is rare. The zolkos.com review [1] is the most technically thorough: the author spent a month building a CLI, Python and Ruby API clients, an n8n node, and migration tools (for Linear, Jira, Asana, GitHub Issues) on top of Fizzy. The fact that this was possible — that the API was complete enough to support it — says something. Most small open-source tools ship with weak or undocumented APIs. Fizzy’s full git history being public from launch is also unusually transparent [1].

Versus Trello. The obvious first comparison. Trello was acquired by Atlassian in 2017 and has been accumulating Power-Ups, pricing tiers, and UI debt ever since. Fizzy is what Trello looked like in 2012 before the acquisition clock started ticking. The serverspace.io comparison table [4] puts it plainly: Fizzy is “very easy, focused on Kanban and cards” where Trello is “very easy, intuitive boards and cards” — the functional difference today is that Fizzy is actively getting better and Trello is in stasis.

Versus Jira. This is the comparison that writes itself. Jira is built for software engineering organizations running sprints, managing backlogs, tracking velocity, and generating compliance reports. If that’s what you need, Jira is actually the right tool. If you’re a five-person team tracking a product launch and you’ve opened Jira’s settings panel and immediately wanted to close your laptop — Fizzy is for you.

Features

Based on the homepage, README, and the serverspace.io guide [4]:

Core kanban:

Boards with columns and cards — the fundamentals, done cleanly [homepage]
Cards support descriptions, assignments, comments, and file attachments [4]
Auto-close: inactive cards get pruned automatically to keep boards from becoming graveyards [homepage][4]
Stamps: show who created a card and when, without requiring you to dig through history [homepage]
Public boards: share a board via a public link so external stakeholders can follow along without an account [homepage]
Notification stack that surfaces ignored cards — a nudge system, not a blocker [homepage]

Integration surface:

Webhooks: emit events (new card, card assigned, card completed, etc.) to any HTTP endpoint — Slack, Campfire, or custom [homepage][1]
REST API: complete enough that within weeks of launch, the community had built multi-language API clients and an n8n node on top of it [1]
No native integrations beyond webhooks — if you want Fizzy to talk to GitHub or Linear automatically, you wire it up yourself

What’s explicitly not there:

No AI features. The homepage says this directly: “We didn’t add artificial intelligence, we just removed all the stupid from typical kanban implementations.” [homepage]
No data import from Trello, Jira, Asana, GitHub Issues, or Linear — 37signals says they want to add this, but it’s not in the current release [homepage]. Community-built migration tools exist for all of these [1], but they’re third-party.
No sprints, roadmaps, Gantt charts, or analytics dashboards

Pricing: SaaS vs self-hosted math

Fizzy hosted (fizzy.do):

Free: up to 1,000 cards, 1GB file storage [homepage][2]
Unlimited: $20/month flat — unlimited cards, unlimited users. No per-seat pricing, no tiers, no “contact us” [2]

The $20/month unlimited-user model is genuinely unusual. Asana charges per seat. Jira charges per seat. Monday.com charges per seat. Fizzy charges for the product, not for headcount. A team of ten people is the same price as a team of one.

Self-hosted:

Software: free under the O’Saasy License [1][homepage]
Infrastructure: a VPS with 1–2GB RAM (the Docker image is ~100MB [5])
Realistic VPS cost: $4–8/month on Hetzner, Contabo, or DigitalOcean
Your time to set it up: estimated at under 20 minutes for someone technically comfortable [3]

Comparison math for a small team of 5:

Tool	Monthly cost	Notes
Jira	$40.75/month	$8.15/user × 5
Asana	$52.50/month	$10.99/user × 5 (Starter)
Monday.com	~$50/month	Basic plan, 5 seats
Fizzy hosted	$20/month	Unlimited users
Fizzy self-hosted	~$6/month	VPS only

Over a year: self-hosted Fizzy saves roughly $440 vs Jira’s cheapest tier for five people, and over $550 vs Asana — assuming the plans stay flat (they don’t; Jira and Asana both raise prices as your team grows). Self-hosted Fizzy does not raise prices.

The O’Saasy License caveat: the free self-hosting is not MIT. The O’Saasy License [1] allows you to run and modify Fizzy for your own use but prohibits offering it as a competing hosted or SaaS product. You can self-host it for your team. You cannot build “Fizzy for agencies” and charge clients to use it. If that’s your use case, the hosted $20/month plan is the path — or you build on top of the API rather than the hosted app itself.

Deployment reality check

Mark Masavage [3] self-hosted Fizzy in under 20 minutes with AI assistance. That’s the benchmark, and it holds up when you look at the actual requirements.

What you need:

A server running Docker (any Linux VPS works; the ~100MB image is lightweight [5])
PostgreSQL — bundled in the Docker Compose setup [5]
Redis — optional, for caching and sessions [5]
SMTP credentials for email (required for invites and notifications) [5]
A domain and reverse proxy (Caddy or nginx) for HTTPS
Optional: VAPID keys for browser push notifications [5]

Deployment options:

Docker Compose — the fastest path, documented in the official repo
Kamal — 37signals’ own deployment tool, recommended for custom modifications and ongoing deploys [README]
Railway — one-click template available, handles PostgreSQL and environment variables [5]
Community reports of successful deployments on Unraid as well [4]

What the serverspace.io guide [4] covers in detail: the Kamal path (clone repo, edit config/deploy.yml, fill secrets, run bin/kamal setup), local development setup, and the full environment variable list. It’s a practical walkthrough, not a hello-world tutorial.

Where it can go sideways:

SMTP setup is required — Fizzy sends email for invites and notifications, so you need a working SMTP provider (Mailgun, SendGrid, etc.) before the app is useful [5]
No import tools are built in — if you’re migrating from Trello or Jira, you’ll need the community migration scripts from [1] or rebuild cards manually
File storage on the hosted free tier is capped at 1GB [homepage]; self-hosted storage is whatever your server has

Realistic time estimate: 15–30 minutes if you’re comfortable with Docker and have SMTP credentials ready. 1–2 hours if you’re doing HTTPS setup with a domain and nginx from scratch. Not a weekend project — a lunch break project.

Pros and Cons

Pros

37signals pedigree. This isn’t a hobby project. It’s built by the company that has shipped and sustained Basecamp for 20 years. The risk of abandonment is low [2].
Genuinely zero bloat. No analytics tabs, no OKR frameworks, no AI copilots bolted on. The entire pitch is restraint. For teams that need a card on a board, it delivers exactly that [2][3].
Flat pricing that doesn’t grow with your team. $20/month for unlimited users is the full stop. No per-seat escalation, no enterprise tier to eventually be forced into [2].
Full API and webhooks from launch. A complete REST API and structured webhook events out of the box is not standard for a product this young. It enabled an entire ecosystem of community tools within weeks of launch [1].
Lightweight self-hosting. ~100MB Docker image, straightforward environment variables, documented deployment paths. Under 30 minutes for a competent technical user [3][5].
Auto-close. The one feature that addresses the specific failure mode of every other task tracker: the accumulated graveyard of things you’ll never do [homepage][4].
Open source with full git history. Transparent development. The zolkos.com author built a documentary of the codebase by analyzing the git history with Claude Code [1] — that kind of openness is rare.

Cons

O’Saasy License, not MIT. You can self-host and modify, but you cannot resell it as a hosted service. If your use case involves building a multi-tenant product on top of Fizzy, read the license carefully before you commit [1].
No data import. Moving from Trello, Jira, Asana, or GitHub Issues requires third-party community migration scripts [1] — there’s no built-in importer. 37signals acknowledges this gap but hasn’t shipped it yet [homepage].
No sprints, roadmaps, or reporting. This is a deliberate design choice, not an oversight. But if your team actually needs velocity tracking or a Gantt chart, Fizzy isn’t the answer [4].
No AI features. Also deliberate. The homepage says it explicitly. If AI-assisted task writing, auto-summarization, or smart assignment matters to your workflow, look elsewhere [homepage].
1GB file storage limit on free hosted tier. Fine for most text-heavy boards; potentially tight if you’re attaching screenshots and recordings frequently [homepage].
Young project. Launched December 2025. The API is already solid enough for community tooling, but you can expect rough edges and breaking changes as the product matures. There’s no Trustpilot corpus of 5,000 reviews to draw from yet.
No LDAP/SSO. User management is per-instance. Not a concern for small teams; potentially a blocker for companies with centralized identity management.

Who should use this / who shouldn’t

Use Fizzy if:

You’re a solo founder or small team (2–15 people) tracking bugs, feature ideas, or lightweight project tasks and your current tool feels like operating a fighter jet to drive to the grocery store.
You want a flat $20/month regardless of headcount, or you’re comfortable doing a 30-minute Docker deploy to eliminate that bill entirely.
You value an active, well-resourced maintainer (37signals) over a maximally permissive license (MIT).
You want a real API and webhook system without wrestling with an underdocumented plugin ecosystem.

Skip it if:

Your team runs sprints and needs backlog grooming, velocity charts, or release tracking — Fizzy has none of this and won’t. Linear, Jira, or GitHub Issues are the right tools [4].
You’re migrating a large existing system and need a built-in importer — the community migration tools exist [1] but require technical comfort.
Your use case involves building a hosted product on top of Fizzy — the O’Saasy License blocks that, and you’d need to either use the API or build your own layer [1].
Your team has strict SSO or LDAP requirements.

Stay on Trello if:

You’re already comfortable, paying nothing (Trello’s free tier is generous), and happy. Fizzy is not a dramatic improvement for someone with three boards and ten cards.

Alternatives worth considering

Linear — the current critical darling for engineering teams. Faster than Jira, cleaner than Asana, excellent Git integrations, built-in sprints and roadmaps. Closed source, SaaS only, per-seat pricing. If you need software team workflows, Linear is the serious competitor.
Plane — open-source Linear alternative. Self-hostable under Apache 2.0. More feature-rich than Fizzy (sprints, roadmaps, analytics), which makes it heavier too. Better fit for engineering teams that want full sprint tooling without Jira’s price.
Trello — the grandfather. Still free at small scale, familiar to almost everyone, Atlassian-owned and in slow decline. If you’re already on it and it’s working, the switching cost isn’t worth it.
Vikunja — open-source task management with Gantt, Kanban, and list views. MIT licensed, self-hostable. Less opinionated than Fizzy, more features, rougher around the edges.
Basecamp — also by 37signals. Full project management with to-do lists, message boards, file storage, and scheduling. Basecamp is the tool for big, intensive projects; Fizzy is the tool for lighter tracking workflows. The companies say as much themselves [2].
GitHub Issues — the zero-overhead option for software projects already on GitHub. 37signals called out “GitHub Issues slid into a steady state of decline” on Fizzy’s launch [2], which isn’t wrong, but for small codebases where your code already lives on GitHub, it remains serviceable.

Bottom line

Fizzy is what you reach for when you’ve burned out on project management software that treats a bug list like it needs a mission statement. It’s not trying to be Linear or compete with Jira’s enterprise feature matrix — it’s trying to be the tool you actually open when you have an idea at 11pm and want to put it somewhere before you forget it. The 37signals backing means it’s unlikely to become abandonware. The flat $20/month pricing or free self-hosting means the math is easy. The API and webhooks being complete on day one means it’s already extensible in ways that matter. The trade-offs are real — no imports, no sprints, no AI, O’Saasy not MIT — but they’re all deliberate, and for the target user they’re mostly non-issues. If you’ve ever looked at your Asana workspace and felt tired, this is the reset button.

If the deployment step is the blocker, upready.dev handles that — one-time setup, you own the server, no recurring bill.