Fider — Open Source Customer Feedback and Feature Voting Platform

Introduction

Fider is an open-source platform for collecting, organizing, and prioritizing customer feedback. Product teams use it to let users submit feature requests, vote on ideas, and track the status of planned improvements. It serves as a self-hosted alternative to commercial tools like Canny or UserVoice.

What Fider Does

• Lets users submit feature ideas and vote on existing requests
• Provides a public or private feedback board with status labels like Planned, In Progress, and Completed
• Sends email notifications to voters when the status of their requested features changes
• Supports single sign-on with OAuth providers including Google, Facebook, and GitHub
• Offers a REST API for integrating feedback data into other tools and dashboards

Architecture Overview

Fider is written in Go for the backend and React with TypeScript for the frontend. It uses PostgreSQL as the sole data store for feedback, users, votes, and comments. The application compiles to a single binary and runs in a Docker container. Authentication supports both email-based magic links and OAuth 2.0 providers. The REST API exposes all core operations for programmatic access.

Self-Hosting & Configuration

• Deploy using Docker with a PostgreSQL database connection string
• Set required environment variables: BASE_URL, DATABASE_URL, JWT_SECRET, and email settings
• Configure OAuth providers by registering applications and providing client ID and secret
• Customize branding with a logo, favicon, and custom CSS through the admin panel
• Use the built-in SMTP settings or integrate with transactional email services like SendGrid or Mailgun

Key Features

• Clean, minimal interface focused on collecting and voting on feature requests
• Status-based workflow (Open, Planned, Started, Completed, Declined) for transparent roadmaps
• Multi-language support with community-contributed translations
• Markdown support in descriptions and comments
• Lightweight and fast, running comfortably on a small VPS with PostgreSQL

Comparison with Similar Tools

• Canny — SaaS with premium pricing; Fider is free to self-host with similar core features
• UserVoice — enterprise feedback platform with high cost; Fider targets smaller teams
• Nolt — simple voting board; Fider offers more customization and is fully open source
• Productboard — product management suite; Fider focuses specifically on user feedback collection
• GitHub Issues — developer-oriented; Fider provides a user-friendly voting interface for non-technical audiences

FAQ

Q: Does Fider require a separate email service? A: Yes, Fider needs SMTP credentials to send email notifications and magic link authentication. Any standard SMTP provider works.

Q: Can I make my Fider board private? A: Yes, Fider supports private boards where only authenticated users can view and submit feedback.

Q: What are the system requirements for self-hosting Fider? A: Fider runs on minimal resources. A VPS with 512 MB of RAM, a single CPU core, and a PostgreSQL database is sufficient for small to medium deployments.

Q: Does Fider support importing feedback from other tools? A: There is no built-in import tool, but the REST API allows programmatic creation of posts, making migration scripts straightforward to write.

Sources

• https://github.com/getfider/fider
• https://fider.io