User research · checked 2026-10-13

Can I vibecode Canny?

YES· one-shottable

Take away the AI and the integrations and Canny is a forum with votes: posts, upvotes, comments, a status on each post, a roadmap grouped by status and a changelog that tells voters when their request ships. An agent builds that for one product in a sitting, and updown.io left Canny in 2026 for a board it wrote itself. What stays behind is the part that drives the bill: Autopilot pulling requests out of Intercom, Zendesk and sales calls, revenue from the CRM next to each idea, and two-way sync with Jira or Linear.

$99/moprice

$1,188you'd save a year

one sittingbuild time

—people replaced it

Before you start

What you need on hand.

DifficultyIntermediate · Some system setup or keys.

TimeAn hour or two, plus DNS and email setup

Claude Code, Codex or CursorAny of them can run the prompt.
Node.js 22better-sqlite3 compiles a native module, so build tools must be installed.
A small server and a domainCustomers have to reach the board, so it can't live only on your laptop.
An SMTP accountFor sign-in links and status emails; Postmark, Resend or Amazon SES all work.
CSV exports of your Canny boardsOne per board, from Settings > Boards.

Before you buildIf fewer than 25 people ever give you feedback, Canny Free already covers it, and Fider or Quackback run free on your own server.

1. Install one agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.
2. Make an empty folder and open it in the agent.
3. Paste the prompt below, press enter, and answer its questions as it builds.

The prompt

Build me a self-hosted feedback board to replace Canny for one product. Requirements:

- Node.js 22 + TypeScript: Fastify with server-rendered EJS pages and a little
  vanilla JS for voting. One process; `npm start` listens on port 4700.
- Storage: better-sqlite3 in ./data/feedback.db; images attached to posts go to
  ./data/uploads/ (max 5 per post, 2 MB each).
- Public side: boards (e.g. Features, Bugs), a post list sorted by top, new or
  trending, a post page with threaded comments, and one vote per person per post.
- Voters sign in with an emailed magic link (nodemailer, SMTP settings in .env).
  Visitors who aren't signed in can read but not post or vote. Store only email
  and display name. Spam: a honeypot field and a per-IP rate limit on writes.
- Admin at /admin, guarded by ADMIN_PASSWORD from .env: set a status (open,
  planned, in progress, shipped, closed), merge duplicates (votes move to the
  kept post, nobody counted twice), edit or delete posts, pin an official reply.
- /roadmap shows planned, in progress and shipped as three columns; /changelog
  lists Markdown entries, each linked to the posts it ships.
- When a post changes status, or a changelog entry that ships it is published,
  email everyone who voted or commented once, with an unsubscribe link.
- Import a Canny board CSV (title, details, status, vote score kept as a starting
  count) and export every post with its votes as CSV.
- No passwords, no third-party scripts, no telemetry. Out of scope: SSO with my
  own app, Intercom or Jira integrations, AI duplicate detection.
- README: setup, SMTP config, backups (copy the SQLite file) and a Caddy snippet.

Opens your agent with the prompt filled in, you press enter. Or copy it and paste it into an empty folder.

Share on X

Max MiskowSponsoredAI agents, automations and MVPs, built for your company.Visit site ›

Then keep going

Next prompts, same folder.

The first prompt builds the core. Run these one at a time in the same folder to grow it into your own Canny.

Add single sign-on from my own app to the feedback board in this folder. Requirements:

- My app signs a short-lived JWT (HS256, secret SSO_SECRET in .env) with id,
  email and name, and links to /sso?token=...
- The board verifies the token with the jose package, creates or updates the
  voter, and starts a session. Expired or invalid tokens show a clear error.
- Keep magic-link sign-in as a fallback, and merge a voter who used both by email.
- Out of scope: OAuth providers and SAML.
- Update the README with a 10-line example of signing the token in Node.

Add duplicate suggestions to the feedback board in this folder. Requirements:

- Embed every post title and body with nomic-embed-text through Ollama
  (OLLAMA_URL in .env) and store the vectors in SQLite next to the posts.
- While someone types a new post title, show up to 3 similar posts above the
  submit button, each with a vote button.
- In /admin, list pairs of posts that look alike so I can merge them.
- If Ollama is not running, the board works as before and logs one warning.
- Update the README with the Ollama install and model pull commands.

Add an embeddable widget to the feedback board in this folder. Requirements:

- A script tag served at /widget.js adds a small Feedback button to any page.
- Clicking it opens an iframe with the board's post form and the top 5 posts;
  no other scripts or cookies are added to the host page.
- Allowed host origins come from WIDGET_ORIGINS in .env; refuse others.
- Works with the existing magic-link sign-in.
- Update the README with the embed snippet.

Connect the feedback board in this folder to GitHub issues. Requirements:

- Read GITHUB_TOKEN and GITHUB_REPO from .env.
- When I set a post to planned, offer a button that creates a linked issue
  with the post text and a link back.
- A webhook endpoint (secret in .env) moves the post to shipped when the
  linked issue is closed as completed, which triggers the voter email.
- Out of scope: syncing comments.
- Update the README with the webhook setup steps.

What you lose

Autopilot, which finds requests in Intercom, Zendesk, Gong and other conversations and merges duplicates
Revenue weighting from HubSpot or Salesforce: which accounts asked for what
Two-way sync with Jira, Linear, ClickUp and GitHub issues
Single sign-on, so customers vote with the account they already have in your app
Hosting, spam filtering and uptime run by someone else

Why people still pay

Product teams pay because Canny sits between support, sales and the roadmap: requests arrive from the tools they already use, get tied to account revenue and land in Jira or Linear without copy-paste. For a solo founder with a few hundred users that plumbing matters less than the bill, which grows with every person who votes.

Moatintegrations execution polish switching costs

Do the math

Canny or your own copy?

Over

Your usage

Count my time3h ×$/h

Canny, 1 yr$1,188

Your own copy, 1 yr$41running + build session

You keep$1,147pays for itself in the first month

Estimate · A small VPS runs it for about $5 a month, or nothing extra if you already have one. Sign-in and status emails fit in most SMTP free tiers at this volume. The build is token usage on your agent plan.

Leaving Canny

Take your data, then cancel.

1 · Take your data out of Canny

1As an admin, open Settings > Boards and choose Export Data to download a board as CSV; repeat for each board.
2For a filtered list, set the filters on the Feedback page and click the download button.
3Voters come separately: open a post's voter list and click Export List in the bottom-left corner.
4Workspaces on the newer Ideas view export from Ideas instead, up to 10,000 records per file.

2 · Cancel Canny

1Sign in with owner-level admin rights and open Billing in the general settings.
2Scroll to the bottom, pick a reason and click Cancel subscription.
3To keep the board online for free instead, switch to the Free plan on the same page; Canny lists anything you must change first.

You keep access until the end of the paid period, and cancelling does not delete the workspace; deleting it is a separate step.
The post CSV holds titles, details, status, tags, owner, vote score and comment count, but no comment text or voter emails. Export the voter lists of the posts you care about.
Exporting comment text needs the Business plan, so copy the important threads by hand before you leave a lower plan.
Tell your voters where the new board lives before the old one goes quiet.

Checked 2026-10-13 against Canny's docs: 1, 2, 3, 4

The escape hatch

Don't feel like building it? These are already free.

FiderOpen sourceSelf-hosted board with ideas, votes, statuses and email notifications; runs on Postgres.★ 4.6k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗QuackbackOpen sourceBoards, roadmap, changelog and a support inbox in one AGPL app; every feature is on when you host it yourself.★ 314 · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗LogChimpOpen sourceFeedback boards with voting and a roadmap; AGPL core with a few enterprise-licensed folders.★ 1.1k · active Oct 2026 · docker to self-host
WebVisit ↗

All 5 free alternatives to Canny ›

The numbers

Canny pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annual, per month	What you get
Free	$0/workspace	$0/workspace	25 tracked users, 5 managers, unlimited contributors, boards and posts; Autopilot AI included.
Pro	$99/workspace	$79/workspace	Starts at 100 tracked users and 10 managers; adds project-management integrations (Jira, Linear, ClickUp, Asana, GitHub) and advanced privacy.
Business	custom	—	5,000+ tracked users, SSO (Okta, Entra ID, OIDC, OneLogin) and CRM integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce).

Free tier: 25 tracked users: anyone who posted, voted or commented, including people an admin or Autopilot added feedback for. 5 managers.
Billing: Monthly or yearly (yearly saves about 20%). The price follows tracked users: go over the limit without a spend cap and Canny moves you to the next tier, prorated for the rest of the period.
Hidden costs: Tracked users include people whose requests Autopilot finds in support chats and people an admin votes for, so the bill can climb without anyone visiting the board. A monthly spend limit stops the upgrades, but it also stops Canny recording feedback from new users. Exporting comment text is a Business-plan feature.
Source: canny.io

Also on the list

Linear$10/mo · Project managementKINDA

Intercom$39/mo · Customer supportKINDA

Tally$29/mo · FormsYES

Questions

Canny, briefly

Not answered here? Tell us and we'll add it.

Ask a question ›

Free covers 25 tracked users and 5 managers, with unlimited boards and posts.

Yes. An AI coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor can build a usable personal version in one session with the prompt on this page, running on your own machine.

About $99 a month on the Pro plan, $1,188 a year (checked 2026-10-13).

Autopilot, which finds requests in Intercom, Zendesk, Gong and other conversations and merges duplicates; Revenue weighting from HubSpot or Salesforce: which accounts asked for what; Two-way sync with Jira, Linear, ClickUp and GitHub issues; Single sign-on, so customers vote with the account they already have in your app; Hosting, spam filtering and uptime run by someone else. If any of those matter to you, keep paying.