Fizzy
37signals’ free kanban - fast boards for bugs, issues, and ideas. Trello without the per-seat bill.
One-click deploy, from $5/mo on a Miget plan.
Fizzy is 37signals’ free kanban: fast, focused boards for bugs, issues, ideas, and small projects - "kanban as it should be, not as it has been." It is a deliberately simple Trello / Asana alternative from the makers of Basecamp, with auto-closing stale cards, webhooks to Slack or Campfire, public boards, and native mobile apps.
Like the rest of the 37signals stack it is a Rails app behind Thruster, backed by SQLite, in one container. This template sets HTTP_PORT to 5000 and DISABLE_SSL=true (Miget terminates TLS), so there is no wrapper or sidecar - the board, its cards, and uploads all live on a single volume.
The software is free, so the per-seat math that makes hosted kanban expensive simply disappears: one small plan covers the whole team, and the data sits on infrastructure you own.
Upstream project: Fizzy (37signals)
#what you get
- Fast kanban boards for bugs, issues, and ideas
- Auto-close stale cards, public boards, native mobile apps
- Webhooks to Slack and Campfire
- Single container: SQLite + uploads on one volume
- Thruster front-end; HTTP_PORT=5000, no proxy wrapper
- Free software (O’Saasy source-available license)
#topology
| Service | Role | Public |
|---|---|---|
| fizzy | kanban boards (:5000) | yes |
| storage volume | SQLite + uploads | no |
#miget sizing
// this stack needs
512 MiB RAM · 3 GB disk · 1 service
A Rails app plus Thruster idles comfortably in 512 MiB; the Hobby plan covers it. SMTP (invites) and VAPID (push) are optional env. Keep replicas at 1 (single SQLite file).
Hobby - recommended fit
$5/mo
1 vCPU · 512 MiB · 10 GiB disk
Headroom for your own apps: 1 GiB at $7/mo
Professional - production
$22/mo
1 vCPU · 2 GiB · 10 GiB disk
Dedicated resources, production SLOs - plan details
One Miget plan is a fixed pool of compute - the whole stack (managed databases included) deploys inside it, and anything left over runs your other apps. No per-service or per-seat math.
#vs. the managed service
What the hosted equivalents charge, against the flat Miget plan this stack fits on. Prices as of June 2026, sources linked.
| Service | Plan | Monthly | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fizzy on Miget ★ | 512 MiB plan | $5 | this whole stack, flat - no usage meters, and room left for your own apps |
| Asana | Starter | ~$135 | $13.49/user/mo at 10 users |
| Trello | Premium | ~$125 | $12.50/user/mo at 10 users (Standard $6) |
Fizzy is free software; per-seat kanban pricing simply does not apply.
#vs. other PaaS
Estimated monthly cost of running this exact stack (512 MiB RAM, 3 GB disk, 1 container) elsewhere, from published June 2026 rates.
| Platform | Est. monthly | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Miget ★ | $5 flat | compose stacks first-class: one deploy, dedicated vCPU, managed Postgres/Valkey, volumes and TLS all included in the plan |
| Heroku | ~$25 | no volumes; nothing between 1 GB ($50) and 2.5 GB ($250) dynos - 2 GB containers cost far more than shown |
| DO App Platform | ~$11 | no persistent volumes - stateful containers need managed DBs/Spaces (base $5 Spaces included here) |
| Render | ~$8 | per-service instances (0.5 GB $7, 2 GB $25) - every container is its own paid service |
| Railway | ~$5 | usage-based ($10/GB RAM-mo); vCPU billed separately at $20/vCPU-mo on top |
| Fly.io | ~$3 | cheapest sticker price - but burstable shared CPUs (1/16 core; dedicated vCPUs cost ~2-3×), no compose deploys (one app per container, manual wiring), managed DBs billed extra |
Estimates assume RAM fully allocated at published on-demand rates - and sticker price isn't the whole comparison: the cheaper rows buy burstable shared CPUs, per-service wiring instead of a compose deploy, and managed databases billed separately. Heroku and DO App Platform have no persistent volumes at all - stateful stacks like this one need workarounds there.
#deploy it
On Miget
- Create a Compose Stack in app.miget.com pointing at the templates repository
- Set the stack path to
fizzy -
Set the required variables:
SECRET_KEY_BASE, Rails secret (openssl rand -hex 64)BASE_URL, the app’s https domain, set after first deploy
- Deploy. Miget layers
compose.miget.yaml(RAM, privacy, volumes, managed services) automatically
Locally first?
Every template is portable, vanilla Docker Compose - the Miget overrides are ignored locally:
git clone https://github.com/deployable-sh/stacks
cd miget-compose-templates/fizzy
docker compose up -dSame files, same behavior. The template README covers connection strings and scaling notes.
#faq
Is Fizzy free?
Yes - Fizzy is free to self-host. The source is published under 37signals’ O’Saasy license, which lets you run it for your own use freely; it only prevents you from reselling Fizzy itself as a competing hosted service.
What does this save vs Trello or Asana?
Trello Standard is $6/user/month and Premium $12.50, and Asana Starter is $13.49/user - all per seat, so a 10-person team runs $60-135/month. Fizzy is free software on one small Miget plan for the whole team.
How does it reach port 5000?
Fizzy serves through Thruster, which reads HTTP_PORT. The template sets HTTP_PORT=5000 and DISABLE_SSL=true so it listens on Miget’s public port with plain HTTP behind Miget’s TLS termination - no wrapper needed.
Ship Fizzy today
One compose stack, 512 MiB of RAM, from $5/month flat, and it runs on your laptop with the same files.