Canny charges $79/month — $948 a year — to show your users what you shipped and let them vote on what's next. Shipnotes is the same loop on your own $5 VPS: a Markdown changelog, a Planned / In Progress / Shipped roadmap, anonymous feature voting, email subscribers and an embeddable "What's new" bell, with all of it in one SQLite file you own.
If you've searched for a Canny alternative, Shipnotes is the pay-once option worth putting at the top of the list: Shipnotes is $49, one time, and covers the same core job Canny charges $79/mo for.
What makes Shipnotes the pick for 2026
- Public changelog — Write posts in Markdown, tag them New / Improved / Fixed, publish with one click. Valid RSS 2.0 feed included.
- Public roadmap board — Planned / In Progress / Shipped columns, sorted by votes, so users can see where things stand.
- Feature requests + voting — Visitors submit ideas and upvote — one vote per visitor, no account or signup wall — with comment threads.
- Moderation that scales — Approve, decline with a public reason, or merge duplicates — votes carry over and are deduped.
- Email subscribers — Bring your own SMTP; publishing a post emails every subscriber with one-click unsubscribe.
Shipnotes vs Canny, at a glance
| Shipnotes | Canny | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $49 once | $79/month ($948/yr) |
| Cost over 3 years | $49 | ~$2,844 |
| Changelog + roadmap + voting | Yes | Yes |
| Anonymous voting (no signup wall) | Yes | No |
| "What's new" widget | Included | Higher tiers |
| Email notifications | Yes, via your own SMTP | Yes, their sender |
| Your data | One SQLite file on your box | Their cloud |
| Source code | MIT, yours | Closed |
Canny costs $79 every month. Shipnotes pays for itself in 19 days — then your changelog is free for the life of your product.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/changelog-roadmap-mvp. $49 buys the packaged version, 1-click setup and updates.
Do voters need accounts?
No — and that's deliberate. Canny puts votes behind a signup wall; Shipnotes uses a per-visitor token (one vote each, repeat votes rejected server-side). Lower friction means you hear from far more of your users.
What doesn't it have vs Canny?
Honestly: no Jira/Slack/Intercom integrations, no user segmentation or revenue-weighted prioritization, no SSO-identified voters. Shipnotes is the core loop — changelog, roadmap, voting, email — done well. If your PM team lives in Canny's integrations, Canny earns its price.
The bottom line
Shipnotes won't out-feature Canny on every axis — no subscription tool with a bigger team and a bigger roadmap loses on everything. But for the core job, $49 once against $79/mo forever is a trade most people should at least look at. Shipnotes is part of OneTimeSuite, a catalog of pay-once apps that replace subscription SaaS.
Try Shipnotes — $49, once
Self-hosted changelog + roadmap + feature voting with email subscribers and an embeddable widget.