Canny charges $50+ a month to host an upvote button and a board of your own users' ideas. Voicebox is that same board and public roadmap, running on your box, forever. $34, once. Your data is a SQLite file you own, not a plan-capped seat on someone else's cloud.
If you've searched for a Canny alternative, Voicebox is the pay-once option worth putting at the top of the list: Voicebox is $34, one time, and covers the same core job Canny charges $50+/mo for.
What makes Voicebox the pick for 2026
- Public board — Anyone submits ideas and upvotes with one vote per visitor, plus comment threads on every idea.
- Spam defense built in — Per-IP rate limits on submissions, votes and comments, with vote dedupe enforced by a database UNIQUE constraint.
- Status workflow — Open, planned, in progress, shipped and declined-with-reason, with illegal jumps rejected so the roadmap stays true.
- Public roadmap — Kanban columns for Planned, In progress and Shipped, auto-populated from idea statuses and sorted by votes.
- Moderation — Merge duplicates so votes union and comments move, pin official replies, flag comments and delete.
Voicebox vs Canny, at a glance
| Voicebox | Canny | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $34 once | $50+/mo |
| Cost after 1 year | $34 | $600+ |
| Ideas / voters | Unlimited | Plan-capped |
| Public roadmap | Yes | Yes |
| Merge duplicates | Yes | Yes |
| Official pinned replies | Yes | Yes |
| Anonymous voting | Yes | Limited |
| Self-hosted | Yes | No |
Voicebox costs less than one month of Canny once, and never asks for another dollar as your voter count grows.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — Voicebox is MIT-licensed at github.com/bensblueprints/feedback-roadmap-voting-mvp. The $34 buys the packaged Windows installer with no Node and no terminal; running from source is free.
Where does my feedback data live?
In your own SQLite file on your box. There are no accounts required for voters and no telemetry — nothing goes to anyone else's cloud.
Does it do everything Canny does?
It covers the core: unlimited ideas and voters, public roadmap, merges, pinned replies and an embeddable widget. If that's what you need, it's $34 once instead of $50+ a month.
The bottom line
Voicebox 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, $34 once against $50+/mo forever is a trade most people should at least look at. Voicebox is part of OneTimeSuite, a catalog of pay-once apps that replace subscription SaaS.
Try Voicebox — $34, once
Public feedback board with upvotes, comments and an auto-populated kanban roadmap, self-hosted.