Quick answer
Yes — Shipnotes is a one-time-purchase alternative to Canny. It costs $129 once, while Canny runs $79/mo — about $948 per year, every year. Self-hosted changelog + roadmap + feature voting with email subscribers and an embeddable widget. It is for people who want the job done on their own hardware without a renewal date — not for teams that live inside Canny's ecosystem.
The verdict
Switch to Shipnotes if you are an individual or small team paying Canny $79/mo for work your own machine can do. Canny costs $79 every month. Shipnotes pays for itself in about 7 weeks — then your changelog is free for the life of your product.
Stay with Canny if your workflow depends on its integrations, you need enterprise features (SSO, admin controls, SLAs), or your team is large enough that per-seat collaboration tooling is worth the bill. Shipnotes does not try to replicate those.
Head to head
| Shipnotes | Canny | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $129 once | $79/month ($948/yr) |
| Cost over 3 years | $129 | ~$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 |
| 5-year cost | $129 | $4,740 |
Where Canny still wins
- Ecosystem and integrations. Established tools accumulate years of third-party integrations, templates and add-ons. If your workflow is wired into Canny's ecosystem, switching means rebuilding that plumbing — a real cost.
- Team and enterprise features. Shared workspaces, granular permissions, SSO, audit logs and a vendor to call when something breaks — that is what the higher subscription tiers actually buy, and a pay-once app does not come with it.
- Familiarity and hiring. Canny is the name people already know. Onboarding a team onto a tool nobody has used before takes time the subscription never charges for.
Where Shipnotes wins
- Price, permanently. $129 once versus $948/yr for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- 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.
The math
Canny costs $79 every month. Shipnotes pays for itself in about 7 weeks — then your changelog is free for the life of your product.
- After 1 year: Shipnotes has cost you $129 total — Canny has cost $948.
- After 3 years: Shipnotes is still $129 — the subscription is at $2,844.
- After 5 years: Shipnotes is still $129 — the subscription is at $4,740.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — MIT source at github.com/bensblueprints/changelog-roadmap-mvp. $129 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.
Does the widget slow my site down?
No — it's one small deferred script tag that renders a bell with an unread badge. You can attach it to your own button with data-target and theme it with data-accent.
Try Shipnotes — $129, one time
Or get Shipnotes plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.