Quick answer
Yes — Signboard is a one-time-purchase alternative to Yodeck. It costs $129 once, while Yodeck runs $8/screen/mo — about $96 per year, every year. Playlists, scheduling, screen health and emergency takeover — any browser is a player, no per-screen rent. It is for people who want the job done on their own hardware without a renewal date — not for teams that live inside Yodeck's ecosystem.
The verdict
Switch to Signboard if you are an individual or small team paying Yodeck $8/screen/mo for work your own machine can do. On a single screen Signboard pays for itself vs Yodeck in about 16 months. On five screens, 3 months — then it's $0 a year, forever.
Stay with Yodeck 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. Signboard does not try to replicate those.
Head to head
| Signboard | Yodeck | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $129 once, unlimited screens | $8/screen/mo ($96/yr per screen) |
| 5-screen annual cost | $0 after purchase | $480/yr |
| Cost over 3 years (5 screens) | $129 | $1,440 |
| Player | Any browser, 6-char pairing code | Dedicated player app |
| Dayparting | Server-side, per-screen timezone | Yes |
| Emergency takeover | Built in | Paid tier |
| Your data | Your SQLite file, your box | Their servers |
| Source code | MIT, on GitHub | Closed |
| 5-year cost | $129 | $480 |
Where Yodeck still wins
- Ecosystem and integrations. Established tools accumulate years of third-party integrations, templates and add-ons. If your workflow is wired into Yodeck'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. Yodeck is the name people already know. Onboarding a team onto a tool nobody has used before takes time the subscription never charges for.
Where Signboard wins
- Price, permanently. $129 once versus $96/yr for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- Content library. Images, videos (mp4/webm), web-page URLs, and announcement slides built from 5 layout templates — a "Closed Friday" slide takes 20 seconds, no designer required.
- Playlists. Ordered items with per-entry duration overrides, drag-to-reorder, cut/fade transitions, in-browser preview.
- 6-character pairing. The player page shows a code; type it into the dashboard, name the screen, assign a playlist. Any smart-TV browser, a Pi in kiosk Chromium, or an old tablet all work — no player app.
The math
On a single screen Signboard pays for itself vs Yodeck in about 16 months. On five screens, 3 months — then it's $0 a year, forever.
- After 1 year: Signboard has cost you $129 total — Yodeck has cost $96.
- After 3 years: Signboard is still $129 — the subscription is at $288.
- After 5 years: Signboard is still $129 — the subscription is at $480.
Common questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — the full source is MIT at github.com/bensblueprints/signboard-mvp. The $129 buys the packaged installer, guided VPS deploy and lifetime updates instead of doing the docker compose setup yourself.
What hardware do the screens need?
Anything with a browser: a smart TV's built-in browser, a $35 Raspberry Pi in kiosk Chromium, an old Fire tablet. The player is plain ES2017-safe JavaScript built for ancient smart-TV browsers, with double-buffered swaps to avoid flicker.
Does offline caching always work?
Honest caveat: browsers only allow service workers on HTTPS or localhost. On a plain-http LAN address the player degrades gracefully to no-cache mode — it still plays fine, it just re-fetches media each loop. For real offline resilience put a reverse proxy with TLS (or Tailscale) in front, or run the desktop app, which loads 127.0.0.1 and gets full caching.
How does scheduling handle wrong clocks on kiosk devices?
All daypart rules are evaluated server-side in each screen's own IANA timezone — the kiosk's (often drifting, often wrong) hardware clock is never trusted.
Try Signboard — $129, one time
Or get Signboard plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.