# Featurebase alternatives: keep feedback on GitHub

> **TL;DR** Featurebase is a hosted support and feedback platform that keeps posts in its own product and can push them to GitHub Issues. Gitback builds a Board with feedback, roadmap, changelog, FAQ and issues Modules from a GitHub repository's own Discussions, Issues and Releases, so every post, vote and comment is a GitHub object in your repository. Pick Featurebase for a helpdesk, AI deduplication or voters without GitHub accounts; pick Gitback if your users are on GitHub and you want the feedback to stay there.

Featurebase and Gitback both give a product a public place to collect feature requests, vote on them and show a roadmap. They differ on where that feedback is stored. Featurebase keeps posts in its own product and can push them to GitHub Issues. Gitback has no feedback store of its own: a Board reads and writes the repository's own Discussions, Issues and Releases.

![A Gitback Board's Feedback Module, shown with test data: hovering a post's vote count lists the GitHub accounts that voted for it](/content/featurebase/gitback-feedback-voters.png)

## What is the difference between Featurebase and Gitback?

Featurebase is a hosted support and feedback platform that keeps posts in its own product; Gitback is a Board built live from one GitHub repository. Featurebase calls itself a "Modern Support & Feedback Platform", and one subscription covers its helpdesk, Fibi AI agent, feedback, outbound updates, help center and reporting. A Gitback Board carries five Modules, and the set is fixed: feedback, roadmap, changelog, FAQ and issues.

| | Featurebase | Gitback |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Where posts are stored | In Featurebase; can be pushed to or linked with GitHub Issues | Discussions in your GitHub repository |
| Votes | Featurebase upvotes | A 👍 reaction by a GitHub account |
| Who can write | End users, no developer account needed | People signed in with GitHub |
| Changelog | Public changelog page from Growth | Built from the repository's Releases |
| What the price counts | Seats; paid plans from $29/seat/month billed yearly | Boards; see [pricing](/pricing) |
| Free plan | 1 seat, 1 feedback board, 1 roadmap | Unlimited open-source Boards |
| Custom domain | Growth and above | Pro and above |
| Helpdesk and AI agent | Included in the subscription | Not among the five Modules |

Featurebase figures are from its own pages as read on 2026-09-24.

## Where does each keep the feedback?

Featurebase keeps the feedback in Featurebase; Gitback keeps it in your GitHub repository. Featurebase's GitHub integration, set up under Settings → Integrations, can "convert customer requests into actionable GitHub Issues", sync their progress back to the post, and optionally push every new post to GitHub automatically. The post itself stays in Featurebase and is linked to the Issue.

On a Gitback Board, submitting feedback creates a Discussion in the repository's mapped feedback category, sent with the End User's own GitHub token so GitHub records them as the author. It is never filed as an Issue, because a maintainer's Issues are their bug tracker. A vote is a 👍 reaction by the voter's GitHub account, and a comment is a GitHub comment. The roadmap is three namespaced labels, visible on github.com, and the changelog is the repository's Releases. FAQ answers are Markdown files under `.gitback/faq/`, committed to the repository under the Client's own token. The product's promise is "your feedback lives in your GitHub, not our database".

That promise is about content. Gitback does hold four things: a read cache, claim state, a takedown blocklist and the Stripe billing entitlement. The cache is required because GitHub has no unauthenticated GraphQL API and Discussions are GraphQL-only, so every anonymous read of every Board spends one server-held Reader Token with 5,000 requests an hour for the whole deployment. Each Board read is counted before it leaves, and two renders of the same Board inside the cache's time window cost one request to GitHub.

A maintainer can also run a Board without letting Gitback commit anything to the repository; in that mode roadmap status and Board configuration are held in Gitback's config store instead, and the FAQ Module is unavailable. Feedback, votes and the changelog stay the same in both modes.

If you stop using Gitback, the feedback stays where it was written: in your repository, under the accounts that wrote it.

## What does each cost?

Featurebase charges per seat; Gitback charges per Board, and its current prices are on the [pricing page](/pricing). Featurebase's prices, as printed on its pricing page on 2026-09-24, are yearly only:

- **Free:** 1 seat, unlimited end users and feedback, 1 feedback board, 1 roadmap, a public portal.
- **Growth:** $29/seat/month billed yearly. Adds custom domains, in-app widgets, the API, webhooks and integrations, including GitHub issue management and a public changelog page.
- **Professional:** $59/seat/month billed yearly. Adds single sign-on (admin SSO over SAML/OIDC is Enterprise only, minimum 5 seats), AI feedback management and 20 free Lite seats.
- **Enterprise:** $99/seat/month billed yearly. Unlimited boards and roadmaps, custom admin roles, 50 free Lite seats.

Removing Featurebase branding is not available on Growth and costs $69/mo on Professional and Enterprise. Paid plans also show $0.49 per AI resolution. Featurebase offers a 10-day free trial of paid plans, 15% off for open-source projects and non-profits, and a startup programme.

Gitback counts Boards, not Clients or seats. One maintainer with three repositories has three Boards. Boards for open-source repositories are free on every Plan; a paid Plan buys private Boards and Custom Domains.

## Where is Featurebase the better choice?

Featurebase is the better choice when your users are not on GitHub, or when you want support and feedback in one tool. Its forum is built to be one that "doesn't require users be developers", and its end users are unlimited on every plan. A Gitback Board asks anyone who writes to sign in with GitHub, and Google sign-in for writes was ruled out on purpose: GitHub's only de-duplication is one reaction per account per post, so voting on behalf of people without GitHub accounts would collapse every vote onto a single bot account.

Featurebase also covers ground a Gitback Board does not:

- A helpdesk, an AI agent and a help center in the same subscription.
- AI duplicate-post suggestions from Growth, AI deduplication from Professional and AI tagging on Enterprise.
- A changelog served "in 40+ languages", with updates shown only to chosen user segments.
- Feedback tied to revenue, user segments and customer activity, with a HubSpot and Salesforce CRM connection on Professional and Enterprise.
- Board privacy by team or segment, post privacy and post moderation from Professional.
- Voters who upvote a post get "automatically notified".

Gitback has a limit of its own here. GitHub only orders Discussions by creation or update time, so a Board cannot sort all feedback by votes on GitHub's side; its "most wanted" view sorts over the page it fetched.

## Who should pick Gitback?

Gitback fits a maintainer whose users already have GitHub accounts, usually an open-source project or a developer tool, and who wants feedback in the repository rather than in another vendor's database. Anyone can open a Board for a public repository by pasting its URL at [Open a Board](/github). Until someone with write access claims it, that Board is reachable by URL but marked noindex and kept out of search. Claiming it is covered step by step in [Open a Gitback Board for your repo and claim it](/docs/getting-started).

It also fits a team that wants every post, vote and comment attributed to a real GitHub account. Gitback keeps no vote table: the count on a post is the number of 👍 reactions on the Discussion or Issue behind it, and each reaction belongs to a GitHub account.

The rest of [what a Board does](/features) covers the five Modules. Other tools are compared on the [comparisons page](/compare).

## What does moving from Featurebase involve?

Moving means starting a Gitback Board beside your Featurebase board, because Gitback has no importer. Its writes to GitHub are few and each is sent under one person's own token. An End User's go through a fixed allowlist of registered operations: create a feedback Discussion, comment on it, add or remove a vote. A Client's add roadmap labels to Issues, post a comment when an item ships, and commit Gitback's own files under `.gitback/`. None of them copies posts from another tool, and no tool could carry a Featurebase vote across, since a Gitback vote has to be a reaction by the voter's own GitHub account.

The Gitback side takes three steps:

1. Turn on GitHub Discussions for the repository. With Discussions off, the feedback Module says there is nowhere to post feedback yet and points to the repository's open Issues instead.
2. Open the Board at [Open a Board](/github) and claim it with an account that has write access.
3. Check which Discussion category backs the feedback Module. GitHub does not let any app create Discussion categories through its API, and category names differ between repositories, so each Board has its own Category Mapping with a guessed default.

The repository's open Issues appear in the Board's issues Module as they are. Posts that live only in Featurebase would need recreating by hand, and votes restart from zero.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is there a free alternative to Featurebase?

Gitback's Boards for open-source repositories are free on every Plan, and Gitback counts Boards rather than seats. Featurebase also has a Free plan, with 1 seat, 1 feedback board and 1 roadmap, and without a custom domain, a public changelog page or its GitHub issue integration (Featurebase pricing page, read 2026-09-24).

### Is there a Featurebase alternative for open-source projects?

Gitback is built for projects that live on GitHub. New feedback becomes a Discussion in your repository, a vote is a 👍 reaction by a GitHub account, and a comment is a GitHub comment, so nothing sits in a separate vendor database. Featurebase offers open-source projects a 15% discount (read 2026-09-24).

### Can Gitback import my Featurebase posts?

No. Gitback has no importer. Its writes to GitHub are an End User's own feedback, comments and votes, and a Client's roadmap labels, comments and `.gitback/` files, each sent under that person's token; none of them copies posts from another tool.

### Do people need a GitHub account to use a Gitback Board?

Only to write. Anyone can read a Board; submitting feedback, commenting and voting require signing in with GitHub, so GitHub records the real author. Featurebase describes its forum as one that doesn't require users be developers.

### How does Featurebase compare with Canny?

They price on different units. Featurebase's paid plans are priced per seat, from $29/seat/month billed yearly, with unlimited end users on every plan. Canny (canny.io) prices by tracked users, "someone who has given feedback", with 25 on its Free plan and Pro starting at $79/month billed yearly. Both were read on 2026-09-24.