Fizzy

Lightweight project and issue tracking built for teams that want less process.

Overview

Fizzy is 37signals' kanban tool for tracking issues and ideas — "kanban as it should be, not as it has been", in their words. It is open source: the full application is published on GitHub under the O'Saasy licence with Docker and Kamal deployment guides, so you can run your own instance, and 37signals also hosts it at fizzy.do. It is deliberately small: cards, columns, comments, assignments, and very little else.

Where it fits in my work

Most of my project communication lives in Basecamp , and most engineering work lives in pull requests on GitHub . The gap between them is the product backlog — ideas, bugs reported in passing, the "later" list. Fizzy is the right shape for that: a board that a client can look at, that does not demand story points or sprints, and that I can self-host next to a product if the data should stay with the client. It is newer and lighter than Linear or Jira, and that is the trade: almost no setup, almost no features you will not use.

Key features

Kanban boards with cards, columns, comments, tags and assignees Open source — self-host with Docker or Kamal, or use the hosted version Built by 37signals with the same calm-software philosophy as Basecamp and HEY Issue and idea tracking without sprint ceremony Fast, minimal interface that needs no training

Best for

Small teams and solo builders who want a visible backlog without adopting a planning system, and anyone who wants to own their tracker by self-hosting it. Teams that depend on roadmaps, estimates, dependencies and reporting should look at Linear.

Where it fits in my stack

Fizzy → Basecamp for the conversations around the work, GitHub for the pull requests cards turn into. It is part of the communication-and-project-management group in my stack when a product needs a standalone backlog.

Pros

Open source and self-hostable — your tracker, your data Near-zero setup and a genuinely calm interface Free to run yourself From a team with a long record of stable, opinionated software

Limitations

Young product with a small feature set by design No roadmaps, estimates, dependencies or advanced reporting Self-hosting means you run the server and the upgrades Integrations are limited compared with established trackers

Pricing

Fizzy is open source and free to self-host (the code and deployment guides are on GitHub ). 37signals also offers a hosted version at fizzy.do ; check there for the current terms of the hosted plan, as I could not verify a published price at the time of writing.

Verdict

Fizzy is what I want a backlog to be: visible, simple and mine. It will not replace a planning system for a large team, and it does not try to. For the kind of products I build, that restraint is a feature.