VoteFirst is $9/mo for one project, with no limit on how many requests land on the board. Fider is open source. Hosted, it is free to a fair use limit of 250 feedback items, then $25 a month for its Pro tier. Self hosted, every feature is free for as long as you keep the server running (fider.io/pricing, fider.io, both read 2 October 2026).
A real board to price against
Fider's hosted price turns on one number, the count of feedback items on the board, so a real board makes the comparison concrete. justRead, an app made by the same people as VoteFirst, runs its public roadmap on VoteFirst at app.votefirst.app/en/public/roadmap/justread. On 2 October 2026 it held 131 cards and 874 votes, with 252 distinct voters measured on 16 September 2026.
What that board would cost on Fider
Fider counts feedback items, not votes and not voters. justRead's board has 131 of them, well under the 250 item line, so it would sit on Fider's free hosted tier today at $0. VoteFirst charges $9 a month for the same board. On this one real board, Fider is the cheaper answer.
| Size | Fider | VoteFirst |
|---|---|---|
| 131 items (justRead's board, 2 October 2026) | $0/mo, hosted free tier | $9/mo, LITE |
| 250 items, the fair use line | $0 to $25/mo, hosted, depending on how it is used | $9/mo, LITE |
| 500 items, past the line | $25/mo, hosted Pro, or $0 self hosted on your own server | $9/mo, LITE |
Most public boards sit under the line with it. Of 648 Canny and Featurebase sites with a public board, read on 3 October 2026, 534 held 250 public requests or fewer across all their boards, 82 percent.
VoteFirst's number does not move with items posted, votes cast or people voting, because the plan is priced per project. Fider's hosted number moves with items posted, and its self hosted number is $0 at any size, forever, because the software has no licence fee once you run it yourself (docs.fider.io/self-hosted/, read 2 October 2026).
The comparison table
| Capability | VoteFirst | Fider |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $9/mo | Free, hosted, to 250 feedback items |
| Price past the free line | $9/mo, unchanged | $25/mo, hosted Pro, or $0 self hosted |
| Self hosting | Not offered | Free, every feature, on your own server |
| Billing unit | Per project | Per feedback item, hosted only |
| Voting without an account | Yes, anonymous cookie on first load | An account, signed in with email or an OAuth provider |
| Revenue weighted voting | Every plan, integer multiplier per tier | Not offered. Every vote counts as one |
| Declined requests in public | A Denied column on the public roadmap, every plan | A declined status on the public post list |
| Single sign on | Signed JWT handoff, PRO only, no SAML | Configurable sign in providers, self hosted or Pro |
| Board import | Canny and Featurebase boards, posts, statuses and votes | None stated on its pages |
| Open source | No | Yes, AGPL, full source on GitHub |
What VoteFirst does not do
- No self hosting. VoteFirst runs on its own servers, not yours, on any plan.
- No SAML or OIDC. Single sign on is a signed JWT handoff only, on PRO.
- No Slack, Zapier or outgoing webhooks.
- No AI clustering, summarization or automated conversation analysis.
- No Android or Kotlin SDK.
- No source code to read, fork or audit. Fider's is on GitHub under the AGPL.
- No free plan. A 14 day trial, card required at signup.
Where Fider is still the better tool
Self hosting is the real case for Fider, and it is a strong one. Run it yourself on Docker with your own Postgres database, and every feature is unlocked for every account, because the code sets the Pro flag to true for any instance not running in multi host mode (docs.fider.io/self-hosted/, read 2 October 2026). There is no tier to buy, no seat to add and no item count to watch.
That suits a team that already runs Docker and Postgres, for whom one more service is an afternoon's work. It suits anyone who needs the board on infrastructure they control, because a contract or a policy says the data stays there, which is the one thing no hosted vendor, VoteFirst included, can answer. And it suits a board where every voter is a peer rather than a paying customer, because one person, one vote is the right model for a community or an internal tool.
Fider's hosted free tier is also real money saved on a small or early board, as justRead's own numbers above show. VoteFirst does not have an equivalent free tier at any size.
If a self hosted board, a one person one vote model, or never being repriced by a vendor matters more than $9 a month, Fider is the better answer.
Switching from Fider
There is no importer for Fider on VoteFirst's side. Board import reads only Canny and Featurebase boards by URL, so a Fider board, hosted or self hosted, moves by hand or by script.
Posts get rebuilt through the API, which is on Pro. Voters and the revenue behind them come in from a CSV or a billing connection, which is what weighted voting needs, since Fider never recorded it. Comments do not move. The five steps, with the endpoint each one uses, are written out in full on the Canny switch page, and they are the same five whatever you are leaving.
Is VoteFirst cheaper than Fider?
Not usually. Fider self hosted is $0 forever. Fider hosted is free to 250 items and $25 a month past that. VoteFirst is $9 a month with no item count to watch, which only beats Fider's hosted Pro tier, not its free tier and not self hosting.
Does Fider weight votes by revenue?
Fider's own pages list no way to weight a vote, so on the pages read every signed in voter counts as one, whatever the size of the account. VoteFirst puts each voter in a tier with an integer multiplier, on every plan including the $9 one.
Can I move my Fider board to VoteFirst?
By hand. The import button reads Canny and Featurebase boards only, so a Fider board's posts move manually and its vote counts start again.
Does VoteFirst have a free plan like Fider's?
No. There is a 14 day trial on either plan, card required at signup. Fider's free hosted tier runs to 250 feedback items with no card, and self hosted it has no limit at all.
Related comparisons
The Fider alternative page covers what self hosting involves, start to finish, and Fider's published price, with the fair use line explained, is on its own pricing page. Canny against Fider is a monthly bill against a server you would run, and Feature Upvote against Fider is a flat per board charge against the same server. VoteFirst is also set against Canny, Feature Upvote and Upvoty.
14 days, a card at signup, then $9 or $39 a month.