Sticky

Open-source collaboration tools, honestly reviewed. This one has a twist ending.

TL;DR

• What it is: A digital sticky notes app — drag-and-drop boards, real-time collaboration, color customization — originally released as MIT-licensed open source [1].
• Who it’s for: Teams and individuals wanting a lightweight, visual brainstorming tool. Was aimed at self-hosters; now aims at SaaS subscribers.
• Critical caveat: The GitHub repository is archived and frozen. Development moved to a private codebase. The open-source version you’d be forking is dead code [README].
• The self-hosting problem: The original codebase depends on Convex.dev as the backend — a third-party BaaS that you cannot self-host. True air-gapped deployment was never actually possible with this stack [1][README].
• Cost: sticky.today runs as a SaaS product now. Pricing is not publicly listed on the scraped homepage. The self-hosted option is effectively gone.
• Bottom line: 166 GitHub stars, one archived repo, and a pivot to closed SaaS. For anyone seriously evaluating self-hosted collaboration tools, look at Excalidraw or Liveblocks-backed alternatives instead.

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What is Sticky

Sticky started as a side project by developer Hamza Saleem. The original pitch: real-time collaborative sticky notes for brainstorming and project planning, built with React, TypeScript, and Convex.dev as the backend [1][README]. The creator posted to r/selfhosted in October 2024 explaining that he’d initially planned to sell it as SaaS, then changed his mind and open-sourced it instead [1].

That story has since reversed itself.

The GitHub README now opens with a banner: “⚠️ This Repository is Archived — Sticky.today has evolved! Development has continued privately with new features, improvements, and a Pro plan.” [README]. The live product lives at sticky.today and operates as a standard SaaS. The archived code remains available under MIT for anyone who wants to fork it, but it receives no updates, no security patches, and no active maintenance.

This matters for the self-hosting audience. When you read about Sticky in self-hosted tool aggregators, you’re typically reading metadata that was captured when the repo was active. The on-the-ground reality in 2026 is: the open-source version is frozen, and the company building the product has moved on.

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Why people choose it

There is one substantive third-party source about the self-hosted version of Sticky: the original Reddit r/selfhosted post from the creator [1]. It attracted engagement from the community based on the premise — open source, real-time collaboration, Docker-deployable — but the thread predates the archival announcement.

The core appeal was clear from the post: a frictionless tool for pinning ideas visually, sharing a board with teammates, and not paying Miro or Mural subscription fees. The “no SaaS pricing” angle resonated with the r/selfhosted audience, which is exactly the audience that later watched the project pivot back to proprietary SaaS.

Broader self-hosted roundups reviewed for this article — Canadian Web Hosting’s 2026 list [3], XDA Developers’ uninstall retrospective [4], Android Authority’s beginner guide [5] — don’t mention Sticky. With 166 stars, it never reached the adoption threshold that puts a tool on community radar.

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Features

Based on the archived README and the current sticky.today website:

Original open-source version:

• Create and arrange digital sticky notes on a canvas [README]
• Real-time collaboration — multiple users on the same board simultaneously [README][1]
• Customize note colors and sizes [README]
• Drag and drop interface [README]
• Cloud sync across devices via Convex.dev [README][1]

Current SaaS product (sticky.today):

• “The most tactile digital sticky notes for teams, designers, and developers” [website meta]
• Organize thoughts, collaborate in real-time, access ideas anywhere [website]
• Pro plan with unspecified additional features [README]

What’s missing from the feature picture: the scraped homepage returned no body text, no H1, no H2 headings, and no visible pricing. Whatever features the current SaaS adds over the archived open-source version are not publicly documented in any source available for this review.

The Convex.dev dependency: The original codebase uses Convex as the entire backend layer — database, real-time sync, auth [1][README]. Convex is a proprietary BaaS. This means the archived MIT code is not a self-contained deployable. Forking it and running it independently requires either a Convex account (external dependency, free tier exists but subject to Convex’s own pricing changes) or a full backend rewrite to substitute PostgreSQL, Supabase, or another real-time stack. For a non-technical founder, this is a blocker.

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Pricing: SaaS vs self-hosted math

Self-hosted (archived open-source):

• License: MIT — free to fork [README]
• Practical cost: depends on Convex.dev free tier + a hosting environment
• Convex free tier: 1M function calls/month, 1GB storage, 10K concurrent connections — sufficient for a small team
• VPS cost: Convex handles the backend, so you’d primarily be hosting the React frontend — trivially cheap, under $5/month
• Catch: You’re maintaining frozen code with no upstream fixes. Any security vulnerabilities discovered after the archive date are yours to find and patch.

sticky.today SaaS:

• Pricing: not publicly available from the scraped homepage. The website says “Try it free today” suggesting a freemium model [website]. Actual paid tier pricing: data not available.

Comparison to Miro (the obvious SaaS incumbent):

• Miro free: 3 editable boards, unlimited viewers
• Miro Starter: $8/user/month (billed annually)
• Miro Business: $16/user/month

For a team of five, Miro runs $40–$80/month. If sticky.today is meaningfully cheaper, that’s the pitch — but without published pricing, the comparison can’t be made concretely.

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Deployment reality check

For anyone still interested in forking the archived codebase:

What you need:

• Node.js environment for the React/TypeScript frontend [1][README]
• A Convex.dev account (free tier available) for the backend [1]
• Minimal hosting for the frontend — Vercel, Netlify, or a cheap VPS

What can go wrong:

• No upstream security patches. The repo is frozen. If Convex updates its SDK in a breaking way, you’re debugging compatibility alone.
• Convex dependency is a lock-in. Your “self-hosted” notes backend is still running on Convex’s infrastructure. This isn’t true self-hosting in the sense that r/selfhosted means it.
• No active community. With 166 stars and an archived repo, you won’t find Stack Overflow answers or recent GitHub issues that match your deployment problems.
• Feature drift. The live SaaS product is presumably adding features to the private codebase. Your fork falls further behind with every month.

Realistic deployment time for a developer: 1–2 hours to clone, configure Convex, and get the frontend running. For a non-technical founder: this is not a reasonable DIY project without technical help, and the result still depends on Convex’s uptime.

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Pros and Cons

Pros

• Clean, simple concept. Digital sticky notes with real-time collaboration is a genuinely useful category. The original design is functional and uncluttered [1][README].
• MIT license on the archived code. You can legally fork, modify, and use it however you want [README]. No license compliance concerns.
• Low resource overhead. The frontend is lightweight React. The backend is Convex-managed. No database server to configure yourself.
• The live SaaS exists. If you want to use Sticky without any setup, sticky.today is apparently running and accepting users [website]. The product didn’t die — it just stopped being open source.

Cons

• Archived, unmaintained codebase. This is the core issue. Forking this for production use means owning all maintenance going forward on frozen code [README].
• Not a real self-hosted tool. Convex.dev is a required external service. The backend doesn’t run on your VPS [1][README]. The “self-hosted” label applies only to the frontend.
• 166 stars. This is not a signal of failure — every project starts small — but it is a signal that the community hasn’t validated this as a go-to self-hosted option.
• Pivot to closed SaaS. The creator explicitly moved development private and added a Pro plan [README]. The open-source release was a distribution strategy, not a long-term commitment to open development.
• No published pricing. If you’re evaluating sticky.today as a SaaS, you can’t compare it to alternatives without contacting the company or signing up.
• Zero third-party reviews. No independent coverage of self-hosted deployment quality, performance at scale, or real-world pain points. The only community signal is a single Reddit post from the creator [1].
• No REST API in the open-source version. The merged profile lists rest_api as a canonical feature, but the archived README makes no mention of a documented public API. If you need programmatic access, this is unverified.

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Who should use this / who shouldn’t

Consider the live sticky.today SaaS if:

• You want a lightweight sticky-note collaboration tool and don’t care about self-hosting.
• You’re a small team that finds Miro over-engineered for simple brainstorming boards.
• You’re comfortable adopting a product from a small solo developer with an unverified pricing structure.

Fork the archived code if:

• You’re a developer who wants to learn from a clean React + Convex.dev project.
• You want to build your own sticky notes app and use this as a starting point — the MIT license permits this.
• You have a developer available to maintain the fork and replace the Convex backend with something you actually control.

Skip Sticky entirely if:

• You need a self-hosted tool that actually runs on your own infrastructure end-to-end — this doesn’t qualify [README][1].
• You need a maintained, actively developed open-source codebase.
• You’re a non-technical founder looking to set this up yourself — the Convex dependency and archived repo make that impractical.
• You need enterprise features: SSO, audit logs, team access controls — no evidence any of this exists.

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Alternatives worth considering

The sticky notes / collaborative whiteboard space has better-maintained options for the self-hosting audience:

• Excalidraw — open-source virtual whiteboard with real-time collaboration. Actually self-hostable (ships its own backend via a separate excalidraw-room service). 95K+ GitHub stars. Active development. Supports sticky note-style elements. The obvious choice for this use case.
• Liveblocks + custom frontend — if you want real-time multiplayer specifically and are comfortable building on top of a collaboration SDK. Not self-hosted, but worth knowing exists.
• Focalboard (Mattermost) — open-source project management with board views. More structured than sticky notes but genuinely self-hostable. 22K+ stars.
• Miro — the incumbent SaaS. Full-featured, expensive at scale, not self-hostable.
• Mural — Miro’s main competitor. Similar pricing tier, similar closed-source model.
• Joplin / Obsidian Canvas — for individuals rather than teams, local-first note-taking with canvas-style arrangement. No real-time collaboration but full data ownership.

For a non-technical founder specifically looking for self-hosted real-time collaboration, Excalidraw is the answer Sticky was trying to be, with a functioning community, maintained codebase, and genuine self-hosting capability.

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Bottom line

Sticky’s story is a common one in the self-hosted space: a solo developer builds something useful, open-sources it to get traction, gets traction, and then closes the source to build a real business. That’s a legitimate choice — the MIT license means the community got value and keeps the code — but it means Sticky is no longer a self-hosted option in any meaningful sense. What’s left on GitHub is a snapshot from 2024 that depends on Convex.dev infrastructure you don’t control and receives no updates.

If you want real-time collaborative sticky notes running on your own hardware, use Excalidraw. If you want a lightweight SaaS tool in this category and don’t mind the closed-source model, sticky.today may be worth evaluating — but get the pricing upfront before committing. What you shouldn’t do is treat the archived MIT repo as a production-ready self-hosted deployment. It isn’t.

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Sources

1. Lost_Support4211, r/selfhosted — “I made an Open Source app that lets you collaborate in real-time on sticky notes, I initially planned to sell it as SaaS but then decided to open source it.” (October 2024). https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1fzq330/i_made_an_open_source_app_that_lets_you/

Primary sources:

• GitHub repository and README (archived): https://github.com/hamzasaleem2/sticky (166 stars, MIT license)
• Official website: https://www.sticky.today