Changeflare is a self-hosted "what's new" widget for your product. Paste one <script> tag to add a bell icon with an unread-count badge to any page, write posts from a small admin dashboard, and see who actually opens them — all without the monthly-active-user pricing meter that Beamer runs on.
Install · Usage · Configuration · Limits · Changelog · Contributing · License Code of conduct · Security
Publishing a post from the admin dashboard, then reading it through the embeddable widget on a separate host page — unread badge, panel, and read state, all against a real local instance. Full quality: docs/assets/demo.mp4.
- Adds a bell-icon changelog widget to any page with a single
<script>tag — no build step, no framework required, ~3.6 KB gzipped - Shows an unread-count badge that clears when a visitor opens the panel, synced server-side for logged-in users across devices
- Ships a Markdown post editor with a live preview, draft/publish states, and a cover image
- Tracks per-post views and clicks, plus total widget opens, right in the dashboard
- Targets posts to specific visitors by attribute (e.g.
plan: "pro") — simple matching, not a segmentation engine to configure - Publishes a public, unauthenticated changelog page at
/changelogfrom the same posts - Runs on infrastructure you already have — one Node process and Postgres, no paid SaaS dependency, no telemetry
Beamer's free tier caps out at 1,000 monthly active users, and its paid tiers ($49–299+/mo) still bill on MAU — so the widget gets more expensive exactly when your product is succeeding. No maintained open-source alternative ships the actual Beamer shape (embeddable widget + unread badge + view/click analytics + audience targeting): Fider is a great feedback-board/voting tool, but it doesn't do this. Changeflare is deliberately small — a CMS and a JS snippet — so a single Postgres database and one Node process is the entire bill.
- Node.js 20+ and npm (only if running outside Docker)
- A Postgres database —
docker compose upprovisions one for free, or pointDATABASE_URLat any Postgres you already have (Neon, Supabase, Railway, RDS, ...) - Docker + Docker Compose, for the one-command self-hosting path (recommended)
Docker Compose (recommended — brings up Postgres too):
git clone https://github.com/Laaaaksh/changeflare.git
cd changeflare
cp .env.example .env # set SESSION_SECRET — see the comment in the file
docker compose up --buildChangeflare is now running at http://localhost:3000. Open it and create your admin account.
If port 5432 or 3000 is already taken on your machine, set POSTGRES_PORT
and/or APP_PORT in .env (commented out in .env.example) before running
docker compose up --build.
From source, against your own Postgres:
git clone https://github.com/Laaaaksh/changeflare.git
cd changeflare
npm install
cp apps/web/.env.example apps/web/.env # set DATABASE_URL and SESSION_SECRET
npm run db:migrate:deploy
npm run build
npm start-
Open your instance and create the admin account (first run only).
-
From the dashboard, click New post, write it in Markdown, and hit Publish.
-
Copy the install snippet the dashboard shows you, and paste it before
</body>on any page:<script src="https://your-instance.example/widget.js" async></script>
-
Reload that page — a bell icon appears in the bottom-right corner with an unread badge for your new post.
The same posts are also published at https://your-instance.example/changelog, an unauthenticated page you can link from a footer even if you also embed the widget.
Server — set via environment variables (see apps/web/.env.example):
| Variable | Required | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
DATABASE_URL |
yes | Postgres connection string |
SESSION_SECRET |
yes | Random 16+ char secret signing admin session cookies (openssl rand -base64 32) |
Widget — configure per install via data-* attributes on the script tag, or the JS API:
<script
src="https://your-instance.example/widget.js"
data-changeflare-user-id="user_123"
data-changeflare-attributes='{"plan":"pro"}'
async
></script>data-changeflare-user-id— a stable external id, so a visitor's read state follows them across browsers/devices instead of living only inlocalStoragedata-changeflare-attributes— a JSON object matched against each post's audience conditions (set per-post in the editor); a post with no conditions shows to everyonedata-changeflare-selector/data-changeflare-position— mount the trigger inside an existing element instead of a floating corner button
For a single-page app where the visitor logs in after the widget has already loaded, call window.Changeflare.identify(userId, attributes) instead of relying on the initial script tag.
- Single admin account. There's no invite flow, no roles, no team
members — whoever runs
/setupfirst is the only account that can ever log in. Fine for a solo maintainer or small team sharing one login; not built for per-person access control. - Audience targeting is simple attribute matching, not a rules engine. A post's conditions are ANDed against whatever attributes the widget was given — no OR logic, no percentage rollouts, no scheduling.
- No login rate limiting.
SECURITY.mdscopes this out deliberately — put a self-hosted instance behind a reverse proxy or WAF that rate-limits/api/loginif that matters for your deployment. - No TLS termination. Changeflare serves plain HTTP; run it behind a
reverse proxy (Caddy, nginx, your platform's load balancer) for anything
reachable outside
localhost. - Test coverage is unit-level only. The sanitizer, auth, and audience logic all have real assertion-based tests, but there's no browser/e2e test of the widget's actual DOM (bell icon, badge, Shadow DOM panel) yet.
- No email digests, in-app product tours, or roadmap/voting. Changeflare is deliberately just a changelog widget — Fider covers voting and roadmaps if you need that instead.
See CHANGELOG.md.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for the build/test workflow and release process.
See SECURITY.md for supported versions and how to report a vulnerability privately.
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