Geekbot is $3/user/mo. Campfire is a self-hosted alternative at $0.99/mo. Here's when each makes sense.
| Campfire | Geekbot | |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Self-hosted, your infra | Managed SaaS (cloud only) |
| Data location | Your server, your disk | Geekbot's cloud |
| Free tier | 1 team, 5 members | Paid only |
| Pro pricing | $0.99/mo | $3/user/mo |
| Dependencies | None (single binary + SQLite) | N/A (managed) |
| Setup time | ~30 seconds | Account signup |
| Dashboard | Built-in at /ui | Cloud dashboard |
| License | BSL 1.1 | Proprietary SaaS |
Campfire is a single Go binary with embedded SQLite. Install it with one command, and you are running in under a minute. Your data stays on your server.
curl -fsSL https://stockyard.dev/campfire/install.sh | sh
Before choosing between Campfire and Geekbot, consider what happens when you need to leave. Geekbot exports vary in completeness — some fields, some history, some metadata may not come with you. Campfire stores everything in a single SQLite file. Leaving means copying that file. This is not a hypothetical concern: the average team changes tools every 18 to 24 months.
Campfire runs as a single static binary with an embedded SQLite database. There is no application server, no cache layer, no background worker. One process handles HTTP requests and reads from and writes to the database file directly. This simplicity is the entire point — fewer moving parts means fewer things that can break at 2 AM.
Moving from Geekbot does not have to be all-or-nothing. Some teams run Campfire for new data while keeping Geekbot as a read-only archive of historical records. The API makes it straightforward to build a sync script if you need both systems to reflect the same data during a transition period.
Single binary. Free to start. $0.99/mo for Pro.