Alternatives › Bondery
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Ciao! vs Bondery
Bondery, by Marek Svitek
An open-source personal CRM in your browser that imports people from LinkedIn and Instagram, logs what you did together, and nudges you when too much time has passed.
Not on the App Store: a web app, a Chrome extension and a self-hosted version, with a mobile app in development (October 2026). It is not the iPhone app called "Bondery: Keep Friends Close", which is a different product.
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Ciao!
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BBondery | |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | One payment $9.99 |
Free, or Premium at $10 a month |
| Free tier | 3 friends | Unlimited contacts |
| Account needed | None | Yes |
| Where it runs | iPhone | Web browser and a Chrome extension, or your own server |
| Where your notes live | Your phone and your own iCloud | Its servers in the EU, or your own server if you host it |
| A creature for each friend | 15 animals, 6 moods | No |
| A weekly swipe deck | Yes | No |
Every row comes from Bondery’s own App Store listing or website, read on 2 October 2026. Nothing here is taken from another app’s reviews.
Sources: Bondery on AlternativeTo · Bondery’s website
B Where Bondery wins
- •Free for as many people as you like. Ciao! is free for three friends.
- •It is open source, and you can run it on your own server with Docker if you want full control of the data.
- •It works on a computer and pulls profiles in from LinkedIn and Instagram, which helps when your friends and your work contacts are the same list.
Where Ciao! wins
- •It is an iPhone app you can download today. Bondery’s mobile app is still being built.
- •No account. Ciao! keeps everything on your phone and in your own iCloud, with no server of its own.
- •It is only about friends: a rhythm for each one, an animal that wakes up when you talk, and one deck on Sunday.
Which one should you actually get?
Get Bondery if you spend your day at a computer, want work contacts and friends in one place, or want to host your own data. It costs nothing for any number of people. Get Ciao! if you want to keep a few friendships going from your phone, with no sign-up and nothing to set up.
