Alternatives › Monica
vs
M
Ciao! vs Monica
Monica, the open-source personal CRM, by Regis Freyd
A web app for remembering the people in your life, with notes, important dates, gifts, debts, activities and reminders to get back in touch, and you can run it on your own server.
Not in the App Store, so no ratings there, October 2026. It runs in a browser, hosted or on your own server, and its site says Monica v3, better on phones, is coming before the end of 2026.
|
Ciao!
|
MMonica | |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | One payment $9.99 |
$9 a month or $90 a year hosted. Free if you run it on your own server |
| Free tier | 3 friends | 30-day trial of the hosted plan. Self-hosting is free with no limits |
| Account needed | None | Yes |
| Where it runs | iPhone | Any browser (no phone app yet) |
| Where your notes live | Your phone and your own iCloud | Monica’s servers, or a server you run yourself |
| A creature for each friend | 15 animals, 6 moods | No |
| A weekly swipe deck | Yes | No |
Every row comes from Monica’s own App Store listing or website, read on 2 October 2026. Nothing here is taken from another app’s reviews.
Sources: Monica on AlternativeTo · Monica’s website
M Where Monica wins
- •It is open source. You can read the code, and run it on your own server for free for as long as you like.
- •It works in any browser, on a phone, a tablet or a computer. Ciao! is iPhone only.
- •Much more room for each person: how you know each other, family links, gifts, debts, promises, a journal and file attachments. Ciao! keeps a short note and a birthday.
Where Ciao! wins
- •No account and no server to look after. You open the app and add a friend.
- •Each friend has a rhythm, like every 3 weeks, and a timer that counts from the last time you talked. In Monica you set each reminder yourself.
- •On Sunday you get one deck of the friends who are due, and you swipe through it.
Which one should you actually get?
Monica is the better pick if you want a detailed record of everyone, open in a browser or on a server you run, and self-hosting costs nothing. Ciao! does less on purpose. It is for iPhone users who mostly want to know who is due this week, with nothing to sign up for or maintain.
