Fider

What is Fider

Fider is a tool for collecting and managing customer feedback. Its main purpose is to help companies understand which new features or improvements their users want most. It works like a forum where customers can post ideas, and other users can vote for the ideas they like. This voting system makes it easy for product managers to see the most popular requests and make better decisions about what to build next. Fider is an open-source project from Northern App Labs Ltd. It is designed to be simple and easy to use, for both the company and its customers. You can use their paid cloud service or host it on your own server for free.

Fider Features

Fider offers several features to manage customer ideas effectively.

• Feature Voting and Discussion: Users can submit their own ideas and vote on suggestions from others. This helps to rank ideas by popularity. They can also leave comments to discuss the details.
• Automated Notifications: When the status of a suggestion changes (for example, from 'Planned' to 'In Progress'), Fider automatically sends an email to everyone who voted for or commented on it. This keeps users informed.
• One-Click Sign-In: To make it easy for users to participate, Fider allows them to sign in using their existing accounts from Google, GitHub, Facebook, Discord, and other OAuth2 providers.
• Private Site: You can make your feedback board private. This means only people you invite can access it, which is useful for internal feedback or beta testing groups.
• Brand Customization: You can change the look of your Fider site to match your company's brand. This includes adding your logo and using custom CSS to change colors and styles.
• Public API: Fider provides a developer API to connect it with other systems and build custom workflows.
• Webhook Integrations: You can connect Fider to other applications like Slack or Discord using webhooks. This allows you to get real-time notifications in your team's chat channels.
• Multi-language Support: The interface is translated into more than 10 languages, including Spanish, German, French, and Portuguese, making it accessible to a global audience.
• Tagging System: You can organize ideas using tags. Tags can be public for everyone to see, or private for your team's internal use.
• Markdown Support: Users can format their posts and comments using Markdown for better readability.
• Custom Domain: If you use the hosted service, you can use your own domain name for your feedback portal, like feedback.yourcompany.com.
• Open Source: The entire Fider platform is open source, which means you can host it yourself for free and even modify the code if you need to.

Fider Pricing Plans

Fider has a straightforward pricing structure. There is one main paid plan called Fider Cloud Subscription. This plan is all-inclusive, meaning it gives you access to every feature the platform offers. It includes unlimited customers, unlimited feedback posts, and unlimited team members. This plan is designed for businesses of any size that want a managed solution without worrying about hosting or maintenance.

Besides the paid cloud plan, Fider is also available as a Self-Hosted Open Source version. This option is free to use but requires you to install and maintain the software on your own server. It is a good choice for developers or companies with the technical resources to manage their own hosting.

Fider Free Plan

Fider does not offer a permanent free plan for its cloud-hosted service. However, it provides a 15-day free trial for the Fider Cloud Subscription. This trial gives you full access to all features without needing a credit card to start. This allows you to test the platform completely before deciding to subscribe.

For those looking for a completely free option, the self-hosted version of Fider is 100% free. You can download the source code and run it on your own infrastructure. This gives you all the core functionality without any cost, but you are responsible for setup, updates, and server costs.

How to use Fider

Getting started with Fider is a simple process. Here is a typical workflow:

1. Set Up Your Site: First, you need to sign up for the Fider Cloud trial or install the open-source version on your server. Once your site is ready, you can customize it. Add your company logo, change the colors with CSS, and edit the welcome text to match your brand.
2. Invite Your Users: Share the link to your new Fider site with your customers. You can put the link on your website, in your app, or in your email newsletters. Encourage them to share their ideas for improving your product.
3. Collect Feedback: Users can now visit your site, sign in easily with their social accounts, and start submitting ideas. They can also browse existing ideas, vote for the ones they find important, and add comments to join the discussion.
4. Prioritize and Respond: As the product manager, you can monitor the feedback board to see which suggestions get the most votes. This data helps you prioritize your product roadmap. You can update the status of ideas to 'Under Review', 'Planned', or 'Completed' and add official comments. When you update a status, Fider will notify all interested users automatically.

By following these steps, you create a transparent system for managing feedback and keep your community engaged in your product's development.

Pros and Cons of Fider

Pros:

• Very Simple to Use: The interface is clean and intuitive, making it easy for both users and administrators to navigate.
• Open Source: The free self-hosted option provides great value and flexibility for technical teams.
• All-Inclusive Pricing: The single paid plan is simple and includes all features with no limits on users or feedback.
• Good Notification System: Automatically keeps users updated on the status of their suggestions, which builds trust.
• Easy User Onboarding: Support for many social sign-in options removes barriers for users to participate.

Cons:

• Limited Direct Integrations: It relies mainly on webhooks and its API for integrations, lacking the pre-built connections that some competitors offer.
• Basic Functionality: It focuses only on feature voting and may lack advanced product management tools like detailed roadmapping or user segmentation that larger platforms have.
• Self-Hosting Requires Technical Skill: While the open-source version is free, it requires server management and maintenance knowledge.

Fider integrations

Fider's integration strategy focuses on flexibility through webhooks and its API.

• Webhook Integrations: Fider can send notifications to any service that accepts webhooks. This is commonly used to connect with team communication tools.
  • Slack: You can receive real-time notifications about new posts and comments directly in your Slack channels.
  • Discord: Similar to Slack, you can set up a webhook to post updates to a Discord channel.
• OAuth Sign-In Providers: Fider integrates with many authentication providers to make it easy for users to sign in.
  • Google, GitHub, Facebook, Twitch, Discord, Azure AD: Users can log in with one click using these popular services.

Fider Alternatives

If Fider is not the right fit, here are some other popular tools for managing product feedback:

• Canny: A popular alternative that offers more advanced features, including product roadmaps and user segmentation. It is often used by larger SaaS companies and is generally more expensive.
• Upvoty: Similar to Fider, Upvoty provides feedback boards, product roadmaps, and a changelog. It offers a complete feedback loop in one tool and has a different pricing structure based on the number of users.
• Productboard: This is a comprehensive product management platform where feedback collection is just one part. It helps teams centralize feedback, prioritize features, and create detailed roadmaps. It is more complex and powerful than Fider.
• Nolt: A very simple and modern-looking feedback tool. It is very similar to Fider in its core function but has a different design and pricing model.

Fider API

Yes, Fider provides a public REST API that allows developers to interact with the platform programmatically. You can use the API to create, read, update, and delete posts, comments, and votes. This enables you to build custom integrations with your internal systems or other applications.

To use the API, you first need to generate an API Key. This is typically done within the administration settings of your Fider account. Once you have the key, you include it in the header of your API requests for authentication.

Here is a basic cURL example of how you might fetch a list of posts from your Fider site:

curl -X GET \
  https://your-fider-instance.com/api/v1/posts \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json'

For full details, you should check the official Fider documentation on their website.

Fider Affiliate program

Fider does not have a publicly advertised affiliate or reseller program. Information about partnerships is not available on their website. If you are interested in promoting Fider and believe you can bring new customers, it is best to contact their support team directly. You can email them to ask about any potential partnership, influencer, or referral opportunities they might offer privately.