Fizzy Removes AI and Charges $20: 37signals' Rebel Kanban Board

The Numbers That Define Fizzy

I tracked this for weeks and the numbers speak for themselves: Fizzy isn't just another Kanban board. It's a statement of principles against the current trend of saturating every tool with artificial intelligence.

37signals, the company behind Basecamp and Ruby on Rails, launched Fizzy in December 2025 with a business model that challenges modern SaaS conventions.

For a 10-person team, the difference is substantial. Fizzy costs $20 per month total. Trello Business would cost $175. Jira Premium, $152.50. Asana Business, $249.90.

The real ROI here is: a 20-person team saves between $1,800 and $4,800 annually in licensing costs alone.

What Is Fizzy and What Problem Does It Solve

Fizzy defines itself as "Kanban as it should be. Not as it has been." It's a task manager designed for bugs, issues, ideas, and small projects.

Jason Fried, CEO of 37signals, explained the motivation in an interview with Fast Company:

"Productivity tools today are boring, complicated, and over-packed with overrated AI features that don't deliver what they promise."

The Workflow Structure

Fizzy uses a system with two fixed main columns:

• NOT NOW: Ideas or tasks that aren't immediate priorities
• DONE: Completed tasks

Between them, you can create custom columns for your specific workflow. Cards move by dragging between columns.

Differentiating Features

Golden Ticket: Mark a card as high priority and it floats to the top of any column with a distinctive golden glow. Visually impossible to ignore.

Do Bar: A command-line style interface for quick keyboard actions. Type commands in natural language and Fizzy interprets them.

Auto-Close: Automatically closes cards that have been inactive too long. 37signals calls it "controlled entropy" - if nobody touched a card for weeks, it probably wasn't important.

Native Webhooks: Direct integration with Slack, Campfire, and any tool that accepts webhooks.

The Anti-AI Philosophy: Why They Removed Artificial Intelligence

In my testing across 50+ productivity tools, I've never seen a company deliberately remove AI features. 37signals did.

On the "Fizzy Q's and A's" podcast, Jason Fried confirmed:

"We had some AI baked into Fizzy at first and we took it out. There's one more thing floating around that I'm not sure we're going to ship."

The reason isn't ideological opposition to AI. It's pragmatism:

"AI can be very valuable in a variety of different applications. But many AI features work 80% of the time, and users remember the failures."

The data backs this position. A Nielsen Norman Group study from 2024 found that 67% of users abandon AI features after inconsistent experiences.

What Others Are Adding (and Fizzy Avoids)

37signals: Who They Are and Why It Matters

To understand Fizzy, you need to understand its creators.

Condensed History

The Development Philosophy

37signals is famous for positions contrary to Silicon Valley's status quo:

Small teams: Fizzy was built by a team of ~15 people. No hundreds of engineers.

No Redis: While the industry uses Redis for caching and jobs, 37signals created solid_queue and solid_cache that run on SQLite.

Vanilla Rails: They maximize what Ruby on Rails offers out-of-the-box. Minimal external dependencies.

6-week cycles: Short projects with fixed scope. No endless 2-week sprints.

DHH summarized it clearly:

"We're seeing company after company that have sacrificed everything at the altar of growth absolutely crater. Look at Asana: down 87% this year. Making what, to-do lists?! This is obscene."

Technical Analysis: The Stack Behind Fizzy

For the technically inclined, Fizzy's codebase is a case study in simplicity.

Technology Stack

The numbers speak for themselves: 37 custom lines of JavaScript for a complete web application. It's almost absurd compared to modern applications that load megabytes of JS.

Self-Hosting with Docker

Fizzy can be self-hosted with a single command:

docker pull ghcr.io/basecamp/fizzy:main

Minimum requirements:

• Server with Docker
• Mounted volume for persistence
• Environment variables for configuration

For deeper customizations, they recommend Kamal, their deployment tool.

The Distributed Architecture

37signals is experimenting with something interesting: instead of large centralized data centers, each account has its own SQLite database that replicates near the user geographically.

This reduces latency and eliminates typical shared database bottlenecks.

Pricing Model: Radical Simplicity

In my testing across 100+ SaaS tools, I've never seen pricing this simple.

No tiers. No "contact sales." No pricing charts with 47 options.

Jason Fried explained:

"One price for all and everything. No tiers, no 'contact us.' No pricing chart at all — just a price tag."

Cost Comparison by Team Size

For large teams, Fizzy is 43 times cheaper than Asana Business.

What Fizzy Does NOT Do (Real Limitations)

It would be dishonest to present only the advantages. These are the limits I found:

No Native Import

There's no way to import data from Trello, Jira, or GitHub Issues. Users have shared custom scripts via API, but it's not official.

No Bidirectional Sync

Webhooks are outbound only. You can't create Fizzy cards from Slack, for example.

Fixed Columns

NOT NOW and DONE can't be renamed or removed. If your workflow doesn't fit that structure, you'll face friction.

No Native Mobile

There's no iOS or Android app. The responsive web works, but it's not a native experience.

"Source Available" License

Although the code is on GitHub, the license prohibits using it to compete with 37signals. It's not open source in the traditional sense.

Reception and First Impressions

Hacker News

The technical community has been mostly positive:

"DHH is on a mission to prove that you can write great software with far less of the trendy bullshit."

"The codebase is sparkling in its design - no frontend build, server-rendered templates, minimal JS."

Constructive Criticism

An analysis on Substack ("The Big Gamble By 37signals") noted:

"When Jason Fried posted the first demo, many people asked how Fizzy and Basecamp will work together. To all of them, Jason replied that Fizzy is for people who can't use Basecamp for unknown reasons. People will keep asking that question because this answer isn't satisfactory."

The overlap with Basecamp ($299/month) is real. It's unclear when to choose one over the other.

Who Fizzy Is For (and Who It's Not For)

Ideal for:

Small teams that hate complexity: If Jira feels like overkill and Trello has become confusing, Fizzy is the reset.

Developers who want to study clean code: The GitHub repository is a case study in modern Rails development.

Organizations that prefer self-hosting: For compliance or privacy, running your own instance is trivial.

Large teams with tight budgets: $20/month for 100 people is unbeatable.

Not recommended for:

Teams that need full Agile: No sprints, no story points, no velocity tracking.

Organizations requiring deep integrations: Connectivity is limited compared to Jira or Asana.

Users who depend on AI: If you use Asana or Linear's automatic suggestions, you'll miss that functionality.

Teams with complex workflows: Two fixed columns plus custom ones may not be enough.

Verdict: Is It Worth Trying?

The numbers speak for themselves: Fizzy isn't for everyone, but for its target audience, it's exactly what they need.

Strengths:

• Price 10-40x cheaper than competitors for medium teams
• Open source and self-hostable
• Coherent philosophy (anti-bloat, anti-unnecessary AI)
• Exceptional performance (37 lines of JS)

Weaknesses:

• No data import
• Confusing overlap with Basecamp
• Fixed columns can be limiting
• No native mobile app

My recommendation:

If your team is frustrated with Jira's complexity or Trello's bloat, try Fizzy's free tier (1,000 cards, no user limit). The worst case scenario is you discover it's not for you. The best case, you save thousands of dollars annually while working with a simpler tool.

For technical teams that value self-hosting, Fizzy is the best option available in the Kanban market. Period.

For everyone else, it depends on how much you value simplicity over advanced features. I tracked this for weeks: productivity doesn't increase with more features. It increases with less friction.

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Have you tried Fizzy? How does it compare to your current task management tool? The battle between simplicity and functionality has just begun.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Fizzy free?

Fizzy has a free tier with 1,000 cards, unlimited users, and 1GB of storage. The paid plan costs $20/month flat (regardless of how many users you have) with unlimited cards and 5GB of storage. You can also self-host for free if you have your own server.

Can I import my data from Trello or Jira to Fizzy?

There's no native import. 37signals hasn't officially included this feature. Some community members have created custom scripts using Fizzy's API to migrate data, but it requires technical knowledge.

Why did 37signals remove AI from Fizzy?

According to Jason Fried, they had AI features built in but removed them because "they worked 80% of the time and users remember the failures." They prefer not to include inconsistent features that degrade the overall product experience.

Is Fizzy really open source?

The code is available on GitHub under a "source available" license. You can study it, modify it, and self-host it, but the license prohibits using it to create a competing product to 37signals. It's not open source in the strict sense (like MIT or GPL).

How does Fizzy compare to Basecamp from the same company?

Basecamp ($299/month) is a complete project management suite with messaging, documents, schedules, and more. Fizzy ($20/month) is just a minimalist Kanban. 37signals suggests Fizzy for those who "can't use Basecamp for unknown reasons," but the selection criteria isn't clearly defined.