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Fizzy Local Kanban
37signals' Kanban board, deployed privately on my Mac to stay offline and learn from their code.
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Every cloud tool asks for an account. Then a subscription. Then it keeps your data. I wanted task management that stayed fast, private, and offline.
Fizzy is a Kanban board made by thirty-seven signals, the team behind Basecamp. I did not build it. I deployed a private copy to run on my Mac, so I could learn from their code, hands-on.
It runs on Ruby on Rails and SQLite. Hotwire makes the card interactions snappy. Drag columns, drag cards. Nothing leaves the machine. I start it from the terminal and update it by pulling from GitHub.
Running since December twenty twenty-five. Running beautifully built software yourself is a way to study it. Take a look.
Narrated in my own cloned voice, generated with ElevenLabs v4.
Every cloud tool asks for an account, then a subscription. Your data lives on someone else’s server, on their terms.
Fizzy is a Kanban board made by 37signals, the team behind Basecamp. I didn’t build it. I deployed a private copy to run on my Mac. I manage my tasks without any of those arrangements, and learn from their code, hands-on.
I wanted task management that stays fast, offline and mine. Nothing sent anywhere. No account to create, no subscription to maintain. Cloud tools come with conditions you have to accept to use them. I didn’t want those conditions.
Fizzy runs on Ruby on Rails and SQLite: no database to configure, nothing to spin up. Hotwire handles the card interactions, so moving things around feels immediate. Drag-and-drop columns and cards. Everything persists locally. I run it from the terminal and pull updates from GitHub when I want them.
That last part matters to me. Reading someone else’s code is one way to learn. Running it is another. Running beautifully built software yourself is a way to study it.
Running since December 2025. No public link.
The making
- Ruby on Rails
- SQLite
- Hotwire