Astuto

What is Astuto

Astuto is an open-source customer feedback tool designed to help businesses collect, analyze, and manage suggestions from their users. Its main purpose is to provide a centralized platform where companies can gather ideas, understand customer needs, and prioritize what features to build next. As an open-source project, Astuto can be self-hosted, which gives companies complete control over their data and the application's environment. This makes it a popular choice for developers, startups, and businesses that prioritize data privacy and customization. The tool focuses on simplicity and transparency, offering features like public roadmaps and voting systems to keep customers engaged and informed about product development.

Astuto Features

Astuto provides a focused set of features for effective feedback management.

• Feedback Boards: Create a dedicated space where users can submit new ideas, suggestions, and bug reports.
• Voting System: Allows other users to vote on submissions, helping product teams quickly identify the most popular requests.
• Public Roadmap: Share your development plans with customers. You can display features that are planned, in progress, and completed, which builds trust and transparency.
• Simple Sign In: Users can sign in with their email address or through common OAuth providers like Google and Facebook, making it easy to participate.
• Anonymous Feedback: You can allow users to post feedback without creating an account. This reduces friction and can increase the amount of feedback you receive.
• Integrations via Webhooks: Connect Astuto to other tools in your workflow, such as Jira, Trello, or Slack. For example, you can automatically create a Jira ticket when a new piece of feedback is submitted.
• REST API: A powerful API allows developers to programmatically manage feedback, integrate Astuto into custom applications, and automate workflows.
• Moderation Tools: Admins can approve or reject feedback before it appears publicly on the board. This helps maintain quality and prevent spam.
• Multi-language Support: The interface is available in several languages, including English, Spanish, French, and German, making it accessible for global user bases.
• Brand Customization: You can customize the style and appearance of your feedback board to match your company's branding.

Astuto Pricing Plans

Astuto's pricing model is based on its open-source nature.

• Self-Hosted Plan: This is the primary offering and is completely free. You can download the Astuto software and host it on your own server. This plan includes all features without any limitations. The only costs are related to your own server infrastructure and the technical resources needed for setup and maintenance. It is ideal for users with technical expertise who want full control.

• Managed Hosting: While not offered directly by the core project, third-party services may provide managed hosting for Astuto. These services would typically offer tiered pricing plans based on factors like the number of users, traffic, and level of support. Such plans are suited for businesses that want to use Astuto without managing the technical infrastructure themselves.

Astuto Free Plan

Yes, Astuto has a free plan. Because it is open-source software, the core product is entirely free to use when you host it yourself. The self-hosted version provides access to all features without any restrictions on the number of users, feedback posts, or boards. There is no trial period because the software itself is free forever. The main consideration for the free plan is the cost and effort of setting up and maintaining your own server.

How to use Astuto

Getting started with Astuto involves a few straightforward steps.

1. Installation: First, you need to deploy Astuto. This requires a server where you can run the application. Follow the official documentation to install it using Docker or from the source code.
2. Configuration: Once installed, access the admin dashboard to configure your feedback space. Customize the appearance with your brand colors and logo, set up sign-in methods (like email or Google), and configure moderation settings.
3. Share Your Board: Share the URL of your Astuto feedback board with your customers. You can link to it from your website, app, or email newsletters.
4. Collect Feedback: Customers visit your board to submit new ideas or browse and vote on existing ones. They can also comment to add more context to a suggestion.
5. Analyze and Prioritize: Regularly review the feedback submitted. Pay attention to the posts with the most votes to understand what your customers want most.
6. Update Your Roadmap: When you decide to work on a suggestion, move it to your public roadmap. Update its status from 'Planned' to 'In Progress' and finally to 'Completed' to keep your users informed of your progress.

Pros and Cons of Astuto

Pros:

• Completely Free: As open-source software, there are no licensing fees.
• Full Data Ownership: Self-hosting means you have complete control over your customer data.
• Highly Customizable: You can modify the source code and appearance to perfectly fit your needs.
• No Feature Limits: The free, self-hosted version includes all available features.
• Builds Transparency: The public roadmap feature helps build trust with your user community.

Cons:

• Requires Technical Knowledge: Setting up and maintaining a server can be challenging for non-technical users.
• Maintenance Responsibility: You are responsible for all updates, security patches, and server uptime.
• Limited Direct Support: Support comes from the community through forums or GitHub, not a dedicated support team.
• Fewer Advanced Features: May lack some of the in-depth analytics and enterprise-level features found in paid SaaS alternatives.

Astuto integrations

Astuto supports integrations with other applications primarily through webhooks, which offer great flexibility. You can configure webhooks to trigger actions in other tools when an event happens in Astuto.

• Jira Integration: Automatically create a new issue in a Jira project when feedback is submitted or reaches a certain number of votes.
• Trello Integration: Create a new card on a Trello board for each new feedback post, making it easy to track ideas in a visual workflow.
• Slack Integration: Send a notification to a designated Slack channel whenever new feedback is posted, keeping your team updated in real-time.
• Custom Integrations: Using webhooks, you can connect Astuto to thousands of other apps through services like Zapier or by building your own custom scripts.

Astuto Alternatives

• Canny: A popular commercial alternative that offers a more polished user interface, advanced analytics, and dedicated support. It is a good choice for businesses that prefer a managed SaaS solution.
• Fider: Another open-source feedback tool similar to Astuto. Fider is also self-hostable and free, offering a simple and clean interface for collecting and prioritizing ideas.
• Upvoty: A user-friendly SaaS tool that provides feedback boards, product roadmaps, and changelogs in one package. It is known for its ease of use and clean design.
• Productboard: A comprehensive product management platform for larger teams. It combines customer feedback with roadmapping and prioritization tools to help teams make strategic product decisions.
• Nolt: A lightweight and simple feedback tool that is easy to embed into any website or application. It offers a clean interface for voting and commenting on ideas.

Astuto API

Yes, Astuto provides a REST API for developers. The API allows you to programmatically interact with your feedback data, enabling you to build custom integrations, automate tasks, and pull data into other systems. Since Astuto is self-hosted, you can generate an API key from within the admin settings of your own instance. There is no cost to use the API.

Here is a basic example of how to fetch feedback posts using the API with cURL:

# Replace YOUR_ASTUTO_URL and YOUR_API_KEY with your actual details

curl -X GET 'https://YOUR_ASTUTO_URL/api/v1/posts' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json'

For detailed information, you should consult the API documentation that comes with your Astuto installation.

Astuto Affiliate program

As an open-source project, Astuto does not have a traditional affiliate program where you can earn commissions for referrals. The project is maintained by a community of contributors and is free for everyone to use. If you wish to support and promote Astuto, you can contribute to the project on GitHub, write blog posts or create tutorials about it, or recommend it to others in your network. For partnership inquiries, it is best to reach out to the project maintainers directly through their official communication channels.