At a Glance:
ShipShipShip is a self-hostable changelog and roadmap platform with a kanban board, emoji reactions, voting, and automated newsletter capabilities, deployable via Docker and managed through a SvelteKit admin panel with a Go backend.
Overview:
ShipShipShip is a self-hosted platform for publishing product changelogs and managing a public roadmap. It is designed for developers and teams who want to share product updates and gather user feedback outside of a third-party service. The project combines a WYSIWYG event editor with community interaction tools. A kanban board with customizable statuses helps manage the release pipeline, while emoji reactions and voting collect community sentiment. A built-in email system can automatically send newsletters when events move to specific statuses. The admin interface is separate from the public-facing page, which is controlled by installable, theme-based configurations. ShipShipShip ships as a single Docker container with a Go backend and SQLite database.
Key Decision Points:
Self-Hosted Deployment: The platform runs on your own infrastructure via Docker, supporting AMD64 and ARM64 architectures. Configuration is managed entirely through environment variables.
Operational Model: It uses a Go backend with an SQLite database, which simplifies management but may not scale to the same levels as a client-server database for extremely high-traffic public pages.
Public vs. Admin Interface: The admin panel and the public changelog are distinct. The public view is completely controlled by installable themes, and without one installed, the root URL exposes the admin interface for setup.
Community Feedback Loop: User interaction is directly supported through eight specific emoji reaction types and a voting system on proposed features, making it a direct communication channel, not just a broadcast tool.
Core Features:
TipTap-Based Event Editor: A rich text editor for creating update posts, with support for markdown, tags, and media uploads.
Kanban Pipeline Board: A drag-and-drop interface to manage the status of upcoming changes and releases, with customizable status columns.
Emoji Reaction and Voting System: Pre-defined emoji reactions (👍❤️🔥🎉👀💡🤔👎) and a feature voting system to measure community interest directly on changelog entries.
Installable Theme System: A manifest-based theme engine where custom, shareable themes can be uploaded via the admin panel to completely control the look and feel of the public-facing page.
Status-Triggered Newsletter Automation: An email engine that can be configured to automatically send newsletters to subscribers when an event’s status is changed, such as moving to "Released."
RESTful Admin API: A complete JSON API protected by JWT authentication, enabling programmatic management of events, statuses, and other entities.
Use Cases:
Developers launching a new product who need an immediate, self-hosted public changelog and feature voting board without building one from scratch.
System administrators looking to deploy a simple, single-container feedback and announcement tool for an internal tool or private project.
Product teams who want to replace a SaaS changelog tool with a system that they can manage alongside their application infrastructure using Docker Compose.
Open-source maintainers wanting to provide a public roadmap where users can react to and vote on upcoming features directly on their own domain.
Open-Source Alternative Value:
ShipShipShip provides a self-hosted path for managing product announcements and gathering user feedback, serving as an alternative to third-party changelog-as-a-service tools. Its value lies in its deployment model: it runs as a single Docker container on your own infrastructure, backed by a simple SQLite database and configured entirely through environment variables. The availability of the source under the Apache 2.0 license, combined with a theme system and REST API, allows for customization and integration at the code and interface level, which is distinct from platforms that are purely controlled via a hosted dashboard.
