I’ve been using various contact managers but they all feel like sales tools, so I built Nametag to track the people I actually care about - friends, family, colleagues. It maps relationships, tracks birthdays, and visualizes your network as an interactive graph.
Self-hosting highlights:
- Docker Compose setup - PostgreSQL, Redis, Next.js app. One command to start
- No email service needed - Accounts auto-verify, works completely offline
- Unlimited contacts - No artificial limits (hosted version caps free tier at 50)
- Complete data ownership - Your relationship data stays on your infrastructure
- Optional email - Can configure Resend if you want birthday/reminder emails
- No phone-home - Runs entirely on your network if you want
- AGPL-3.0 licensed - Full source access
Features:
- Track people with flexible attributes (name, birthday, contact info, notes)
- Map relationships between people (family, friends, colleagues, custom types)
- Interactive D3.js network graph visualization
- Custom groups for organizing contacts
- Birthday reminders (if you configure email)
- Dark mode, i18n (English and Spanish for now, but more are coming)
- Mobile-responsive
Tech stack:
- Next.js 16 (TypeScript)
- PostgreSQL + Prisma ORM
- Redis for rate limiting
- D3.js for graph visualization
- Tailwind CSS
Quick start:
git clone https://github.com/mattogodoy/nametag
cd nametag
# Edit .env with your secrets
docker-compose up -d
Database migrations run automatically on first start.
Access at localhost:3000.
There’s also a hosted version at https://nametag.one/ if you don’t want to self-host (helps fund development).
GitHub: https://github.com/mattogodoy/nametag
Happy to answer questions about the setup, architecture, or deployment!
Quick question, when hosted plan says up to 50 people, is that you can add 50 people to remember or 50 people can access one database?
It means you can add up to 50 contacts. I might have to clarify that. Thanks!
A+ for custom connection types. Polycules rejoyce!
Does it have caldav/carddav capabilities? That’s key to keep it all there.
It’s on the works!
Oh, snap. Thanks so much. This is great stuff.
I was about to comment “Who has such a vast family to not be able to keep track (excluding the really extended family)?”
That would make more sense.
Would you mind taking a look at this issue? https://github.com/mattogodoy/nametag/issues/15 I’m planning the implementation for CalDAV/CardDAV and have a few high level questions I’d like your opinion on. Thanks!
Sorry for the late reply. My wife has been keeping me busy with shit I don’t want to do.
Looking at the conversation on github, I saw the first suggestion being the inclusion of pimsync into the docker compose file. I’m no developer, but it stands to reason that the same challenges remain if doing this because at the end of the day, pimsync is just a parser to sync with file systems, and for it to work with carddav the other party would still need to support carddav, right? So that idea is dead in the water.I am going to reply now to your 4 questions in the github. My handle is ‘mofongox’.Edit. I was a complete moron and chose to asume before even trying the software. I replied to your comment on GitHub just now, and now that I’m clear on what this actually does (thank you for your patience man) I fixed my reply accordingly. The short of it is that any way to import the information from a carddav server, or even a template on how to format an import json file for the purpose of adding people should suffice. Thanks so much for this great addition to the FOSS community.
I remember using Monica years back for something similar. Quickly lost the habits of using it since it was a lot of work updating and it didn’t feel like it was worth the effort.
That’s one of the reasons I started this project. Monica is a bit too complex for my needs.
Makes sense. Good work.
Same here. I still have a Monica instance running, but I don’t think I’ve touched it in at least a year…
Congratulations on the launch! Could this also be used as a genealogy tree? I’ve been wanting for a long time to create mine but the options I found were too expensive and I wasn’t up to create it from scratch (too long and not future proof).
Ugh, also looking for a way to digitalize mine, but all tools I’ve found are either way too complex or lack critical functions, like e. g. supporting patchwork families/split-up parents which have new children.
Thank you! Yes, I’ve thought about this and it’s in my roadmap to create an “export group as family tree to PDF” function. Would that be good enough for your needs?
This looks fun. I think I’m going to try that.
I’ve also just randomly noticed that the link on alternative.to doesn’t work for whatever reason: https://alternativeto.net/software/monica/?toid=nametag--never-forget-a-name-again
That’s true! I think it might be because I just submitted it and it’s currently under review
Great scott! That’s heavy.
This looks great. I’m running a Teable instance, but sometimes it feels like it is “too much” sometimes.
I think I’ll deploy this for fun to check out. I don’t see anything specific here for things like gift ideas or favorite flowers/colors? Like custom tags/categories/attributes.
I’m using Teable to track things like that, but I love the visualization here, reminds me of my obsidian mind map lol.
Thanks for the feedback! I wanted to keep it simple, so I just added a single notes field for purposes like those. This said, I am also considering adding custom attributes to people to solve these needs that apply to some of the contacts, but not all.
I would appreciate some type of custom attributes, but the notes section works fine as-is, so definitely not a huge “need” IMO.
I have used Monica/other CRMs in the past, but they all felt a bit too corporate or “sales” driven like you said in your OP.
I spun up a quick docker instance in my test environment and I’m using it right now, it’s been quite solid! I do have some confusion with how relationships get applied(from/to in regards to child/parent), but I believe I just need to use it a bit more to get used to the “flow” of how it is supposed to work.
My biggest want/need is being able to select multiple people at once to add to another person, so I guess a “bulk” edit or multi-select. Like adding 10 “child” to one “parent” at once if all of the children have already been created. Or if some logic can be applied where if one parent(dad) has three children, then you add a spouse(mom) to dad, then nametag can auto-add or offer to bulk edit the three children to add the new spouse(mom) as a parent too? Just quicker/better/fluid workflow.
Again, the site as-is is already solid. Just some fine-tuning IMO.
Thank you so much! This is very valuable feedback. I’ll add bulk edits to my to-do list :)
Looks good. I’ve considered a personal CRM for some time and have been using Obsidian a little bit. Having said that, I am open to something more tailored to the task. A question: what would it look like if someone wanted to export their data out of this tool later? Do I need to be a programmer to migrate away or is it relatively simple?
There is an “export” option in the account settings :) It’s not in any specific standard (I’m planning to implement CardDAV soon), but it’s exported to JSON, so you can see all the data.
Great to hear. I might give it a try in a limited area, like meeting people from a new hobby or friend group, then expand from there if it works f or me. I definitely see the benefit, especially for ADHD types who might otherwise forget to call someone for 1…2…3…12 months. :-D Thank you for making a cool piece of software.
Great! Thanks for your kind words. Let me know if you like it :)
No reason this should need a server.
Couldn’t the same be said for just about any self-hosted app? You can watch video files with a local video player, so no need for Jellyfin; you can save passwords in KeePass, so no need for Vaultwarden; etc.
Seems to me like, if you’d like to have access to this app along with your data from any computer without having to overlay a separate data syncing solution and install a local app on each of those computers, that’s justification enough. Or maybe I’m just not understanding your critique here…
It’s not Minecraft. My contacts list is not multiplayer.
It’s not a video file. How many terabytes do you think my contacts list is?
How many people do you think are getting a server before getting a file sync app?
Not many… but this community isn’t for those people. It’s for people who are already predisposed to self-hosting software.
How many people do you think are finding his place before file sync?
But I have multiple devices and want to access it from all of them.
That don’t need a server.
How else would you do it? With a Synchronisation client? Where you need to make sure that all devices are online at the same time?
Or would you sync it over the cloud? Which would mean a server but not yours.
You turn off your phone to use the computer? lmao
No, but my laptop and desktop are seldomly online at the same time.
