The best public roadmap tool depends on where the roadmap's items come from. If they come from customer votes, use a feedback tool with a roadmap built in: Canny, Featurebase, Frill, Nolt or Looph. If the roadmap is the output of internal planning across many teams, Productboard. If release communication is a formal process, LaunchNotes. If your customers are developers who already live on GitHub, a public GitHub project costs nothing. We make Looph, so it is listed last and marked as ours. Every figure below was read on the vendor's own pages, and each section cites its source.
What a public roadmap tool does
A public roadmap tells customers what you plan to build, what you are building and what has shipped. The tool matters less for the page itself than for what feeds it: a roadmap connected to customer feedback carries the votes behind each item and can tell the people who asked when it moves, which is what stops a roadmap going stale.
Public roadmap tools compared
Starting price is the cheapest paid plan with the billing basis the vendor states. Free option says whether you can publish a roadmap without paying. Tool names with a comparison page link to it.
| Tool | Starting price | Free option | Voting | Best for | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canny | $79/mo billed annually ($99 monthly), Pro | Yes: the free plan includes a public roadmap | Yes | Teams that want the roadmap to grow out of customer votes | Canny: public roadmap |
| Featurebase | $29/seat/mo billed yearly (Growth) | Yes: 1 roadmap on the free plan | Yes | Teams that also want a helpdesk from the same vendor | Featurebase pricing |
| Frill | $22/mo billed yearly ($25 monthly), Startup | No; 14-day trial, no credit card | Yes | Small SaaS teams that want ideas, a roadmap and announcements in one tool | Frill pricing |
| Nolt | $29/mo billed annually ($39 monthly), Essential | No; new boards get a 10-day trial of Pro | Yes | One product that needs a board and roadmap quickly | Nolt pricing |
| Productboard | Not published | No | Importance ratings in the portal | Larger product orgs that plan across several teams | Productboard pricing |
| LaunchNotes | $833/mo billed annually ($999 monthly), Growth (1 page, 2 users) | No; a 14-day trial set up after a demo | Idea voting is listed | Product ops teams running release communication as a process | LaunchNotes pricing |
| GitHub Projects | $0 on GitHub Free | Yes: GitHub Free includes Issues & Projects | No built-in voting | Developer tools whose customers already live on GitHub | GitHub pricing |
| Looph (ours) | $19/mo, or $190/yr billed yearly, Starter | Yes: the Free plan includes the public roadmap | Yes, one vote per signed-in person; weighting by plan or revenue coming soon | Teams that want every voter told when their request ships | See flat pricing |
1. Canny: a roadmap fed by the feedback board
Canny's roadmap sits on top of its feedback board: customers vote on requests, and changing a status in Canny moves the item on the public roadmap. Its roadmap page says the customers who requested a feature are notified as it moves forward, and that a public roadmap can be built on the free plan.
What to watch: Everyone who votes, comments or posts is a tracked user, which is what Canny bills on, so a roadmap that draws customers in also moves you up the tiers.
- Starting price
- $79/mo billed annually ($99 monthly), Pro
- Free option
- Yes: the free plan includes a public roadmap
- Voting
- Yes
Read next: Looph vs Canny
Source: Canny: public roadmap
2. Featurebase: roadmaps counted per plan, inside a support suite
Featurebase's pricing table counts roadmaps per plan: 1 on Free, 5 on Growth, 10 on Professional and unlimited on Enterprise. The roadmap sits alongside its feedback boards, changelog and helpdesk in one subscription.
What to watch: Paid plans are priced per seat, with AI resolutions charged per use on top, and the public changelog page that usually accompanies a roadmap starts on Growth.
- Starting price
- $29/seat/mo billed yearly (Growth)
- Free option
- Yes: 1 roadmap on the free plan
- Voting
- Yes
Read next: Looph vs Featurebase
Source: Featurebase pricing
3. Frill: a simple roadmap on every plan
Frill's pricing table includes the roadmap, micro roadmaps and show-or-hide columns on every tier. Its homepage says everyone who voted is notified by email and in-app when an idea moves to Planned or Shipped. ETAs and a timeline view are listed as coming soon.
What to watch: The Startup plan caps active ideas at 50, and keeping the board and roadmap private is a paid add-on until the Growth plan.
- Starting price
- $22/mo billed yearly ($25 monthly), Startup
- Free option
- No; 14-day trial, no credit card
- Voting
- Yes
Read next: Looph vs Frill
Sources: Frill pricing, Frill
4. Nolt: a roadmap on the entry plan of a one-board tool
Nolt lists the roadmap on its entry Essential plan. Its features page says people can subscribe to posts and get email notifications on new comments and status updates, so a roadmap move reaches the people following the request.
What to watch: Essential allows one board and Pro five; unlimited boards, SAML and SCIM sit in custom-priced Enterprise.
- Starting price
- $29/mo billed annually ($39 monthly), Essential
- Free option
- No; new boards get a 10-day trial of Pro
- Voting
- Yes
Read next: Looph vs Nolt
Sources: Nolt pricing, Nolt features
5. Productboard: internal roadmaps with a customer portal
Productboard is built around internal roadmaps: timeline and column-based roadmaps and customisable templates are on both of its plans. What customers see is the Product Portal, where they rate how important an item is rather than upvoting it; Business includes two portals.
What to watch: No plan prices are published: Business is sold through a demo request and Enterprise through sales, both priced per maker with a five-maker minimum.
- Starting price
- Not published
- Free option
- No
- Voting
- Importance ratings in the portal
Read next: Looph vs Productboard
Sources: Productboard pricing, Productboard: getting started with portals
6. LaunchNotes: roadmap subscriptions for formal release communication
LaunchNotes includes a roadmap on its Growth plan, and its feature table lists stage-change notifications, roadmap subscriptions, stage-based visibility, a timeline view and promoting feedback onto the roadmap, alongside its announcements and feedback tools.
What to watch: It is the most expensive starting point here, and Growth covers one LaunchNotes page and two users; more pages, more users and SAML are on custom-priced Premium.
- Starting price
- $833/mo billed annually ($999 monthly), Growth (1 page, 2 users)
- Free option
- No; a 14-day trial set up after a demo
- Voting
- Idea voting is listed
Source: LaunchNotes pricing
7. GitHub Projects: a free roadmap view for developer audiences
GitHub Projects lays issues out as a table, a board or a roadmap, and an organisation owner can set a project's visibility to public. Two of the twelve public roadmaps we reviewed, GitHub's own and the AWS containers roadmap, are GitHub projects.
What to watch: It is a project-management view, not a feedback tool: there is no voting, no customer sign-in separate from GitHub accounts and no notice to requesters when an item ships beyond GitHub's own issue notifications.
- Starting price
- $0 on GitHub Free
- Free option
- Yes: GitHub Free includes Issues & Projects
- Voting
- No built-in voting
8. Looph (our product): the roadmap is the board's statuses
Disclosure: Looph is ours, so this is a vendor describing its own product. In Looph the roadmap is a view of board statuses: move a request to Planned and it appears on the roadmap, ship it and the people who voted are notified, and a linked changelog entry closes the loop. Each signed-in person gets one vote per post; weighting votes by plan or revenue is coming soon.
The free plan includes 1 public board and 100 tracked voters, with unlimited members and 2 admin seats. Looph is younger than the other tools here and has a smaller integration catalogue.
- Starting price
- $19/mo, or $190/yr billed yearly, Starter
- Free option
- Yes: the Free plan includes the public roadmap
- Voting
- Yes, one vote per signed-in person; weighting by plan or revenue coming soon
Read next: Public roadmap · See flat pricing
How to choose a public roadmap tool
Start with where roadmap items come from. If customers' requests decide them, choose a tool where the roadmap is built from the feedback board, so votes, statuses and notifications are one system. If an internal planning process decides them, a planning suite with a portal fits better.
Then check three things on the plan you would buy: whether voters are notified when an item moves, whether you can keep some items or boards private, and what the bill does as more customers take part.
How we chose these tools
Five are tools we keep verified comparison records for and that publish a roadmap for customers to read. LaunchNotes is included because release communication is its focus, and GitHub Projects because two of the twelve public roadmaps we reviewed run on it. The list is not exhaustive: ProductLift, Sleekplan and FeedBear also sell public roadmaps, and Aha! Roadmaps, Trello and Notion are used to publish them; none is reviewed here.
Read next: How we research our comparisons
Frequently asked questions
What is a public roadmap tool?
Software that publishes what a product team plans to build, is building and has shipped, in a form customers can read. The better ones connect the roadmap to customer feedback, so items carry the votes behind them and the people who asked are told when an item moves.
Can I publish a public roadmap for free?
Yes. Canny's and Looph's free plans include a public roadmap, Featurebase's free plan includes one roadmap, and GitHub Projects is part of GitHub Free. Frill, Nolt and LaunchNotes offer trials, and Productboard lists no free plan.
Should a public roadmap show dates?
Usually not. Of the twelve public roadmaps we reviewed on 20 September 2026, only Atlassian's and Microsoft's put a target date on items; the rest show order or status. Publish dates only if your buyers plan in quarters, and say plainly that the roadmap is not a commitment.