Comparison
Looking for a Quackback alternative? Here is the honest version.
- Quackback
- Open source, self-hosted
- UserWants
- One plan, hosted
What they are
Quackback in one sentence
Straight answer
Where each one wins
Pick Quackback for
Open source and self-hostable
The whole platform is yours to run and modify, which UserWants is not.
A full feedback board with voting
Public boards, upvotes and roadmap views — the Canny-style workflow that UserWants deliberately removed.
No subscription
Free at the licence level if you are willing to host it.
Pick UserWants for
Bug reports carry real diagnostics
Quackback is built around feedback management. UserWants captures up to 10 JavaScript errors with stack frames and the last 50 user actions on every bug report, automatically.
Nothing to operate
No server, database or object storage to run, patch or back up.
One widget for ideas and bugs
The same button handles both, and bugs get the diagnostics while ideas get the status workflow.
Side by side
Feature comparison
| Feature | UserWants | Quackback |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting | Hosted for you | Self-host |
| Licence | Commercial | Open source |
| Public board with voting | No | Yes |
| Roadmap and changelog | No | Yes |
| JavaScript errors + stack traces | Up to 10, automatic | No |
| Steps before the report | Last 50, automatic | No |
| Screenshot with the report | Yes | Varies |
| MCP for coding agents | Yes, OAuth, 3 tools | Yes |
| Ops burden | None | Yours |
| Pricing | Flat subscription | Free plus hosting |
Verdict
Which one to pick
Quackback is a Canny replacement that happens to speak MCP; UserWants is a bug reporting widget that happens to collect ideas. If your problem is managing a public roadmap with votes and a changelog, Quackback does that and UserWants flatly does not. If your problem is that bug reports arrive with no evidence in them, Quackback will not fix it and this will.
UserWants is for
Teams whose main pain is unusable bug reports
Quackback is for
Teams who want an open-source public roadmap with voting
FAQ
Before you switch
- Does UserWants have a public voting board?
- No. Votes and the public roadmap were removed from the product. What remains is a private inbox with five statuses and an email to the reporter when one changes, which is a different workflow rather than a smaller version of the same one.
- Which is better for bug reports specifically?
- UserWants, clearly. Quackback manages feedback well but does not capture JavaScript errors, stack frames or the user’s last actions, so a bug report there is whatever the person managed to type. Here the evidence is attached before they finish the sentence.
- Can I run Quackback and UserWants together?
- Yes, and it is a reasonable split: Quackback for the public roadmap and voting, UserWants as the bug button on the product itself. They share no data, so you would be running two inboxes deliberately.
Try it beside Quackback.
Paste the tag on the same site and run both for a sprint. The reports arrive in parallel and nothing about your current setup changes.