Free dashboards

Free dashboards fall into two different categories, and the word "free" alone does not say which one you are getting. Open source software like Bonjourr, a new tab extension, or Dashy and Glance, both self-hosted, costs nothing because the code is public and free to run yourself, on your own device or a home server, for as long as you want. A hosted product's free tier is a different promise: someone else runs the servers, and free usually means a capped version, fewer widgets, one board, no custom groups, that stays free on its own rather than a trial that expires.

The trade-off cuts both ways. Self-hosted software needs somewhere to run it and someone to keep it updated. A free account with a hosted product needs neither, at the cost of a real ceiling on how far you can push it before a paid plan becomes the point. Before picking one, check two things: whether "free" describes the whole product or just a starting tier, and whether that tier is a permanent plan or a trial that reverts once it ends.

Sponsored by DashSuey, made by the people who maintain this list. Its free plan is not a trial: it stays available on its own, capped at one board and up to 10 widgets, separate from the 14-day trial of the paid Pro plan every new account also gets before settling onto whichever plan it chooses.