Replace / Meetup
Best free Meetup alternatives (open source, self-hosted) 2026
The best open-source alternative to Meetup is pretix (or Mobilizon) with Gancio, self-hosted on Railway. Events you host. pretix is AGPLv3 with additional terms for tickets; Mobilizon and Gancio are AGPL-3.0 community agendas — Eventbrite and Meetup without the listing fee.
Estimated save $1,200 a year.
Open the stackStart on Railway
How Meetup compares
| Meetup | pretix / Mobilizon / Gancio | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Hosted subscription | Open-source or fair-code license; you pay the host |
| Hosting | Vendor cloud | Self-hosted on Railway or any VPS |
| Rough monthly cost | Public list price not verified this run | Hosting only — no SaaS seat meter in this repo |
- pretix
AGPLv3 ticket shop with additional terms (self-host your own events)
- Mobilizon
AGPL-3.0 federated events and groups (Meetup-shaped)
- Gancio
AGPL-3.0 shared agenda for local communities
- Indico
MIT CERN event manager if the job is a conference, not a ticket shop
FAQ
- What is the best free open-source Meetup alternative?
- The best open-source alternative to Meetup is pretix (or Mobilizon) with Gancio, self-hosted on Railway. Events you host. pretix is AGPLv3 with additional terms for tickets; Mobilizon and Gancio are AGPL-3.0 community agendas — Eventbrite and Meetup without the listing fee.
- Is it free?
- The pretix / Mobilizon / Gancio licenses are open source or fair-code. You still pay hosting (Railway or any VPS) and any APIs the stack calls. There is no Meetup seat or task bill on this path.
- Can I migrate from Meetup?
- Yes. Start with the workflows or data you actually use, then cut over. The pretix / Mobilizon / Gancio stack page has the agent prompt and the cost table; most teams rebuild the slice that matters and leave old Meetup links until they expire.
- How do I deploy it?
- Open the pretix / Mobilizon / Gancio stack, copy the agent prompt, and deploy on Railway (one service, PORT, and a volume when the app needs disk). Placeholder: pretix + Postgres (tickets), or Mobilizon/Gancio for a community agenda. Bind HTTP to 0.0.0.0:$PORT. No one-click template in this repo yet — Start on Railway. Polls stay on /stacks/rallly-scheduling.
- What does this replace?
- Eventbrite / Meetup. The published small-team estimate on this stack is $1,200 a year.
Related pages
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