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!
Any way to sync with contacts on mobile? I’d love one source of truth.
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.
A+ for custom connection types. Polycules rejoyce!
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.
This might work for my poly group. We always wanted to visualize how we are all connected.
I use org-roam (similar to Obsidian) to do that, the graph is neat for it! I only personally go to metamours, but I might pass an Obsidian vault around to see how deep that rabbit hole goes.
Careful! You might realise you’re cousins 😂
Pardon my ignorance but what is a poly group?
Polyamory, multiple partners and they each have multiple partners
Yeah, we have been wanting to make a who is connected to who chart. I was going to use draw io but it was a little manual.
A poly group (also known as a polycule) is a network of polyamorous people’s relationships. Polyamory, in case you’re unaware, is the practice of having multiple romantic or sexual partners at the same time, in contrast to monogamy.
If you were polyamorous and wanted to graph out your relationships, you could do it a few different ways. For example:
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Just you and your partners. If any of your partners are also in relationships with each other, you’d draw lines between them as well.
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Extend an extra level and include all of your partners’ partners (known as metamours), again connecting any pair on the graph who are partners.
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Extend that further and include all of your partners’ partners’ partners (no specific term for this as far as I know). This would likely include people you don’t personally know, and it would be difficult to build a complete graph of all their relationships.
Etc.
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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!
This looks cool, interested to see how this stacks up against Monica & if there are plans for a mobile app
Mobile apps are on the roadmap! I’ll try to actually publish a roadmap at some point.
I only found out about Monica from one of the ADHD communities, and when I looked there has been. No update for almost a year. I thought it might be dead?
That is one of the reasons I started this project. Monica feels too complex for what I need. Also, self hosting it is not very straightforward. And finally, as you mentioned, it seems to be a bit abandoned and outdated.
No idea tbh, it seems to have commits from 5 months ago but no new releases
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
@SomeDudeFromSpace I’m sooo gonna try this ! Thanks !
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?
But I have multiple devices and want to access it from all of them.
Not many… but this community isn’t for those people. It’s for people who are already predisposed to self-hosting software.
