6 ms·

I remember reading about a personal CRM project called Monica years ago. Does anyone here still use it? Is there an actively maintained alternative?

rsolva 1mo ago
I still have an instance of it running and get email reminders about birthdays, but no, I don't think it has been actively developed for years.
- wahern 1mo ago
  TIL: https://www.monicahq.com/ https://www.monicahq.com/ and https://github.com/monicahq/monica https://github.com/monicahq/monica Last commit was a little over 11 months. There do seem to be a couple of signifiant security issues opened since then, with no response. Someone created a fork: https://github.com/brycehans/monica https://github.com/brycehans/monica
  - QuantumNomad_ 1mo ago
    There should be more forks of it, simply because each of the other forks so obviously need to pick the remaining names from that song that goes A little bit of Monica in my life https://genius.com/Lou-bega-mambo-no-5-a-little-bit-of-lyrics https://genius.com/Lou-bega-mambo-no-5-a-little-bit-of-lyric...
  - bharatsuthar 1mo ago
    We need more personal CRMs in general. Monica is too outdated by today's standards. There's one called Dex but no free plans there and it's a bit too complicated for a personal CRM, like a business-like onboarding, linkedin/notion integrations etc. I'd personally prefer something that's easy to use and can intelligently keep track of my personal contacts that I may find valuable in years or decades from now. About a decade ago, I added three friends on Monica and I'm really glad to see the records again. I wish I added more details but I remember the process of adding someone was boring and unrewarding. It still is. Edit: Dex is about $12/mo for the base plan. I don't think I'd be willing to drop that much dough for a personal CRM. Of course there's an option to self-organize/self-host it.
    - pelagicAustral 1mo ago
      Something Dex-like really looks like a weekend project, I might even take a shot at it...
    - jll29 1mo ago
      I agree. Now you can do a lot better with a simple LLM+RAG setup. Knowledge Mgt. (which I also teach) is one of the most neglected areas, privately, professionally and in corporations. A lot of companies' intranet is utterly useless - and everyone knows.
eej71 1mo ago
There was also iwantsandy but that might be a bit too obscure now!
bharatsuthar 1mo ago
I used their hosted platform about 8 years ago and It went down many times. I just checked it today and to my surprise, my data is still there. Very glad to find it.
inerte 1mo ago
I’ve used Monica HQ a lot. I am building a similar tool but With AI (tm) https://meetemilia.com/ https://meetemilia.com/ Currently struggling with actually giving it the personality you see on the website, or if it should be more of a tool. I hate the idea of humans having AI friends, partners, relationships, etc… Anyway, the “personal CRM” space is filled with sales focused tools. They all connect to LinkedIn. What I like about Monica HQ is that it doesn’t follow this model. You can use it and get reminders and in general read about your family and friends so you don’t forget their names and life story next time you meet them. I suck at remembering these things, so to me it’s useful.
walthamstow 1mo ago
I tried to use it with the aim of remembering more about my friends' lives and things they've told me but it felt a bit... weird. I ended up making more of an effort to do it with grey matter alone, and it kind of worked but not really, but I felt better about it
mtlynch 1mo ago
I tried using it, but it didn't work well in my experience. There was be a huge textarea for notes, so I'd write detailed notes after a good conversation, but it didn't auto-save, so if your browser crashed or you accidentally closed the tab, you lose everything. There would also be weird CSRF token errors, which also could cause you to lose everything you just typed. I started writing in a markdown file and then copying over, and then I realized it's simpler to just write in markdown files and skip the app entirely, so I now just use different markdown files for each person and I add a date heading when I want to add a new entry. The design of Monica also never quite matched my thinking. There were all these features designed to capture the relationship graph of how you knew everyone and what all their friends and pets' names are and how they met and what their birthdays are, but for me, the thing I want to remember is like, "Oh, when I saw Joe last year, he was getting into woodworking. When I see him next week, I want to ask how that's going." I never feel like, "I bet Joe will be so impressed that I remembered how he met his friend Ned!"
jugglerjer 1mo ago
If you're on a Mac, I actively maintain one called Queue (https://queue.community https://queue.community), and it's what I use to manage my own relationships. Whereas Monica is very manual, Queue syncs your Apple Mail, Messages, phone calls, FaceTimes, and calendar to create a timeline of each of your relationships automatically, and reminds you to reach out when it's been a while. Message content is analyzed on device and never leaves your machine. I charge $49/year, so quite a bit less than Dex.

rsolva 1mo ago

I still have an instance of it running and get email reminders about birthdays, but no, I don't think it has been actively developed for years.

wahern 1mo ago
TIL: https://www.monicahq.com/ https://www.monicahq.com/ and https://github.com/monicahq/monica https://github.com/monicahq/monica Last commit was a little over 11 months. There do seem to be a couple of signifiant security issues opened since then, with no response. Someone created a fork: https://github.com/brycehans/monica https://github.com/brycehans/monica
- QuantumNomad_ 1mo ago
  There should be more forks of it, simply because each of the other forks so obviously need to pick the remaining names from that song that goes A little bit of Monica in my life https://genius.com/Lou-bega-mambo-no-5-a-little-bit-of-lyrics https://genius.com/Lou-bega-mambo-no-5-a-little-bit-of-lyric...
- bharatsuthar 1mo ago
  We need more personal CRMs in general. Monica is too outdated by today's standards. There's one called Dex but no free plans there and it's a bit too complicated for a personal CRM, like a business-like onboarding, linkedin/notion integrations etc. I'd personally prefer something that's easy to use and can intelligently keep track of my personal contacts that I may find valuable in years or decades from now. About a decade ago, I added three friends on Monica and I'm really glad to see the records again. I wish I added more details but I remember the process of adding someone was boring and unrewarding. It still is. Edit: Dex is about $12/mo for the base plan. I don't think I'd be willing to drop that much dough for a personal CRM. Of course there's an option to self-organize/self-host it.
  - pelagicAustral 1mo ago
    Something Dex-like really looks like a weekend project, I might even take a shot at it...
  - jll29 1mo ago
    I agree. Now you can do a lot better with a simple LLM+RAG setup. Knowledge Mgt. (which I also teach) is one of the most neglected areas, privately, professionally and in corporations. A lot of companies' intranet is utterly useless - and everyone knows.

eej71 1mo ago

There was also iwantsandy but that might be a bit too obscure now!

bharatsuthar 1mo ago

I used their hosted platform about 8 years ago and It went down many times. I just checked it today and to my surprise, my data is still there. Very glad to find it.

inerte 1mo ago

I’ve used Monica HQ a lot. I am building a similar tool but With AI (tm) https://meetemilia.com/ https://meetemilia.com/ Currently struggling with actually giving it the personality you see on the website, or if it should be more of a tool. I hate the idea of humans having AI friends, partners, relationships, etc… Anyway, the “personal CRM” space is filled with sales focused tools. They all connect to LinkedIn. What I like about Monica HQ is that it doesn’t follow this model. You can use it and get reminders and in general read about your family and friends so you don’t forget their names and life story next time you meet them. I suck at remembering these things, so to me it’s useful.

walthamstow 1mo ago

I tried to use it with the aim of remembering more about my friends' lives and things they've told me but it felt a bit... weird. I ended up making more of an effort to do it with grey matter alone, and it kind of worked but not really, but I felt better about it

mtlynch 1mo ago

I tried using it, but it didn't work well in my experience. There was be a huge textarea for notes, so I'd write detailed notes after a good conversation, but it didn't auto-save, so if your browser crashed or you accidentally closed the tab, you lose everything. There would also be weird CSRF token errors, which also could cause you to lose everything you just typed. I started writing in a markdown file and then copying over, and then I realized it's simpler to just write in markdown files and skip the app entirely, so I now just use different markdown files for each person and I add a date heading when I want to add a new entry. The design of Monica also never quite matched my thinking. There were all these features designed to capture the relationship graph of how you knew everyone and what all their friends and pets' names are and how they met and what their birthdays are, but for me, the thing I want to remember is like, "Oh, when I saw Joe last year, he was getting into woodworking. When I see him next week, I want to ask how that's going." I never feel like, "I bet Joe will be so impressed that I remembered how he met his friend Ned!"

jugglerjer 1mo ago

If you're on a Mac, I actively maintain one called Queue (https://queue.community https://queue.community), and it's what I use to manage my own relationships. Whereas Monica is very manual, Queue syncs your Apple Mail, Messages, phone calls, FaceTimes, and calendar to create a timeline of each of your relationships automatically, and reminds you to reach out when it's been a while. Message content is analyzed on device and never leaves your machine. I charge $49/year, so quite a bit less than Dex.