Top 7 Public Roadmap Tools for SaaS Companies in 2024

Setting up a public roadmap can be one of the most effective ways to build stronger relationships with customers. It can also help you understand if your plans align with the needs of your users.

There are tons of ways you can set up a public roadmap. From just shared spreadsheets to dedicated software that creates a collaborative environment for sharing feedback.

In this blog post, I'll give you a comprehensive overview of the 7 best tools for creating public roadmaps. I'll go over the pros and cons of each product to help you understand which one is the right choice for your company.

Let's get into it! 👇

Quick list of the top tools:

1. Featurebase: All-in-one public roadmap & feedback tool, best value for money
2. Productboard: Best for large enterprises & roadmap prioritization
3. Canny: For super small or enterprise companies, no in-between
4. Trello: Best for simplicity and task management
5. Notion: Highly customizable, yet not optimized for collaboration with stakeholders
6. featureOS: Good for collecting feedback, poor for prioritizing it
7. Frill: Simple design and lightweight widgets

But before you make the final choice, let's do a quick rundown of what to even look for in a good roadmapping tool. This way, you can pick the perfect tool for your needs!

How to pick the right tool

When choosing a public roadmapping tool, there are several key features to consider:

1. User-Friendly Interface
   The tool should be intuitive and easy to navigate. This ensures that both your team and your customers can use it without a steep learning curve.
2. Collaboration Features
   Look for tools that allow for real-time feedback and collaboration. This feature is essential for engaging with your customers and getting their input into your roadmap.
3. Customization Options
   The ability to customize your roadmap to reflect your brand and the specific needs of your project is crucial. Customization can range from branding elements to unique layout designs.
4. Integration Capabilities
   A good roadmapping tool should seamlessly integrate with other tools your company uses like Jira, Linear, Intercom, etc...
5. Transparency and Privacy Controls
   While transparency is key in a public roadmap, you also need to have control over what information is made public and what remains confidential.
6. Analytics and Reporting
   The ability to track engagement and gather insights from your roadmap is valuable for understanding customer interests and the impact of your roadmap.
7. Affordability
   There's no reason to pick a tool that costs 10 times as much as another while offering the same core features.

By keeping an eye on these factors, you can make sure you can pick the best road-mapping tool for your company. 👌

The 7 best tools for creating public roadmaps in 2024

Now that you have a quick overview of what to look for, you can better evaluate your options when choosing the right tool.

We've combined a hand-picked list of the 7 best public product roadmap tools for different types of companies.

1. Featurebase

Featurebase is one of the best public roadmapping tools that offer an engaging collaborative interface for feedback collection along with customizable public roadmaps.

It comes with affordable pricing and a Free plan allowing unlimited posts. You can set it up in minutes and always get quick help through live chat. ⚡️

Featurebase's key features:

• Public roadmaps, feedback boards, and a changelog
• Monthly, quarterly, and status roadmaps
• Embeddable roadmap
• Idea voting and commenting
• Prioritization frameworks
• Customer surveys
• Automated notification emails
• Custom domain
• Single Sign-On
• Over 6 + languages, including Spanish, German, French, etc.
• In-app widgets (see live demo)
• User segmentation
• Single Sign-On
• API

Advantages of Featurebase:

• Intuitive interface - a neat and easy-to-use design for you and your users with gamified features like leaderboards to incentivize feedback
• AI duplicate post-detection - users & admins will see relevant similar posts before posting to reduce duplicates
• AI-powered search - always find that idea that you were looking for, even if you don't remember the exact wording
• Lots of customizations - have your boards look exactly the way you want by changing the colors, theme, text, and much more
• Replies and @ mentioning - intuitive comment section for lengthy discussions

Drawbacks of Featurebase:

• No HubSpot & Salesforce integrations (see existing integrations)

How much does Featurebase cost?

• Free Plan - roadmap, feature voting, changelog, unlimited posts, and all core features to take your product to the next level
• Growth Plan ($40/month) - 4 managers, all integrations and widgets, custom domain, and seamless user login
• Premium Plan ($124/month) - 8 managers, API, SSO, and user segmentation

All plans let you collect unlimited feedback, and you can try the paid ones with a 10-day free trial. See pricing here →

Featurebase reviews:

• Product Hunt - 4.9/5

Conclusion

Featurebase is the best collaborative public roadmapping tool for fast-growing startups.

It offers an intuitive interface with feedback boards, a roadmap, a changelog, in-app widgets, and much more.

It's incredibly affordable, and you can create your own public roadmap in under 5 minutes.

Learn more here →

2. Productboard

Productboard is a more enterprise-focused roadmap tool that comes with many workflow customization options. It has a main focus on task management and roadmaps, but can also be used to gather feedback for your public roadmap.

Productboard's key features:

• Embeddable roadmaps
• Prioritization frameworks
• Different task management views and features
• Many translations

Advantages of Productboard:

• Lots of integrations
• Roadmaps are very customizable
• Meets ISO 27001:2013 and SOC2 standards for security

Drawbacks of Productboard:

• It doesn't let users see, upvote, or comment on their peers' ideas - only shows what admins have posted
• Not optimized for feedback collection
• No changelog
• Complex user interface with a steep learning curve
• No embeddable widgets

How much does Productboard cost?

Productboard offers four plans to choose from:

• Starter - free
• Essentials - $20 per maker/month
• Pro - $80 per maker/month
• Enterprise - comes with a custom quote

Note: The actual cost of Productboard depends on how many 'Makers' you have in your team. For example, five users on their Pro plan will cost $400 a month.

Productboard reviews:

• G2 - 4.3/5 (see complaints)
• Capterra - 4.6/5
• GetApp - 4.7/5

Conclusion

Productboard is an enterprise public roadmapping tool, that's focused more on idea prioritization frameworks.

You can do a lot, but figuring out how to use it is a project on its own.‌ It allows users to only see and upvote admins' posts, making it not very optimized for gathering feedback for your public roadmap.

If you're a smaller startup, we recommend checking out these affordable Productboard alternatives →

3. Canny

Canny.io is a popular public road-mapping tool for startups and larger companies. It's a great choice for enterprises that need advanced integrations with tools like Salesforce yet don't want to deal with complex interfaces.

Canny's key features:

• Feedback boards, roadmaps, changelog
• Prioritization frameworks
• Customizable public roadmaps
• Automated email notifications
• Embeddable roadmap
• Duplicate post-detection
• Custom domain

Advantages of Canny:

• SOC2 compliance for enterprises
• Modern & simple design

Drawbacks of Canny:

• Very expensive pricing 
• No bulk editing
• No follow-up questions like "How important is this for you?" for extra insights
• Supports only English

How much does Canny cost?

• Free plan - limits active posts to only 100 a month. For very small companies only
• $99/month (Starter Plan) - custom domain, roadmap, 2 integrations. Very limited in features, equal to competitors' free plans
• $399/month (Growth) - for 5 admins, user segmentation, private boards, and more
• Business (talk to sales) - unlimited boards, pay by invoice, SOC2, etc.

Canny Pricing 2024: Is It Worth It →

Canny reviews:

• G2 - 4.5/5 (complaints)
• Capterra - 4.8/5
• GetApp - 4.7/5

Conclusion

Canny is a great choice for larger companies that don't want to deal with complex software. They are SOC2 certified, support paying by invoice & have advanced moderation features. 

However, with their $399/mo pricing, there certainly are better options on the market offer an even better experience free plan that limits you to 100 posts. Furthermore, the most useful features are on the $399/mo plan, so it can get even quite expensive.

Check out these affordable Canny alternatives →

4. Trello

Trello is one of the most popular task-management tools, with simple Kanban boards at its core. It supports sharing a public view as well, which is great for publishing your roadmap.

Trello's key features:

• Kanban boards (Roadmaps)
• Timeline
• Calendar

Advantages of Trello:

• Robust Jira integration
• Many templates
• Good for task management (not product management)

Drawbacks of Trello:

• No feedback collection
• Poor for prioritizing & managing feature ideas
• No changelogs or emails to keep users in the loop about their requests

How much does Trello cost?

Trello has 4 plans to pick between:

• Free - unlimited cards, 10 boards, 10MB files with unlimited storage
• Standard ($6/user/mo) - unlimited boards, custom fields, advanced checklists, and up to 250MB files with unlimited storage
• Premium ($12.5/user/mo) - unlocks all the views, calendar, timeline, table, etc.
• Enterprise ($17.5/user/mo) - unlimited workspaces,

Note: The total cost of Trello depends on how many users you have in your team. For example, five users on their Premium plan will cost $62.5 a month.

Other than that, just keep in mind that most of their key features are on the Premium plan.

Trello reviews:

• G2 - 4.4/5 (see complaints)
• Capterra - 4.5/5
• GetApp - 4.5/5

Conclusion

Trello is a simple tool and robst tool you can use to set up your public roadmap. Although you can collect some types of feedback with it, the collaborative features aren't very intuitive.

You should also consider that most of their key features are on the Premium plan. Also, the PER USER pricing can get expensive for larger teams.

Check out the best Trello alternatives →

5. Notion

Notion is a versatile tool known for its flexibility and collaborative features, making it an excellent choice for creating public roadmaps.

Notion's key features:

• Customizable templates for roadmaps
• Integrative databases for task management
• Collaboration tools including comments and shared editing
• Embeddable content from other platforms
• Flexible layout options including Kanban, calendar, and list views

Advantages of Notion:

• Highly customizable, allowing you to tailor the roadmap to your specific needs
• Seamless integration with various tools and services
• Affordable pricing, making it accessible for smaller teams or individual users

Drawbacks of Notion:

• Can not collect feedback from your users
• Might be less intuitive for users not familiar with modular productivity tools
• Limited native integration options compared to other specialized roadmap tools
• Can become cluttered if not properly organized due to its high customization capabilities

How much does Notion cost?

• Free Plan - suitable for personal use, with basic features
• Personal Pro Plan ($10 per person/month) - for individuals who need unlimited pages and blocks
• Team Plan ($18 per person/month) - tailored for teams, with advanced collaboration tools
• Enterprise Plan (Custom pricing) - offers advanced features and security for larger organizations

Notion reviews:

• G2 - 4.7
• Capterra - 4.8
• GetApp - 4.7

Conclusion

Notion stands out as a highly adaptable tool, perfect for teams that require a flexible and collaborative environment for their public roadmap. Its ability to cater to a wide range of needs, combined with an affordable pricing structure, makes it a strong contender for startups and small to medium-sized businesses.

For more information on how to utilize Notion for product roadmaps, you can refer to their guide here: Using Notion for Product Roadmaps.

6. featureOS

FeatureOS - formerly Hellonext - is another good choice for creating a public roadmap. It's a dedicated tool that also supports many collaborative features.

featureOS key features:

• Customizable public roadmap
• Changelog
• Widget for feedback collecting
• A knowledge base feature

Advantages of featureOS:

• Modern design
• Lots of customizations
• Feature-rich

Drawbacks of featureOS:

• Can't sort feedback by monetary value
• No user segmentation
• No built-in prioritization frameworks for product managers
• Supports only English
• No changelog popups

How much does featureOS cost?

FeatureOS offers three pricing tiers:

• Runway ($29/month) - 2 boards, 1 admin, 1 integration
• Take Flight ($79/month) - 10 boards, 3 admins, 3 integrations
• Fly High ($149/month) - unlimited boards, 10 admins, SSO, API

You can try each out with a 14-day trial.

Note: They have offered free plans many times in the past and overall change the pricing rather often. Last time, they closed the free plan overnight.

featureOS reviews:

• Product Hunt - 4.5/5

Conclusion

featureOS is a great choice for creating public roadmaps. It has many features, including a changelog, a knowledge base, and widgets.

However, it's missing some important ones, like sorting feedback by revenue and prioritization frameworks.

They offer great pricing for companies that need to collect many different types of feedback. But they change it constantly, so there's always some uncertainty.

Check out the best alternatives to featureOS →

7. Frill

Frill is a straightforward public road-mapping tool. They have a pretty user interface but could improve their feedback management side.

The pricing and dashboard make it a more suitable option for smaller teams that don't get much feedback.

Frill's key features:

• Feedback boards, roadmaps, changelogs
• Feedback collecting widget & changelog popups
• Changelog notification emails
• Custom domain

Advantages of Frill:

• Minimalistic & straightforward UI
• Translations into many languages

Drawbacks of Frill:

• Poor dashboard view for managing & moderating feedback
• No user segmentation
• No sorting feedback by customer revenue
• No changelog emails
• No duplicate post-detection system
• No built-in prioritization frameworks

How much does Frill cost?

Frill offers 4 plans to choose between. You can try out each one with a 14-day free trial.

• Startup ($25/month) - 50 active ideas at a time
• Business ($49/month) - removes the feedback limit
• Growth ($149/month) - unlimited feedback, white labeling, privacy features
• Enterprise (starting at $349/month) - SOC2 and a dedicated support manager

Frill reviews:

• G2 - 4.8/5
• Capterra - 4.6/5
• GetApp - 4.6/5

Conclusion

If you're looking for a simple public roadmapping and feedback collection tool, Frill is a nice option. It offers a changelog, widgets, and a custom domain.

The first plan costs $25/mo and is suited for smaller teams that don't get more than 50 ideas in a month. The next plans are still quite affordable, but a bit pricey compared to others.

Check out the best Frill alternatives →

Conclusion

If you're looking for an all-in-one tool for creating public product roadmaps, then Featurebase is probably your best choice. It has roadmaps, feedback boards, and changelogs and is easy to use.

It comes with a Free Forever Plan that allows unlimited ideas, so there's no downside to trying it. 👇

Create your free public roadmap with Featurebase →

More reading:

• Should Your Company Have a Public Roadmap? →
• 12 Public Roadmap Examples for SaaS Companies in 2024 →
• A Simple 6-Step Guide to Plan & Prioritize Your Product Roadmap Effectively →
• The Best Product Roadmap Examples for SaaS Startups →

FAQ

1. What are the Best Public Roadmap Tools for 2024?

The top public roadmap tools for 2024 include:

• Featurebase, known for its engaging collaborative interface and affordability
• Productboard, ideal for enterprise-level task management
• Canny.io for simplicity and advanced integrations

2. How Do I Choose the Right Public Roadmap Tool for My Company?

When selecting a public roadmap tool, consider factors like:

• User-friendliness
• Collaboration capabilities
• Customization options
• Integration with other tools
• Transparency and privacy controls
• Analytics and reporting features
• Cost-effectiveness

The best tool for your company will align with these criteria and effectively meet your specific business requirements.

3. Why is a Public Roadmap Important for My Business?

A public roadmap is essential for creating transparency, building customer trust, and engaging with your audience. It allows customers to see your future plans, provide feedback, and feel involved in the development process.

This not only helps in aligning your work with user needs but also strengthens customer relationships.

4. Are There Affordable Public Roadmap Tools for Startups?

Featurebase is one of the most affordable public roadmap tools for startups. It offers a free plan with feedback collection features and a changelog, making it the best choice for startups on a budget.