explaingit

monicahq/monica

★ 24,659PHPAudience · generalComplexity · 3/5ActiveLicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

A private, self-hosted CRM for your personal life, track birthdays, conversations, and meaningful details about friends and family so you remember what matters.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Monica))
    What it does
      Contact management
      Relationship mapping
      Reminders and diary
    Features
      Task tracking
      Pet records
      Document uploads
    Use cases
      Remember birthdays
      Track conversations
      Maintain relationships
    Tech stack
      PHP
      Laravel
      Self-hosted
    Audience
      Anyone wanting control
      People with memory needs

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Self-host a private address book to track birthdays, how you met people, and past conversations without sharing data with third parties.

USE CASE 2

Set up reminders to reach out to friends and family on important dates or after long gaps in contact.

USE CASE 3

Map relationships between your contacts to see how people in your life know each other.

USE CASE 4

Keep a personal diary and task list alongside contact records to stay organized about your relationships.

Tech stack

PHPLaravelMySQLDocker

Getting it running

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires Docker and MySQL setup; follow docker-compose to get running quickly.

Open-source software you can use, modify, and self-host freely; check the repository for specific license terms.

In plain English

Monica is an open-source personal relationship management system, think of it as a CRM (Customer Relationship Manager), but for your personal life instead of sales contacts. It helps you remember the important details about the people you care about: birthdays, how you met someone, past conversations, activities you did together, and notes about their lives. The problem it solves is simple: human memory is limited, and it is easy to forget meaningful details about friends and family, especially as your social circle grows. Monica gives you a private space to log this information so you can show up in relationships with more care and context. Features include contact management, relationship mapping (so you can see how contacts know each other), customizable reminders, a personal diary, task tracking, address book, pet records, document uploads, and support for 27 languages. Crucially, it is not a social network, all data is private and stored on your own server. You would use Monica if you want full control over your personal data (self-hosted) or prefer to pay for a hosted account, and you want to be more intentional about maintaining relationships. It is especially useful for people with Asperger syndrome, Alzheimer's, or anyone who simply wants help remembering. Built with PHP and the Laravel framework.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I set up Monica on my own server using Docker?
Prompt 2
Show me how to create a contact in Monica and add relationship notes, birthdays, and reminders.
Prompt 3
How can I use Monica's relationship mapping feature to see how my contacts know each other?
Prompt 4
What are the best practices for organizing and tagging contacts in Monica to make them easy to find later?
Prompt 5
How do I export my data from Monica or back it up?
Open on GitHub → Explain another repo

Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.