explaingit

monicahq/monica

Analysis updated 2026-06-21

24,608PHPAudience · generalComplexity · 3/5Setup · moderate

TLDR

An open-source personal CRM you host yourself, a private space to log details about your friends and family, like birthdays, past conversations, and reminders, so you can maintain relationships more intentionally.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Monica))
    What it does
      Contact management
      Relationship mapping
      Reminders and tasks
      Personal diary
    Tech Stack
      PHP
      Laravel
    Use Cases
      Track friend details
      Birthday reminders
      Activity logging
      Self-hosted CRM
    Audience
      General users
      Privacy-focused users
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Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Log notes, reminders, and past conversation details about friends so you never forget an important date or topic.

USE CASE 2

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

USE CASE 3

Track activities, tasks, and documents for a contact in a single private, self-hosted account.

USE CASE 4

Set up automatic reminders for birthdays and important events across your personal social circle.

What is it built with?

PHPLaravel

How does it compare?

monicahq/monicalivewire/livewireguzzle/guzzle
Stars24,60823,50723,450
LanguagePHPPHPPHP
Setup difficultymoderatemoderateeasy
Complexity3/53/52/5
Audiencegeneraldeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 1h+

Requires a server or Docker setup to self-host, a managed hosted option is also available for those who prefer not to run their own server.

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
Help me set up a self-hosted Monica instance using Docker for personal relationship management.
Prompt 2
How do I import my existing contacts into Monica and add custom reminders for each one?
Prompt 3
Show me how to use Monica's API to add a new contact and log an activity between two people.
Prompt 4
Help me configure Monica to send email reminders for upcoming birthdays of my contacts.

Frequently asked questions

What is monica?

An open-source personal CRM you host yourself, a private space to log details about your friends and family, like birthdays, past conversations, and reminders, so you can maintain relationships more intentionally.

What language is monica written in?

Mainly PHP. The stack also includes PHP, Laravel.

How hard is monica to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 1h+ to a first successful run.

Who is monica for?

Mainly general.

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