New version of Monica, codename Chandler, is available in beta

  • Author here. Super happy with this release. It took us 18 months of working on it "side project style". Almost every night and weekends actually. It's a full rewrite of the current project, with its own advantages and disadvantages of a rewrite. I hope people who used it before and didn't like it, will give it another try this time. I hope that current users who love Monica, will love this new version even more.

  • I get the rationale for the new naming, but I find it really funny. It’s not the first personal information software to be named “Chandler”. I’m not going to say the name is cursed, but if you were around for this, you’ll chuckle at the new name.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(software)

    https://www.chandlerproject.org/ (2009)

    If you want a great story about a software project, open source, and how to not ship, there is also a really good book about this project called “Dreaming in Code”.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreaming_in_Code

  • I’ve had “personal CRM” in my ideas file since 2003. In fact, I failed to convince a buddy to apply to the very first YC batch with it.

    Love the concept. But I’d love the landing page at beta.monicahq.com to describe what Monica (or in this case Chandler) actually does. A short video, some screenshots, anything… right now it’s not clear to me why I’d click “signup”.

  • I genuinely appreciate Monica, and congrats to the team. However, I've been searching for a native Android app and haven't come across a suitable alternative, as the Monica app has been discontinued.

    I'm looking for an app that helps me remember significant dates and details about my acquaintances, provides birthday reminders, and allows me to take notes on them. Does anyone have any recommendations?

  • Thanks, I use Monica and it is very helpful.

    Q1: Will you be able to upgrade from Monica once this is out of beta? I have a lot of data in a self hosted Monica instance, and can't imagine starting from scratch.

    Q2: Are there any plans to make a multi user Monica? I would like to use it with my family, so that some users (such as family members) will be shared and editable by all, and others are private.

    Q3: you have had that "Office Life" banner since forever. Is that abandoned? Is it advancing?

  • So when is Ross, Joey and Phoebe?

  • Definitely interesting, albeit a bit too green to be a beta version imho (I can't select a contact when adding a relationship, added two pets by accident because there was no feedback... e.g).

    However, it looks really promising and more feature rich than the current version of Monica.

    I do have a question thought. Will this version support WebDav/Cal? Syncing contacts to my mobile phone is the main reason why I use monica on a daily base.

  • Is this a fork of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_(software) ? (If not, pretty confusing to have two apps that do similar things with the same name.)

  • Funny, I just checked up on the status of this project yesterday! I've been on the lookout for a personal CRM for a long time and have had my eye on Monica for months.

    It looks really promising but I could not for the life of me get it to run in the Docker container last time I tried. I have a dozen or so other Docker containers running without issue, so I don't think it's my setup. Are people reporting better success with Chandler when it comes to containerization? I'd love to use it but have spent too many hours trying to get it to work.

  • I've been interested in software like this, even set up an instance on Heroku the one time (the free tier should be adequate), but it would be a lot of work to import all of your contacts and keep it up to date with e.g. every interaction you have with these people; it's another extra load on top of your life. Great if you're a people person that wants to min/max your social life (e.g. a recruiter, HR, marketeer), but maybe Facebook would be better for the average person.

  • I've been a long term Monica user, and great to hear this project will continue and grow... I'd love to request a few features

  • Do you have integrations? Pulling in contacts from CRMs, database, Google sheets, or pushing out to marketing tools would be interesting additions (I guess more geared towards your OfficeLife product rather than a PRM)

  • Is this name collision, or is Monica somehow related to the previous Chandler?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_%28software%29

  • Do you plan to provide Bing integration?

  • Why does it cost 9 USD per month? (Unless you self host)