Open source
Open source is infrastructure for an open society.
Free software holds up most of the digital world. The people who build it mostly can't live from it, and it shows.
Closed pilot
This is the model we're building for the public launch. Every installed template carries a fixed monthly amount, and it goes in full to the developers wherever the project can receive it. We're in closed beta, so exact amounts and live figures aren't public yet.
The problem
60%
of open source maintainers work unpaid.
44%
of those who quit or thought about quitting name burnout as a reason.
In November 2025 Kubernetes announced it would retire Ingress NGINX, one of its most used parts. For years, one or two people had kept it going on their own time, after work and on weekends.
This isn't a one-off. Billion-dollar companies build their products on code that volunteers maintain on weekends. Value flows one way, upward. Almost nothing comes back.
We built good tools for adding to the digital commons, open source licenses and Creative Commons among them. We never worked out how to protect those commons from simply being taken. There are pipelines for giving. The ones for giving back are missing.
The self-hosting dilemma
Many open source projects found a practical way to pay for themselves: they sell a hosted version. Nextcloud, GitLab, Plausible and Cal.com all fund development with that revenue.
We also think self-hosting matters. People should control their own data and infrastructure, and spreading things out makes everyone less dependent on a few platforms.
If everyone self-hosts and nobody pays for the hosted service, that money dries up. More self-hosting must not mean less funding.
That's the dilemma. Obacht is our attempt to solve it.
Our answer
Every installed template carries a small fixed monthly fee. All of it goes to the developers of that software, minus payment provider fees. Obacht keeps none of it.
This is a mechanism. Nobody has to remember to donate. Run open source software on your own hardware and paying the people who build it is simply part of using it.
A one-time donation gets forgotten. This arrives every month, for as long as the software runs. Self-hosting stops being the problem and becomes part of the fix.
How it works
- 01
You install a template, say Uptime Kuma.
- 02
It carries a small fixed monthly fee. Whether a free trial comes first, probably 30 days, isn't decided yet.
- 03
Obacht forwards all of it to the project.
The projects
The people whose software you run.
Every app on Obacht is somebody's open-source project. These are the ones in the catalogue today.
- Actual Budget
- BookStack
- Caddy
- Calibre-Web
- changedetection.io
- draw.io
- Excalidraw
- Forgejo
- FreshRSS
- Ghost
- Gitea
- Grafana
- Grocy
- HedgeDoc
- HeyForm
- Homebox
- Homepage
- Karakeep
- Kirby
- labwc
- LimeSurvey
- listmonk
- Matrix.org Foundation
- Mealie
- MediaMTX
- Mermaid
- MinIO
- n8n
- Nextcloud GmbH
- Nominatim
- Ollama
- Open WebUI
- Overpass API
- Penpot
- PocketBase
- PrivateBin
- Protomaps
- Radicale
- Readeck
- SearXNG
- Speedtest Tracker
- Traefik
- Trilium
- Uptime Kuma
- Valhalla
- Vaultwarden
- Vikunja
- Wakapi
- WordPress Foundation
Not every project can take money
We checked every template for whether the project behind it has any way to receive money. 20 of 60 have none. Some belong to a company that funds itself with cloud plans or licenses. Some never set up a donation channel. Two turn donations down on principle.
We collect nothing for those. If we can't forward it, the template is free. The contribution only exists where it actually arrives.
Every template page says which case applies and where the money goes. If you work on one of these projects, set up a channel or write to us. The contribution starts flowing from then on.
For maintainers
Want your project on Obacht?
We build the template. Your project gets a fixed amount per install.
No contract, no exclusivity. Your license stays as it is.
How payouts grow
A fixed amount per installation goes to your project every month, so payouts grow with the number of people running your template. We publish exact figures when Obacht goes public.
Your project gets nothing from us?
For some projects we found no payout channel, and those templates are free on Obacht. Tell us where the money should go and it flows from launch on.
Report a channelRather not take our money?
If your project doesn't want our forward, or wants to be named differently, write to us. We stop it and note it on the template page.
Stop the forwardLicensing
Is this legal?
Yes. Every common open source license, the GPL and AGPL included, explicitly allows charging for distribution. The template fee is a structured contribution to the developers and stays within those licenses. Obacht doesn't modify the software and makes sure you can get the source code.
Host it yourself and pay the people behind it.
Run open source software on your own hardware. Templates fund the projects behind them wherever those projects can take money.