Host Monica without installing anything
An address book that remembers for you: what you said to each other, when you last met, and the birthday you were about to forget.
Starting at €8.99/month
Introduction
Monica installed, updated and backed up by us, on a machine in France. You install nothing and configure no server: the application is online a few minutes after you order, under your own name.
The plan that suits it is App Confort at €8.99/month incl. VAT — 4 GB of memory. Monica is a Laravel application on MariaDB, and its background work is steady rather than violent: the reminder queue wakes every night to prepare the next day's messages, and every record drags along its photos and documents. 1 GB keeps it running; the 4 GB carry a few hundred richly filled contacts without effort.
Contacts come in as vCard, the format exported by the iOS address book, the Android one and Google Contacts. After that, Monica behaves as a CardDAV server: the phone connects to it like to any address book, and records stay current on both sides without going through a Google account. There is no official mobile app — CardDAV and the web interface, installable as an app, are precisely what fill that role.
What Monica does
Reminders that are not only about birthdays
Birthdays, the date you met, recurring deadlines — but also the quarterly nudge to get in touch, which is the one reminder anybody actually needs and nobody ever sets.
A CardDAV server, not an island
Records synchronise both ways with the phone's address book. A number corrected on the mobile turns up in Monica, with no export and no manual copy.
People are linked to each other
Partner, children, colleagues, a former neighbour: relationships are declared, and you see at a glance who is who. The log of meetings completes the picture: what you did together, and when.
The details you cannot ask about twice
Gift ideas and gifts already given, what the person does not eat, what they lent you, the call you made last week. Those details are what make the difference, and they do not fit in an ordinary address book.
Who uses it, and what for
Someone whose job is knowing people
A local councillor, an estate agent, a consultant: three hundred people met in a year, and the name of their children recalled before the meeting rather than after it.
A family spread across the country
Nephews' birthdays, the date of an uncle's operation, the question you promised yourself you would ask. A reminder arrives, you call, and the exchange is noted.
A freelance with no sales software
Professional relationships followed without a pipeline or a forecast: who recommended you to whom, when you last had lunch, what needs raising again.
Someone who keeps a journal
Daily entries live in the same place as the people they mention, which gives you, years later, a memory of relationships rather than a list of numbers.
A person getting back in touch after a move
The list of people you lose sight of becomes a list of dated actions, instead of a vague guilt that wakes up at Christmas.
Hosted in France
In our own datacentre in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which we operate ourselves. What Monica holds goes nowhere else: that is exactly why the instance should be yours.
Frequently asked questions
No, and the word CRM can mislead. There is no pipeline, no quote, no revenue per client, no forecast. Monica is built for relationships: who this person is, when you saw them, what they told you, what you owe them. To follow deals and opportunities, EspoCRM or Dolibarr are the right tools.
As vCard, the .vcf file produced by the iOS address book, the Android one and Google Contacts. Names, numbers, addresses and dates of birth come across. After that, rather than repeating imports, you point the phone at Monica's CardDAV server: both address books stay aligned, and you stop depending on the manufacturer's account.
Yes, and it is a question worth asking before entrusting this kind of content to anyone. Contacts come out as vCard, readable by any address book, and the application produces a full account export for the rest — notes, reminders, journal. Monica is free software: the instance is yours, including on the day you leave.
App Confort, at €8.99/month incl. VAT. It provides 4 GB of memory where the application asks for 1 GB at minimum: the headroom serves the system, not the decor. You can change plan later without reinstalling.
Yes, they are part of the service. A self-hosted application left un-updated is a security risk, not a saving.