How Wakelog compares

Looking for a Headway alternative, a Beamer alternative, or just a free way to publish a changelog? Here's an honest comparison — including the cases where you shouldn't pick Wakelog.

Notes on other products reflect their public pricing/feature pages when we last checked. If something here is out of date, we'll fix it.

Head-to-head comparisons

Deeper, per-product pages — each one includes the cases where the other tool wins:

The short version

  • Wakelog — free, API-first, no email required to sign up. Public page + RSS + JSON feed + a Headway-style "what's new" popover with unread badge (one script tag) + README badge. Post from your terminal, CI, or a GitHub/GitLab release webhook. Import your existing CHANGELOG.md; export everything back to markdown anytime.
  • Headway — polished hosted changelog widget, popular with SaaS teams. Free tier carries Headway branding; teams and customization are paid. No public API on the free plan for posting from CI.
  • Beamer — changelog plus notification center, NPS, and marketing tools. Powerful, but it's a marketing suite: heavier scripts on your page, and the free tier is limited with paid plans for the rest.
  • LaunchNotes / AnnounceKit / Canny changelog — built for product-marketing teams (segmentation, email campaigns, roadmaps). Great at that; more product and price than a solo dev needs to say "here's what shipped".
  • GitHub Releases — free and great if your audience lives on GitHub. But there's no clean non-GitHub public page, no embeddable "what's new" widget for your app, and closed-source or multi-repo products don't map well onto it. (Wakelog can mirror your Releases automatically via webhook.)
  • A CHANGELOG.md in your repo — the classic. Zero dependencies, works forever. What it lacks: an RSS feed your users can subscribe to, a widget in your app, and a page non-developers will actually read. Wakelog imports it in one paste and exports right back to it, so you can keep both.

What makes Wakelog different

  • API-first, terminal-first. Posting an update is one curl or wakelog post from the end of your deploy script. Everything the web UI does, the API does.
  • Actually free. No trial countdown, no branding ransom, no locked features. Free while in beta, and the plan is to keep a real free tier forever.
  • No email, no trackers. Sign up with a username and password. Your readers get zero cookies, zero analytics scripts. See privacy.
  • Never locked in. GET /p/your-slug/changelog.md gives you your whole history back as portable markdown, any time, no export request form.

When you should NOT pick Wakelog

  • You need email campaigns, user segmentation, or in-app targeting — get Beamer or LaunchNotes.
  • You need team seats and roles — Wakelog is single-account per project today.
  • You want a self-hosted tool — Wakelog is hosted only (but your exit is one GET request).

Start your free changelog   See Wakelog's own changelog →

Further reading

Tool aside, our guides cover the craft: what a changelog is · how to write a changelog · changelog vs release notes · the Keep a Changelog format · semver in plain English · announcing breaking changes · how often to ship · changelogs from git commits · release notes from Jira tickets · public roadmap vs changelog · API changelogs · status page vs changelog · scheduled maintenance announcements · changelog examples from great products · CalVer vs SemVer · monorepo changelogs · app store release notes · internal changelogs for teams · in-app what's-new widgets · product update emails · compliance and audit evidence · release notes for non-technical users · localizing release notes · open source changelogs · release notes templates · how to announce a new feature · game patch notes · posting your changelog to Discord & Slack · beta & early-access release notes · hotfix communication · starting a changelog for an existing product · changelog SEO · automating your changelog with GitHub Actions · changelog tone & voice · machine-readable changelogs for scripts & AI agents · writing a deprecation policy · changelog metrics · release notes for CLI tools & libraries · security advisories vs changelog · changelog page design · screenshots, GIFs & video in release notes · WordPress plugin changelogs · browser extension release notes · integration release notes · desktop app release notes · design system changelogs · docs vs changelog · firmware release notes · renames, rebrands & acquisitions · sunsets & shutdowns · announcing pricing changes · announcing terms & privacy policy changes · AI model changelogs · data & schema changelogs · SDK changelogs · SaaS changelogs without version numbers · infrastructure-as-code changelogs · fork changelogs · on-prem & self-hosted release notes · accessibility release notes · AI-generated release notes · monitoring your vendors' changelogs · changelog archives & old entries · no-code changelogs · theme & template changelogs · who writes the release notes · feature flags & staged rollouts · product blog vs changelog · migrating changelog tools · LTS & maintenance release notes · devlog vs changelog · linting your changelog · container image release notes · writing a known issues section · enterprise & B2B release notes · the release communication checklist · web app update notifications · release stages explained · API versioning · dropping platform support · client update reports · release names & codenames · postmortems vs changelog · regulated-industry release notes · education software release notes · payment & fintech release notes · public-sector release notes · driver release notes · data pipeline changelogs · platform engineering changelogs · network upgrade notes · framework & runtime release notes · changing the emails your product sends · spec & standards changelogs · marketplace seller updates · rate limit & quota changes · webhook & event payload changes · IT change communication · release notes for support teams · the changelog field guide.