In simple English
Running an affiliate program helps other people send customers to your website for a cut of the sale. Most tools that manage this charge high monthly fees and keep your data on their computers. RefearnApp lets you run the same setup on your own server for free. You keep all your customer information and financial records in your own hands. It costs you time to set up and maintain the server, but it saves you money on software fees.
What it is
RefearnApp is an open-source affiliate tracking and referral management platform built with Next.js (a React framework for building web applications) and Docker (a way to run a program inside its own sealed box, so it cannot break anything else on your server). It handles click tracking, affiliate portals, coupon codes, and payouts.
What it is good for
Solo builders and small software businesses who want to run an affiliate program without paying monthly subscriptions to third-party services.
- Free to self-host with full access to the source code.
- Includes affiliate portal customization and coupon code tracking.
- Connects with payment providers like Stripe and PayPal for payouts.
- Requires managing your own server, database, and Docker containers.
- Licenced under AGPL-3.0 (GNU Affero General Public License v3.0, a strict licence requiring you to share your source code if you offer the software as a hosted service to others).
- Relies on external services like Cloudflare and Upstash Redis for full speed.
Rewardful or FirstPromoter
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docker compose up -d