Two-tap logging
Open, tap the feed you gave, save. Amounts have presets and the time defaults to now, with backdating
Feeds and naps, logged in two taps
Built by parents who needed something simple that just works
$7 a month, cancel whenever. Or poke the demo first, no signup, no email
- Yours alone One file, export anytime
- No nagging Nothing to upgrade mid-feed
- Never trapped Open source, and the file is yours
What it does
Six things, done easy
There is no meal planner, no milestone gallery and no community feed. What is here is what a parent uses in the first year
Time since, always visible
The first thing on the app screen is how long since the last feed and the last sleep
Charts you never set up
Feeds a day, hours slept, bedtime drift and bottle amounts, drawn from what you have already logged
Installs like an app
Add it to the home screen and it opens full screen, with no browser in the way. It does want a connection to work
Your data is one file
Everything you log lives in a single SQLite file. Export takes it whole, or as CSV or JSON; delete unlinks it
Both parents, and the sitter
Share a short code so someone else can log too. Rotate it and everyone who joined with the old one is signed out
A day with baybay
Every entry is one tap, or two
Nothing below takes longer than it takes to read it. That is the entire design goal, a tracker you resent is a tracker you stop using
6:10 AM
They're awake
End the night with one tap. baybay works out that it ran ten and a half hours (hopefully) so you never type a duration
6:20 AM
First feed
Bottle or breast, and an amount if you are counting. The time fills in as now, so most feeds are two taps and done
9:20 AM
Down for a nap
One tap starts a timer that keeps running. Tap again when they wake, or 10 minutes later, and the nap is recorded
3:10 PM
A look at the week
The dashboard has been building itself the whole time: feeds a day, hours slept, and whether bedtime is drifting
7:40 PM
Bedtime
The same one tap as a nap, marked as the night. It carries across midnight without you doing anything about it
9:30 PM
Dream feed
Hands full or fall back asleep? Log it later and set the time back. Nothing has to be entered the moment it happens
Time spent logging all of that? about two minutes
Opens a loaded demo session of the real app
What it looks like
Two screens is the entire app
One to log, one to look. These are screenshots of the current app, not mockups
Honestly compared
Against everything else you might use
Paper is genuinely good at some of this, and others track a great deal more than baybay does. The column that should worry you is the subscription apps.
| Compared on | Pen & paper | Subscription apps | others |
baybay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it tracks | Anything you write down | Most things, once you pay | Lots, from diapers to head circumference | Feeds and sleep, and nothing else |
| Logging one feed | If you can find the notebook | Half a minute, through a menu | A form, once you pick the type and etc... | Two taps |
| Setting it up | Buy a notebook | App store, then an account | Docker, or a Python environment | PHP and SQLite |
| Charts | Draw them yourself | Often behind the paywall | Included | Included, automatic |
| Works without signal | Until it's lost | Usually needs a connection | Needs the server | Needs a connection |
| Cost | Pen & paper | $10–20 a month | Free, self-hosted | $7 a month hosted — or free on your own server |
| Where the data sits | On your kitchen counter | Their servers, their terms | Your server, your database | One file, yours to take |
| Upgrade prompts | New pen | Constant | None | None |
| Source code | Your handwriting | Closed | Open, BSD-2-Clause | Open, MIT licensed |
Pricing
Two ways to have it
Either way the data is yours in the same file. The hosted plan is the same app with the server, the updates and the backups already dealt with
Hosted
$7
a month
We run it, you just open the link
- Ready in about a minute
- Nothing to set up or update
- Backups handled for you
- Export the whole file any time
- Cancel whenever, no hassle
Already subscribed?
Manage your subscription
Self-hosted
Free
Your server, your file, forever.
- Every feature, nothing held back
- Runs on any PHP host
- MIT licensed, fork it
- Nothing ever leaves your machine
- Single SQLite file for data
And if baybay ever goes away?
Then you take everything with you. The app is open source and your data is one file — export it, point any PHP host at the same free code, and carry on like we were never here.
Open source
The same app, yours to run
The hosted plan and the demo run the exact code that is public on GitHub. Audit it, fork it, or run it yourself — free forever, nothing held back
- PHP 8.2+
- SQLite
- MIT licence
# everything you need
git clone https://github.com/webdevday/baybay
cd baybay
# configure and set a signing key
cp .env.example .env
php bin/baybay key:generate
php bin/baybay migrate
# first household, then serve it
php bin/baybay household:create --child="Wren"
php -S localhost:8000 -t public
Questions
The things people ask first
Mostly about what it does not do, which is the more useful half of the answer.
What does the hosted plan include?
The entire app — there is no paid tier, so there is nothing to unlock — plus us dealing with everything around it: the server, updates, daily backups, and getting you back in when a phone goes missing. You get a permanent address for your household, a short code so a partner or sitter can log too, and export of the whole file any time. $7 a month, cancel whenever.
Can I try it before paying?
Yes. The demo is the real application on a week of sample data — no card, no signup, no email — and it deletes itself after 48 hours. If you subscribe and it is not working out, cancelling from the customer portal is one click, and your data stays exportable for 30 days after.
What does baybay actually track?
Feeds and sleep, and nothing else. Feeds are bottle or breast with an optional amount in millilitres; sleep is naps and nights, started with one tap and ended with another. baybay does not track diapers, growth, milestones or medication. That is a deliberate limit rather than a roadmap — it is why logging a feed takes two taps.
Can both parents and a sitter use it?
Yes. Each household in baybay has a short code like moss-lark-42 that a partner, grandparent or sitter types once to join — no account to create and no invitation email to chase. The owner signs in with a magic link instead. Rotating the code from Settings signs out everyone who joined with the old one.
Can I export my data?
Yes, at any time, and export is never gated on a subscription. Everything one family logs in baybay lives in a single SQLite file, and export hands you that file whole — it opens in any SQLite browser. CSV and JSON are there too. Deleting a household unlinks the file; there is no soft-delete flag quietly keeping it.
What happens to my data if baybay shuts down?
You would lose the convenience and nothing else. Your household is one SQLite file you can export whole at any time, and the entire application is MIT licensed and public on GitHub. Point any PHP host at the same free code, drop your file into storage/households/, and you are exactly where you left off. Cancelling works the same way: your data stays exportable for 30 days before it is deleted.
What can baybay see about my family?
Less than you might guess, and the privacy page lists every piece. The short version: our account records hold the owner's email address, the household's name and Stripe's billing status — never the logs. What you log lives in your household's own file, which exists so the app can show it to you, not for us to read. This site counts visits with Google Analytics, which sets a cookie; it never sees anything you log.
Is baybay open source?
Yes. baybay is MIT licensed and the entire application is public at github.com/webdevday/baybay. There is no open-core split and no feature held back for a paid tier: charts, export and shared access are all in the repository. The hosted plan is the same application with the server, updates and backups handled — paying unlocks nothing and withholds nothing.
Can I self-host baybay?
Yes — plenty of families do. Clone the repository, copy .env.example to .env, generate a key, run the migration and point a web server at public/. baybay needs PHP 8.2 or newer with SQLite, which ordinary shared hosting already has. Run it yourself and no data about your family ever leaves your machine.
How is baybay different from Baby Buddy?
Baby Buddy tracks far more — diapers, tummy time, pumping, medication, temperature, weight, height and head circumference alongside feeds and sleep — and it has a larger community and a Home Assistant integration. baybay tracks feeds and sleep only, and installs without Docker or a Python environment: PHP and SQLite, no build step, two screens.
Does baybay need Docker?
No. baybay runs on PHP 8.2 or newer with SQLite, and installing it is cloning the repository and pointing a web server at public/. There is no Docker image, no Composer step, no npm and no build step — which is also why it will still install in five years. It runs on ordinary shared PHP hosting.
Does baybay work offline?
No, and the limit is deliberate. baybay installs to the home screen and opens full screen like an app, but it needs a connection to show or record anything: no page and no feed time is ever cached, and a failed write says so rather than queueing silently. A "last fed 20 minutes ago" that is really two hours old is worse at 3am than no answer.
Is baybay free?
There is a hosted plan at $7 a month for parents who would rather not run a server. Self-hosting is free forever, with every feature and nothing held back: it is MIT licensed, so you can fork it, change it or run it for someone else. The same application, and the same file you can export, either way.
Have a look before you decide anything
The demo is the real application on sample data — or skip ahead and start your own
Get your own