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Comparison · Collab
Flame vs Hive
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Flame and Hive — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Flame vs Hive: at a glance
What is Flame?
Self-hosted dashboard that finished its feature arc and stopped shipping in 2023.
Flame is a self-hosted startpage for homelab services — app tiles, bookmarks, weather, and a search bar. The feature set it set out to build was finished across 2021 and 2022: custom app descriptions, Docker secrets support, a secondary search provider, and a custom theme editor. The most recent release in this feed is v2.3.1 from July 2023, and it is entirely bug fixes.
What is Hive?
Hive is wiring its modules together — across workspaces, into dashboards, and back through the activity feed
Hive ships in small daily batches across three tracks: Buzz, its assistant; a proofing and review stack aimed at creative teams; and the core project surfaces of dashboards, Tables, and notifications. The newest batch is core-surface work with a common thread — assignments from other workspaces now collect in a single My Actions view, dashboards can show planned dates next to the actions themselves, and notifications accept comments and reactions so activity can be answered where it appears. Buzz's most recent change was restraint rather than capability: it stays quiet when two people are talking to each other.
Flame vs Hive: editorial side-by-side
Flame
0.0COLLAB
Self-hosted dashboard that finished its feature arc and stopped shipping in 2023.
◆ Current state
Flame is a self-hosted startpage for homelab services — app tiles, bookmarks, weather, and a search bar. The feature set it set out to build was finished across 2021 and 2022: custom app descriptions, Docker secrets support, a secondary search provider, and a custom theme editor. The most recent release in this feed is v2.3.1 from July 2023, and it is entirely bug fixes.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc reads as a project reaching completion rather than one under active development. Later releases shifted from adding capability to correcting the edges of what already existed — search-provider interactions, iOS input rendering, theme editor field sizes, label wording. There has been nothing since.
◆ Prediction
Nothing in these entries suggests further releases; anyone deploying Flame should treat the current version as the final one unless the project resumes.
Hive
10.0COLLABPM
Hive is wiring its modules together — across workspaces, into dashboards, and back through the activity feed
◆ Current state
Hive ships in small daily batches across three tracks: Buzz, its assistant; a proofing and review stack aimed at creative teams; and the core project surfaces of dashboards, Tables, and notifications. The newest batch is core-surface work with a common thread — assignments from other workspaces now collect in a single My Actions view, dashboards can show planned dates next to the actions themselves, and notifications accept comments and reactions so activity can be answered where it appears. Buzz's most recent change was restraint rather than capability: it stays quiet when two people are talking to each other.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is consolidation of context rather than new surface area. Each of these changes removes a hop — one fewer workspace to check, one fewer click to see timing, one fewer page to open to respond — which is the same instinct behind Tables becoming a data source for Forms earlier in the window. Proofing remains the differentiated investment for agency approval cycles, but the current cadence is being spent on making the general project surfaces answer questions in one place.
◆ Prediction
Expect the cross-workspace view to keep widening, since My Actions is now the only surface that spans workspaces and that asymmetry is conspicuous next to dashboards and notifications that do not. Whether proofing resumes its earlier pace is not visible in this batch.
Alternatives to Flame and Hive
Other Collab products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Flame or Hive.
SiYuan
SiYuan's v3.8.0 train restates one AI feature set across seven consecutive builds.
Jellyfin
Jellyfin renumbers to 12.0 and spends the whole cycle paying down its backend rewrite.
Teable
Teable is spending its release budget making bring-your-own-database failures survivable.
NetNewsWire
NetNewsWire rebuilt Feedly sync to stop getting its own users rate-limited.
Happeo
Happeo's feed is a buyer-education funnel, not a changelog — no shipped work is visible.
Recent activity from Flame and Hive
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 4d agoHiveShow planned dates alongside actions in dashboards
- 4d agoHiveSee assigned actions from other workspaces in My Actions
- 4d agoHiveAdd comments and reactions to notifications
- 4d agoHivePolish Tables grid interactions and alignment
- 6d agoHiveBuzz now knows when to respond in shared threads
- 7d agoHiveFilter action card statuses by project
- 3y agoFlameBug fixes for local search, iOS input styling, and theme editor
- 4y agoFlameCustom theme editor and secondary search provider
- 4y agoFlameIn-app location detection and tightened file permissions
- 4y agoFlameLocal search covers app descriptions; background task tuning
- 4y agoFlameCustom app descriptions and a cluster deployment fix
- 4y agoFlameDocker secrets support
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Flame and Hive?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Hive is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 10.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Flame better than Hive?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Hive is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 10.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Flame?
Top Flame alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Flame alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/flame-dashboard for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Hive?
Top Hive alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Hive alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/hive for the full list with editorial commentary on each.