The open-source, self-hosted care coordination app for family caregivers
Coordinate the circle around an elderly loved one. On your server, with your data.
🇬🇧 English · 🇫🇷 Français
OpenCare is a self-hosted alternative to caregiver apps like Jointly or CaringBridge: a care circle around each cared-for person, a real-time care journal, medications with reminders, a shared calendar, shared expenses between siblings, and tools nobody else offers: magic links so professionals can write without an account, a fridge QR emergency sheet, a wall tablet for the cared-for person. All on your server: the health data of a vulnerable person should not live on someone else's cloud.
| 👥 Care circle | One circle per cared-for person, invite by link, fine-grained roles (family, professional, neighbour, read-only). Multi-circle from day one: follow both parents |
| 📔 Care journal | The digital liaison book: timestamped entries with photos, real time on every device (WebSocket). The heart of the app |
| 💊 Medications | Treatments and schedules, intake confirmation written to the journal, prescription renewal alerts |
| 📅 Shared calendar | Visits, medical appointments, nurse rounds, recurrences, reminders, iCal export (.ics / webcal) |
| ❤️ Health tracking | Hand-entered vitals (weight, blood pressure, pain, mood, temperature, glucose), curves over time |
| ✅ Tasks and shopping | Who does what this week, plus a shared shopping list the home aide can use too |
| 💬 Messages | Circle thread and direct messages, attachments |
| 📁 Documents and contacts | Prescriptions, reports, insurance, legal papers; the circle address book (GP, nurse, the neighbour who has the key) |
| 💶 Shared expenses | A built-in Tricount: who advanced what, balances, suggested settlements, and tracking of French aids (APA, CESU, tax credit) |
| ⚖️ Care load fairness | "Marie covered 78% of the visits this month": objective stats to prevent burnout of the primary caregiver |
| 🔗 Magic links | The home aide or the nurse writes in the journal from a simple link (SMS/QR), no account, no app to install |
| 🩺 Consultation prep | One click: a printable summary for the doctor (key events, vitals trends, current treatments, the family's questions) |
| 🖥️ Kiosk | A wall tablet at your loved one's home: who is coming today (with photos), big medication reminders, weather, and two huge buttons: "All is well" / "I need help" |
| 🚨 Emergency QR sheet | A printed QR on the fridge: paramedics scan it and see the vital sheet (treatments, allergies, directives, contacts), always up to date |
| 📖 "Who I am" | A life-story page (career, pride, habits, what soothes them) shown to every new caregiver, inspired by the Alzheimer's Society "This is me" document |
| 🧳 Respite handover | The primary caregiver leaves for a week: an auto-generated handover pack (schedule, medications, instructions, contacts) shared by link |
| 🏠 Passive monitoring | Home Assistant webhooks (door sensor, coffee-maker plug, motion): "normal activity this morning" on the family dashboard, alert cascade if no sign of life. No camera, no wristband |
| 🎙️ Voice journal | Dictate on your way out ("20 minute visit, all fine, get paracetamol"): your self-hosted Whisper transcribes, the AI files the journal entry and the shopping item |
| 🤖 Weekly AI digest | Every Sunday: "Calm week. 5 visits. Stable blood pressure. Attention: 2 missed doses on Tuesday and Thursday." With slow-trend detection (recurring low mood, gradual weight loss) |
- Self-hosted: Docker, or a one-click Windows installer (Node.js and PostgreSQL bundled)
- Offline-friendly PWA: works in a nursing-home room with poor signal
- Local-first AI: Ollama on your machine, or your own Anthropic / OpenAI-compatible key, encrypted at rest
- Full export of all circle data, AGPL-3.0 licensed
- French and English interface
For Windows users, NexaFlow provides an all-in-one graphical installer: Node.js and PostgreSQL are bundled, no Docker and no configuration required.
Download OpenCare-Setup.exe from the latest release,
run it, click Start: the app opens at http://localhost:3000. The window also shows your local
network address so the rest of the family can open it from their phones on the same Wi-Fi.
cp .env.example .env # set POSTGRES_PASSWORD and JWT_SECRET
docker-compose up -d --build- Frontend: http://localhost:3000
- Backend API: http://localhost:3001
On Windows, the simplest path needs no Docker: the script starts the bundled
PostgreSQL, writes a dev .env, and launches the app.
npm install
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\dev-windows.ps1On macOS or Linux (or Windows with Docker):
npm install
docker-compose up -d postgres # or any PostgreSQL 14+
cp .env.example .env # set JWT_SECRET (32+ chars) and POSTGRES_PASSWORD
npm run dev- Frontend: http://localhost:5173 · Backend: http://localhost:3001
The database schema bootstraps itself on first start: no manual SQL step. A
.env at the project root is required for npm run dev (the script above
creates one for you on Windows).
| OpenCare | Jointly / CaringBridge | |
|---|---|---|
| Your data on your server | ✅ | ❌ |
| Open source (AGPL-3.0) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Free, no subscription | ✅ | |
| Caregivers write without an account (magic link) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Shared expenses and care-load fairness | ✅ | ❌ |
| Kiosk for the cared-for person | ✅ | ❌ |
| Passive monitoring via Home Assistant | ✅ | ❌ |
Frontend: React 19 · TypeScript · Vite 7 · TailwindCSS · Radix UI · i18next · PWA (service worker, web push, offline) Backend: Node.js 20 · Express · PostgreSQL 14+ (self-bootstrapping schema) · WebSocket · Web Push (VAPID) · JWT + bcrypt 12 · helmet · rate limiting DevOps: Docker Compose · GitHub Actions · Inno Setup Windows installer
JWT auth (7 days) · passwords hashed with bcrypt (cost 12) · per-circle role checks on every request · secure HTTP headers via helmet · rate limiting on auth endpoints · strict configurable CORS · server-side input validation · AI keys encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM) · structured logs.
Contributions are welcome! The product spec lives in docs/SPEC.md. Open an issue or a pull request.
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 (AGPL-3.0-only), see licence.md.
Built and maintained by NexaFlow France, and offered to every family that takes care of someone.