How to Use Rallly: The Beginner's Guide (First Install, Your First Poll, the SMTP Rule, and the Backup Lesson)
CodexFuse Team · 2026-11-01T09:37:33.332Z · 12 min read
Your first Rallly poll in under a minute, then the self-hosted path: CLI installer, the SMTP rule, admin claim, and backups.
What Is Rallly?
Rallly is an open-source scheduling tool that finds the best date and time for a group to meet. You create a poll with a few time options, share the link, and participants vote on when they are available — no back-and-forth emails, no group-chat chaos. Learning how to use Rallly means understanding two things: the hosted app anyone can use in under a minute, and the self-hosted stack for teams that want the whole thing on their own server.
The project has been around since 2015 and is AGPL-3.0 licensed, with more than 5,300 GitHub stars behind it. Its current release, v4.16.3, shipped on October 26, 2026. This Rallly tutorial walks the complete beginner arc: your first poll on the hosted app, reading the votes, the self-hosted install path, the SMTP rule, admin setup, and the backup lesson.
How to Use Rallly: The 5-Step First Poll
The fastest way to learn Rallly is the hosted app at rallly.co, where participants need no account — that is the product's core promise. Here is the whole beginner arc:
- Open rallly.co and click Create to start a new scheduling poll.
- Give the poll a title, then add the date and time options you are considering.
- Adjust the settings: turn "if need be" voting on or off, and decide whether responses stay visible to everyone.
- Share the poll link with your group — voters open the link and respond, no account required.
- Watch the best-time highlight, pick the winner, and finalize the event.
That five-step flow is the entire hosted product: create, share, vote, decide.
Step 1: Create Your First Scheduling Poll
Clicking Create drops you into the poll editor. The first field is the title — write what the meeting is actually about, like "Q4 planning session" or "Birthday dinner", not "Poll". Then add location and description if the group needs context, and pick your proposed times on the calendar grid. Add more options than you think you need; it is easier for people to reject a slot than to propose one.
Rallly polls come in two flavors. Scheduling polls collect availability across proposed times, which is the classic use case. Decision polls are plain yes-or-no questions with the time grid removed — you turn off the "if need be" vote for these, which leaves a simple Yes/No ballot for questions like "Approve the new logo?"
Step 2: Understand the Yes / If Need Be / No Votes
Each proposed time collects three kinds of votes from every participant: Yes, If need be, and No. The "if need be" option is the quiet genius of the format — it lets someone say "I can make it, but I would rather not" without blocking the whole group. If your poll is a simple decision, turn "if need be" off in the settings for a clean Yes/No vote.
As votes arrive, each time option shows a running count of who can make it, alongside who said yes, who said if need be, and who said no. The poll highlights the time with the strongest availability — usually the slot with the most Yes votes and the fewest No votes. You still make the final call; the highlight is a recommendation, not a decision.
Step 3: Share the Link and Collect Votes
Every poll gets a public link you can drop into email, chat, or a calendar invite. Voters open the link, type their name, and mark their availability — creating an account is not required for participants, on either the hosted app or a self-hosted instance. A free Rallly account is only needed when you want to manage your polls from any device and get notifications when people respond.
Here is a worked example of how the votes read. Four teammates vote on three proposed times:
| Proposed time | Yes | If need be | No | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tue 10:00 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Winner |
| Tue 14:00 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Runner-up |
| Wed 10:00 | 1 | 0 | 3 | Rejected |
Tuesday 10:00 wins because everyone can make it — three firm Yes votes and one If-need-be, with zero No votes. Tuesday 14:00 is a viable fallback with two Yes votes, and Wednesday 10:00 is dead with three No votes. That table is the whole scheduling problem solved in one glance.
Step 4: Finalize the Event and Notify Everyone
Once the votes are in, open the poll, review the highlighted best time, and finalize it. Finalizing locks the winning time and — on a properly configured instance — triggers notifications to participants. On the hosted app, Rallly handles email delivery for you. On a self-hosted instance, email only works if you set up SMTP during installation, which is why the installer walks you through it.
A note on poll lifetimes for free hosted users: guests with no account get 1 open poll, free Hobby accounts get 3 open polls, and Pro accounts get unlimited open polls. Polls are automatically deleted when all date options are in the past and there has been no activity for over 30 days — activity means new votes, comments, or changes. That cleanup rule does not apply to Pro users.
Rallly vs Doodle: Why People Switch
Rallly is the open source Doodle alternative, and the comparison comes up because the two products solve the same problem. Doodle is proprietary, ad-supported on its free tier, and has steadily pushed its best features behind a paywall. Rallly is AGPL-3.0 licensed, has no ads, lets participants vote without an account, and can be self-hosted so your poll data never leaves your server.
| Question | Rallly | Doodle |
|---|---|---|
| License | AGPL-3.0 open source | Proprietary |
| Participant accounts | Not required | Not required on paid, limited free |
| Self-hosting | Yes, full stack | No |
| Ads | None | Present on free tier |
| API | Rallly Cloud only | Paid plans |
| Data control | Your server, your data | Doodle's servers |
The honest version: if you just need one quick poll and do not care where the data lives, either works. If you run a team, a school, or a community and want scheduling without accounts, ads, or a vendor holding your data, Rallly is the one built for that.
Rallly vs Cal.com: Polls Are Not Booking Pages
People often mention Cal.com in the same breath, but the two tools do different jobs. Rallly polls help a group agree on ONE time together — everyone votes, the best slot wins. Cal.com gives you a booking page where individuals pick a slot from YOUR availability — one person books you, no group decision involved. Use Rallly for "when should we all meet?"; use Cal.com for "book a call with me."
How to Self-Host Rallly: The CLI Installer
Self-hosting Rallly is where the product shows its second face. The current install path is the Rallly CLI installer — the old guides that start with git clone and a manual Docker Compose file are from a previous era and should not be followed. The installer runs on your server and does five things: it checks that Docker and the required ports are available, downloads the stack to /opt/rallly, walks you through configuration including your domain, support email, and SMTP, generates secure secrets automatically, and starts the stack.
The installer needs Docker with Compose v2 on the server. New to containers? This Docker beginner guide covers the concepts before you touch a server.
What the Rallly Docker Stack Contains
A rallly self hosted install is a batteries-included rallly docker deployment — four containers that the installer wires together:
| Service | Job |
|---|---|
| Traefik | Reverse proxy with automatic HTTPS via Let's Encrypt; the only service binding host ports 80 and 443 |
| Rallly | The web application itself |
| PostgreSQL | The primary database holding polls, users, and votes |
| Garage | S3-compatible object storage for file uploads |
On first boot, Traefik requests a Let's Encrypt certificate for your domain, which can take up to a minute — give it a moment before assuming something broke. If you want to understand the Compose files the installer lays down, this Docker Compose generator is a good way to learn the syntax piece by piece.
The Server Requirements (Read Before You Install)
Rallly's self-hosted stack needs a server with at least 2 GB of RAM — that is the documented minimum, and the database plus object storage will use it. Beyond that: Docker 19.03 or newer with Compose v2, ports 80 and 443 open on the server, a domain name with a DNS A record pointing at the server's IP, and an SMTP server for sending emails. If you do not have a server yet, this what is VPS hosting guide explains the kind of machine to rent.
The SMTP Rule: No SMTP, No Poll Emails
SMTP is required for poll emails on a self-hosted Rallly instance — invitations, vote notifications, and finalize alerts all go through it. The installer prompts for your SMTP settings during setup and names Resend, Postmark, Mailgun, and Brevo as examples. Set this up during installation, not after: a Rallly instance with no working SMTP silently fails to notify anyone, and your first poll will look broken to every participant who never got an email. On Rallly Cloud this is not your problem — Rallly handles email delivery there.
Claiming Admin: The /control-panel Step
After the stack is running, the first user whose email matches INITIAL_ADMIN_EMAIL can open /control-panel and claim the admin role. Do this immediately — the admin who never claims the role is a security gap, because the control panel is also where updates are managed. The panel tells you when a new release is available and whether it fixes a security issue, so updates are not a guessing game.
One privacy detail worth knowing: Rallly checks api.rallly.co hourly for updates, sending only the version number and an anonymous instance ID. That is the extent of the phone-home traffic, and it is what powers the update notice in the control panel. For private admin access to the panel, a Tailscale beginner guide setup keeps it off the public internet entirely.
Backing Up Rallly: The ./backups/ Lesson
A rallly backup is simple in concept: Rallly writes database dumps to ./backups/ as timestamped .sql.gz files — copy them off the server regularly, because a backup that lives on the same disk as the database is not a backup.
Restoring follows a fixed order from the management docs: stop the app first so it releases its database connections, drop and recreate an empty rallly database, stream the dump back in, then restart. If you want a visual way to watch the stack's containers during maintenance, the Portainer beginner guide covers exactly that.
Rallly API and SSO: What Lives Where
Two features people ask about have a Cloud-vs-self-hosted split. The Rallly API is only served by Rallly Cloud — self-hosted instances do not have it, so if your workflow needs programmatic poll creation, that is a Cloud feature. On the self-hosted side, rallly sso is a supported next step, with Google, Microsoft, or generic OIDC login available on your own instance.
Self-Hosting Licenses: Free Personal, Paid Multi-User
Rallly is open source and always free for personal use. For multi-user setups the project asks you to buy a license key: Personal covers 1 user and is free, Plus covers up to 5 users for a $49 one-time perpetual fee, Organization covers up to 50 users for $499, and Enterprise starts at $999 for 50+ users. Guest voters do not count as users for licensing purposes, and the project runs licensing on the honor system.
Beginner Mistakes That Break a Rallly Setup
| Mistake | What happens | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Following a pre-v4 git-clone guide | Stale Compose files, missing Garage/Traefik wiring | Use the Rallly CLI installer only |
| Skipping SMTP at install time | Polls send no invitations or notifications | Configure SMTP when the installer asks |
| Never claiming /control-panel | No admin, no update notices, security gap | Set INITIAL_ADMIN_EMAIL and claim it day one |
| Keeping backups in ./backups/ only | Disk failure takes data and backups together | Copy .sql.gz files off-server on a schedule |
| Under-provisioning RAM | Database and app fight for memory, stack stalls | Start at 2 GB RAM minimum |
| Checking DNS before the first boot settles | HTTPS errors blamed on Rallly | Wait a minute for the Let's Encrypt certificate |
Sources
- Rallly GitHub repository README (github.com/lukevella/rallly) — product description, participant voting without accounts, AGPL-3.0 license, 5,334 stars, created 2015
- Rallly v4.16.3 release (newreleases.io/project/github/lukevella/rallly) — latest release published 2026-10-26
- Rallly v4.16.0 release notes (github.com/lukevella/rallly/releases/tag/v4.16.0) — decision polls, "if need be" toggle, control-panel update check behavior
- Rallly self-hosting installation docs (support.rallly.co/self-hosting/installation/docker) — CLI installer steps, 2 GB RAM minimum, SMTP providers, INITIAL_ADMIN_EMAIL admin claim
- Rallly self-hosting introduction (support.rallly.co/self-hosting/introduction) — bundled stack (Traefik, Rallly, PostgreSQL, Garage), Cloud-only API
- Rallly self-hosting management docs (support.rallly.co/self-hosting/management) — ./backups/ .sql.gz backups and restore order
- Rallly self-hosting licensing (support.rallly.co/self-hosting/licensing) — Personal/Plus/Organization/Enterprise tiers, honor system
- Rallly FAQ (support.rallly.co/faq) — no account needed for participants, Hobby/Pro open-poll limits, 30-day poll deletion rule
- Rallly committee scheduling page (rallly.co/en-GB/scheduling-for/committees) — Yes/If need be/No vote display
- SaaSHub Rallly vs Appointy comparison — third-party listing of the Pro tier at $7/month (not vendor-confirmed)
Frequently Asked Questions
Do participants need a Rallly account to vote?
No. Participants open the poll link, type their name, and vote — no account required. A free account is only useful for the poll creator, who gets to manage polls from any device and receive response notifications.
Is Rallly really free?
The software is AGPL-3.0 open source and free for personal use, including self-hosting for one user. The hosted Rallly Cloud has a free Hobby tier (3 open polls) and a paid Pro tier with unlimited open polls. Multi-user self-hosting uses a one-time license key: Plus (5 users, $49), Organization (50 users, $499), Enterprise (50+ users, from $999).
Should I use Rallly or Doodle?
Use Rallly if you want no ads, no required participant accounts, open-source code, and the option to self-host so poll data stays on your server. Doodle is fine for a one-off poll when data control does not matter to you.
Can I self-host Rallly on a cheap VPS?
Yes, if it has at least 2 GB of RAM, Docker with Compose v2, open ports 80 and 443, a domain with a DNS A record, and an SMTP server. The Rallly CLI installer handles the rest: it downloads the stack to /opt/rallly, configures Traefik with automatic HTTPS, and starts everything.
Does Rallly have an API?
Yes, but only on Rallly Cloud — self-hosted instances do not serve the API. If you need programmatic poll creation, that is a Cloud-only feature; the self-hosted strength is privacy and control, plus SSO via Google, Microsoft, or OIDC.
