Chobble Tickets vs Hi.Events
Hi.Events is another open source ticketing platform, so this is a comparison between two projects with similar values but different approaches.
UK made & flat fee Hi.Events alternative
Chobble Tickets is made in the UK by a community interest company, so prices are set in pounds and profit cannot be paid out to shareholders.
Both platforms publish their source code, and both can be self-hosted. The hosted pricing differs: Hi.Events Cloud takes 0.75% + 40¢ per ticket sold, while Chobble Tickets charges a flat £50/year or £5/month with no per-ticket platform fee. Above roughly 116 tickets at £15 a year, the flat fee costs less.
Chobble Tickets managed hosting runs on serverless edge infrastructure, so the organiser has no server to manage. Self-hosting either platform means running and updating your own infrastructure. Hi.Events self-hosting is AGPL-3.0 with additional attribution terms.
Two open source options
Hi.Events is another source-published ticketing platform, built with React and Laravel. Free self-hosting uses AGPL-3.0 with additional attribution terms.
This page compares the two platforms to help you decide which fits your needs.
Other open source comparisons cover Pretix and Swicket with alf.io. The open source page describes Chobble Tickets without a competitor comparison.
Pricing comparison
The pricing models are quite different:
Hi.Events Cloud charges no upfront fee but takes 0.75% + 40¢ (~32p) per ticket sold, plus Stripe processing fees. You can pass these to the buyer or absorb them yourself. Free events are completely free.
Hi.Events Self-Hosted has no platform fees at all. You only pay Stripe processing and your own server costs (roughly £16-32/month for hosting).
Chobble Tickets charges a flat £50/year or £5/month (£25/year for charities and community groups on the annual plan) with no per-ticket platform fees. You also pay Stripe, Square or SumUp processing fees on top.
For small numbers of tickets, Hi.Events Cloud is cheaper since there's no annual fee. As volume grows, Chobble's flat fee becomes better value: if you sell more than about 116 tickets at £15 each in a year, you will pay less with Chobble Tickets.
Interactive cost calculator
Drag the sliders to see how costs compare at different volumes:
| Chobble Tickets | Hi.Events | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual fee | £50.00 | £0.00 |
| Platform fees | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Payment processing | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Total cost per year | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Cost per ticket | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Your share | £0.00 | £0.00 |
"Your share" assumes the organiser pays the fees out of the ticket price. Where a platform lets the organiser add its fees on top, the buyer pays them and the organiser keeps more than the figure shown. These figures exclude VAT and cover paid tickets. Several platforms charge nothing for free tickets, and the notes below record that where it is published.
Hi.Events cloud fees: 0.75% + ~32p per ticket, plus Stripe processing (1.5% + 20p). Self-hosted Hi.Events has no platform fees, only Stripe processing. Chobble Tickets: £50/year or £5/month flat + Stripe processing (1.5% + 20p).
Feature comparison
Both sites share some features
- Open source with self-hosting option
- Stripe payment processing
- Apple Pay and Google Pay at checkout (via Stripe)
- QR code scanning for check-in at the door
- API access for custom integrations
- Custom questions at checkout
- Event capacity limits
- Email confirmations to attendees after booking
- Free event support with no payment setup required
- Refund processing
- Add-ons sold alongside tickets, such as merchandise, parking or meal upgrades
- Embeddable ticket widgets for your own website
- Multiple ticket types per event with shared capacity limits - both platforms support VIP, early bird, and tiered pricing with a shared attendee cap across ticket types
Both platforms cover the core ticketing basics well, but they differ in focus and extras:
Hi.Events has features Chobble Tickets doesn't
- Drag-and-drop event page builder - a visual editor for designing event pages with custom layouts, images, and sections
- Affiliate and referral tracking - track which promoters and links are driving ticket sales with commission tracking
- Custom PDF ticket designs - design your own ticket layouts with branding, logos, and custom fields
- Multi-currency support - sell in different currencies for international events
- Donation and tiered ticket types - offer donation options and pricing tiers beyond fixed and pay-what-you-want
- Tax and custom fee management - configure VAT rates, add service fees, and manage tax reporting per event
- Real-time sales dashboard - live analytics showing ticket sales, revenue, and check-in rates as they happen
- Stripe Connect instant payouts - receive payments directly to your Stripe account with faster payout times
- Custom registration questions with more field types - add free-text, date, and other custom field types beyond multiple choice per ticket type (Chobble supports multiple-choice and free-text custom questions)
- Bulk messaging by ticket type - send targeted emails and updates to attendees based on which ticket type they bought
- Waitlists - automatic notifications when places open up on sold-out events
- Ticket transfers - allow attendees to transfer their tickets to someone else
- Automatic invoicing - generate invoices for orders automatically
- XLSX export - export attendee and order data in Excel format (Chobble supports CSV only)
- Branded organiser homepage - a page showcasing all your events under your organiser profile
- Multiple check-in lists - create separate lists for different areas, gates, or purposes
- Offline check-in support - continue scanning tickets when internet connectivity is lost
- Multi-language support - serve the checkout in multiple languages
- Hidden/locked tickets - tickets hidden behind promo codes for presales, VIP access, or invite-only events
- Abandoned cart handling - detect and act on incomplete checkouts to recover lost sales
- Event badge designer - a browser-based badge design tool for printing attendee badges at events
- SEO tools - per-event custom meta titles, descriptions, Open Graph images, and XML sitemap generation
- Offline payment methods - record and track cash, bank transfer, or other non-digital payments
- Marketing opt-in - checkbox during checkout for attendees to opt into marketing communications
Chobble Tickets has features Hi.Events doesn't
- Encryption at rest - attendee data is stored with hybrid RSA-OAEP + AES-256-GCM encryption rather than plain database rows
- Surcharges and returning-customer pricing - beyond the promo codes and add-ons both platforms offer, a price rule can add a surcharge, scale a price, or change it for someone who has booked before
- Apple & Google Wallet tickets - attendees can add tickets to their phone wallet
- ICS calendar feeds - subscribers get automatic calendar updates
- RSS feeds - syndicate your events to feed readers
- Pay-what-you-want pricing - let attendees choose their price
- Daily/recurring event support - built specifically for events that repeat on a schedule with per-date capacity
- Event groups with shared capacity - organise related events into collections for multi-event bookings with a single checkout, and use max attendees per group to create tiered ticket types (VIP, early bird, etc.) sharing a venue cap
- Admin API - authenticated API with API keys for full event CRUD and reading private data
- Custom email providers - use Resend, Postmark, SendGrid, or Mailgun so emails come from your domain, not the platform's
- Customisable email templates - full control over confirmation emails with Liquid syntax for a fully white-label experience
- Markdown event descriptions - write content in markdown with header image uploads
- Custom domain support - use your own domain name
- Public-facing website and CMS a homepage, content pages, news posts, and a contact form with spam protection, edited from the admin panel in Markdown with custom CSS. Hi.Events provides event pages but not a full composable website
- Activity logs - full audit trail of all admin actions and booking activity
- Square payment support - Chobble supports Stripe, Square, and SumUp; Hi.Events is Stripe-only
- No branding requirements - Chobble's AGPLv3 licence has no "Powered by" requirement; Hi.Events requires visible "Powered by Hi.Events" branding unless you buy a $499+ commercial licence
- Serverless edge deployment - Chobble compiles to a single JS file that runs on Bunny.net edge scripts with a Bunny.net edge database, so there is no server to manage, no scaling to configure, and no database replication to maintain. Hi.Events needs a traditional server (2 CPU, 4GB RAM minimum) that you're responsible for keeping online, updated, and backed up
Different philosophies
The two platforms differ most in their underlying approach.
Hi.Events is built on PHP/Laravel with a React frontend. It's a full-featured web application with a polished, modern UI aimed at nightclubs, festivals, conferences, and professional event organisers. It has instant Stripe Connect payouts and strong branding customisation. The self-hosted version requires a server with at least 2 CPU cores and 4GB RAM.
Chobble Tickets is built on Deno and compiles to a single JavaScript file that runs as an edge script on Bunny.net, with no traditional server required. It uses a Bunny.net edge database, so there's no server to manage, no scaling to worry about, and no database replication to configure. It prioritises simplicity, privacy (hybrid RSA/AES encryption for attendee data), and predictable flat-rate pricing. It is aimed at community groups, schools, small organisers, and anyone who values data ownership over feature density. It is run by a Community Interest Company.
Licensing and self-hosted costs
Both platforms are open source, but with very different licences and self-hosting economics:
Hi.Events uses AGPL-3.0 with additional terms. The free self-hosted version requires a visible "Powered by Hi.Events" link. To remove branding, you need a commercial licence:
- Single Domain - $499 (~£420) for one production domain
- Multi-Tenant (SaaS) - available at higher tiers for running your own ticketing platform (contact Hi.Events for pricing)
Chobble Tickets is open source with no branding requirements and no commercial licence needed. Self-host for free, modify as you like, and use your own domain at no extra cost.
Self-hosted cost calculator
Compare self-hosting costs - Chobble Tickets has no license fee:
| Chobble Tickets (self-hosted) | Hi.Events Self-Hosted (self-hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| License fee | £0.00 | £420.00 |
| Platform fees | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Payment processing | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Total cost per year | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Cost per ticket | £0.00 | £0.00 |
| Your share | £0.00 | £0.00 |
"Your share" assumes the organiser pays the fees out of the ticket price. Where a platform lets the organiser add its fees on top, the buyer pays them and the organiser keeps more than the figure shown. These figures exclude VAT and cover paid tickets. Several platforms charge nothing for free tickets, and the notes below record that where it is published.
Hi.Events Single Domain commercial license: $499 (approx. £420). AGPL edition is free but requires 'Powered by Hi.Events' branding. Multi-tenant licenses are available at higher tiers; contact Hi.Events for pricing. Chobble Tickets self-hosting has no Chobble software licence fee; infrastructure and payment processing remain separate. Source: hi.events/pricing and hi.events/open-source-event-ticketing (March 2026).
The self-hosted comparison above uses the Hi.Events Single Domain commercial licence ($499/~£420) since most organisations will want to remove the "Powered by" branding. The Single Domain licence is perpetual for the covered version, so there is no annual fee. If you are happy keeping the branding, Hi.Events self-hosted is free, as Chobble Tickets is.
When Hi.Events might be better
- You want a polished, modern UI with a visual page builder
- You need affiliate tracking
- You prefer a pay-per-ticket model with no upfront cost
- You're running large nightlife events or festivals and want instant payouts
- You need multi-currency support
- You want a more feature-rich platform and don't mind the complexity
When Chobble Tickets might be better
- You want predictable, flat-rate pricing with no per-ticket platform fees
- Privacy and encryption matter to you
- You prefer a serverless, edge-deployed platform with no server management
- You're a charity, community group, artist or musician (£25/year on the annual plan)
- You want Apple/Google Wallet integration, calendar feeds, or RSS
- You value a Community Interest Company over a traditional startup
Who builds Hi.Events?
Hi.Events is operated by Hi.Events Ltd, an Irish company with company number 795885. Dave Earley is the main repository contributor and previously created Attendize. Public sources checked on 25 July 2026 did not establish the company's funding status.
Free self-hosting uses AGPL-3.0 with an additional attribution requirement. A "Powered by Hi.Events" link must remain visible unless the operator buys a commercial licence. The $499 Single Domain licence covers the licensee's own events; providing ticketing to other organisers requires a different licence.
Chobble Tickets is run by one person as a Community Interest Company (CIC), a UK legal structure that locks the company's assets for community benefit. Chobble Tickets is published under AGPL-3.0-only with no attribution requirement, and the platform can be self-hosted by anyone without depending on Chobble as a company. The hosting page describes its deployment options.
Pricing sources
The pricing and company information was checked again on 25 July 2026. Fees may change. Check the links below for the latest figures.
- Hi.Events pricing - 0.75% + 40¢ per ticket (cloud)
- Hi.Events open source / self-hosted - $499 single domain commercial licence
- Hi.Events Single Domain licence terms
- Hi.Events on GitHub
- Hi.Events terms - Hi.Events Ltd company details
- Chobble Tickets features