Who's free next week?

At most small agencies, the answer lives in one person's head, a colour-coded spreadsheet or a Friday-afternoon group chat. Work gets promised to people who are already full, and spare capacity goes unnoticed.

CapacityLens puts that answer on one shared screen. People run down the side, days run across the top, and their work and time off sit in between. Red means someone is booked for more than they can do that day.

You book work by the day and read the plan by the week. CapacityLens does not track tasks, budgets or timesheets.

It is free and open source (AGPL-3.0), with no paid tier and no hosted version. You run it on your own server, and the only cost is that server (server size).

Which one are you?

I'm installing it. You put CapacityLens on a server and give the Owner its address: install it (five short steps, about ten minutes on a host that already runs Node 24), add HTTPS, check backups and hand over. Start the installation

I own the company. You create the company and invite someone to run it day to day. Four steps, and then you can stop. Set up your company

I set the work. You add the team, the clients and the projects, then book people onto work. Five steps to a working schedule. Get the schedule ready

I just want to see my work. You've been invited. Accept the invitation and your week is on the first screen. See your work

Doing all of it yourself? Small agencies often do. The whole setup on one page takes you from download to your first booking.

Want a look first? Watch the walkthrough above. If you are comfortable with a terminal, try the demo on your own computer with sample data: it needs the developer tools Node and git, but no server and no sign-in.

How setup fits together

1. The installer puts CapacityLens on a server and gives the Owner an address and a one-time setup token.
2. The Owner signs in with that token, creates the company and invites an Admin.
3. The Admin invites the team, adds the people to schedule and books the first work.
4. Everyone else accepts their invitation and opens Schedule.

One person can do every step. Each guide covers only its own step, so you never need to read another role's guide first.

More

• What is CapacityLens?: what it does, what it leaves out and why.
• Before you adopt: project status, getting your data out and where to get help.
• How it compares with spreadsheets, Float, Forecast and Resource Guru.
• Roles and permissions: what each role can see and do.
• Glossary: every term the guides use, in plain language.
• Security and privacy: how CapacityLens protects your data and what it stores.
• Open source and contributing: CapacityLens is free software under AGPL-3.0.