311 & Report-an-Issue Apps

The "report a pothole" app category has a clean FOSS / paid divide: FixMyStreet (mySociety, FOSS) on one side; SeeClickFix (Granicus-owned SaaS) on the other. Cities choose based on procurement model more than features. Pair with Civic Tech Overview, Public Consultation, Open Data, and Mapping & OSM-HOT.

Free / FOSS (start here)

• ★ ★ FixMyStreet — AGPL-3.0; Perl + JavaScript; mySociety (UK non-profit). Originally launched 2007; now deployed across UK councils, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Bromley, Greenwich, Hampshire, and others. mySociety runs FixMyStreet Pro as a paid hosted service for UK councils that want operations support; the underlying code stays AGPL.
• ★ ★ FixMyStreet Platform — the same codebase, packaged for international reuse. The German "Mark-a-Spot" project, "Klantcontact" in the Netherlands, and others are deployments / forks.
• ★ Mark-a-Spot — German FixMyStreet-style FOSS platform; PHP/Drupal-rooted.
• Open311 — open API specification (not software); GeoReport v2 standard for 311 systems. Most major 311 platforms (FixMyStreet, SeeClickFix, NYC 311, Chicago 311) speak Open311. Specification is open and free.
• Ushahidi — open source crisis-mapping platform (LGPL); originally Kenya 2008 election violence; can be configured for 311-style reporting. More crisis-mapping than municipal-311; see Mapping.

Paid SaaS (the procurement-shaped half)

• SeeClickFix — paid; Granicus-owned (since 2019); the dominant US municipal 311 SaaS; mobile + web; integrates with city work-order systems; per-resident or per-city licensing.
• CitySourced — paid; competitor to SeeClickFix; smaller deployment base.
• PublicStuff — paid; absorbed into Accela.
• GORequest (CivicPlus) — paid; bundled with CivicPlus municipal CMS.
• MyCity 311 / AlertID — niche paid offerings.

Built-in / native city apps

Major US cities run their own:

• NYC 311 — proprietary; the canonical big-city 311 system; speaks Open311.
• Boston 311 (formerly "Citizens Connect") — Boston-built; Open311.
• Chicago 311 — Open311; integrated with city open-data portal.
• SF 311 — proprietary; integrates Open311 GeoReport.

These are often built on Salesforce Government Cloud / Microsoft Dynamics 365 / Accela under the hood — heavy procurement, not OSS.

Why FOSS won the UK and not the US

• mySociety + UK procurement — UK councils are smaller, less well-funded, and more willing to share platform costs. mySociety's hosted FixMyStreet Pro fits.
• US municipal procurement is captured by a small number of vendors (Granicus, CivicPlus, Accela, Tyler Technologies). Once a city has one, replacing it is politically expensive. SeeClickFix-as-Granicus benefits from this.
• There is no "FixMyStreet US" with serious deployment penetration. The closest is direct deployments of the FixMyStreet platform by individual municipalities.

Open311 — the standard

• Open311 GeoReport v2 — open spec from 2010-era; HTTP API for submitting service requests; supported by FixMyStreet, SeeClickFix, and most major US 311 systems.
• Why it matters: a third-party app can submit reports to any compliant city. The Open311 ecosystem stayed small but the spec held up.

Honest take (2026)

• For UK councils, FixMyStreet is the obvious answer — mySociety operates it, the AGPL keeps it honest, integrations with council back-offices are mature.
• For US cities, the FOSS path is harder — your IT shop probably already has Granicus or Accela, and replacing it is a multi-year procurement.
• Open311 is underused — civic-tech volunteers can build alternative-frontend apps against any Open311-compliant city without permission.
• The category is mostly stable — there hasn't been a major new entrant in years; this is mature civic infrastructure.

Pick this if…

• UK council, want FOSS: FixMyStreet (or FixMyStreet Pro hosted by mySociety).
• EU / international, FOSS, want to self-host: FixMyStreet Platform.
• US city locked into a vendor stack: SeeClickFix (Granicus) — accept the trade-off, push for Open311 compliance in the contract.
• Crisis / disaster reporting (not normal 311): Ushahidi.
• You're a civic hacker building an app: target Open311 GeoReport v2; see mySociety.