Dex vs Monica.
One is a fast-moving commercial CRM for working a professional network. The other is an open-source labor of love you can run on your own server. Both are good at their job. The real question is which job you have. Updated September 2026.
The short answer.
Choose Dex to work a professional network: LinkedIn sync, meeting briefs, and mobile apps, at $12/mo billed annually as of July 2026. Choose Monica for personal relationships you want to own: open source, free if you self-host, $9/mo hosted. They solve different jobs, so price is rarely the real decider.
The short version.
Dex, in a paragraph.
Dex (getdex.com) is a personal CRM built for professional networking. Its center of gravity is LinkedIn: job titles update themselves, a browser extension captures people in one click, and email and calendar sync fill in the history. AI meeting briefs, message drafts, mail merge, and a Zapier and API layer round it out. It has apps for web, iOS, Android, and desktop. It’s a startup about seven years in with more than 30,000 users, and it ships like one.
Monica, in a paragraph.
Monica (monicahq.com) is a beloved open-source personal CRM for friends and family. It’s AGPL licensed, so you can self-host it for free with Docker, or pay for the hosted version. It has reminders, activities, gift tracking, and a journal, all entered by hand, all yours. Development moves at a volunteer pace; the maintainers themselves call it a side project. The UI is web only, though community mobile clients exist.
Who should choose which.
Choose Dex if you’re working a network.
- LinkedIn is where your professional relationships live, and you want job titles that update themselves.
- You want email and calendar sync to build the timeline for you.
- AI briefs before meetings and drafted follow-ups after would genuinely save you time.
- You want real mobile apps, including Android.
- You’d rather pay about $144 a year (as of July 2026) than maintain anything yourself.
Choose Monica if you want to own it.
- The people you’re tracking are friends and family, not contacts.
- You want your data on your own server, and you’re comfortable running Docker.
- You like open source on principle and AGPL in practice.
- Gift ideas, a journal, and activity logs sound genuinely useful.
- You want software you could still be running in twenty years, no company required.
Only consider Wavepal if the job is smaller than either.
If what you actually want is to stop losing touch with friends and family, and you don’t want to run a server or work a system, Wavepal is a third shape: pick a rhythm per person, get one gentle nudge when it’s time. Nothing syncs in, on purpose. Different problem, different tool.
Where they differ.
Two philosophies of software.
Dex is a funded startup: it charges a subscription and spends it on shipping. Monica is open source: it gives you the code, and nobody can take it away. Neither way is wrong, but they set different expectations. Dex will keep adding AI features and polish. Monica will keep being yours, for as long as you care to run it.
Whose relationships, exactly.
Dex assumes a network you’re actively working: recruiters, investors, former colleagues, people whose job titles matter. Monica assumes people you love: it tracks gift ideas and how the kids are doing, not deal flow. So start with your list, not the tools. If it reads like a rolodex, Dex. If it reads like a holiday-card list, Monica.
Privacy and data ownership.
Dex syncs LinkedIn, email, and calendar into its cloud, which is the whole value and also the whole tradeoff. Self-hosted Monica is the maximum-privacy option in this category, full stop: your data sits on hardware you control, under a license built to keep it that way. If that’s the thing you care about most, Monica wins this one outright.
Pricing and value.
As of September 2026: Dex Premium runs $12 a month billed annually, about $144 a year, or about $20 month to month, with a 7-day trial. Monica’s hosted plan is $9 a month or $90 a year, after a 30-day free trial. Self-hosting Monica costs whatever your server does. Verify on their pricing pages; these numbers move.
Where Wavepal fits.
Off to the side. Wavepal only does the friends-and-family job, and only the nudging part of it: a rhythm per person, one gentle reminder when it’s time, notes and birthdays, no sync and no importer. Free up to 10 people, then $5 a month billed annually, as of July 2026. No streaks and no guilt, built with ADHD brains in mind. Dex for work and Wavepal for everyone else is a perfectly sane setup. And if Monica already feels like home, stay.
Common questions.
- Can Monica do what Dex does for professional networking?
- Not really. Monica has no LinkedIn sync, enrichment, or meeting briefs, and it isn’t trying to grow them. It’s built for personal relationships you log by hand. If you need a networking tool, compare Dex with Clay (now Mesh) instead.
- Is Monica really free?
- The software is. It’s AGPL licensed, so self-hosting with Docker costs only whatever your server does. The hosted plan is $9 a month or $90 a year as of September 2026, after a 30-day free trial. There’s no hosted free tier.
- Is Monica still maintained?
- Yes, at a volunteer pace. The maintainers describe it as a side project, so releases arrive when they arrive. That’s a tradeoff to weigh against a funded product like Dex, not a reason to write it off.
- Can I move my contacts between Dex and Monica?
- Both let you export your data, so you’re not locked into either one. Into Wavepal, no. There’s no importer today; it starts small on purpose.
- Is Wavepal a replacement for Dex or Monica?
- No, unless the people you’re losing touch with are friends and family rather than a professional network, and all you really need is one gentle nudge at the right time. It doesn’t sync anything in, and it won’t.
Be the friend who remembers.
Add your first few people in minutes. Wavepal takes it from there.
Free up to 10 people. No card. Nothing for your friends to install.