Decidim
Decidim is a free, open-source participatory democracy platform built on Ruby on Rails, enabling governments, NGOs, and cooperatives to deploy digital tools for participatory budgeting, consultations, and assemblies. Operated by a Spanish nonprofit, it is funded through donations and institutional membership fees.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2016
- HeadquartersBarcelona, Spain
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Decidim does
Decidim is a free/libre, open-source participatory democracy platform operated by the Associació de Software Lliure Decidim, a Spanish nonprofit association headquartered in Barcelona. Founded in 2016 as an initiative of the Ajuntament de Barcelona's Laboratory for Democratic Innovation, the platform enables municipalities, regional and national governments, supranational bodies, NGOs, and cooperatives to deploy digital infrastructure for citizen participation — covering strategic planning, participatory budgeting, public consultations, citizen initiatives, assemblies, and referenda. The platform is distributed at zero licensing cost and is financed through voluntary donations via OpenCollective and membership fees paid by institutional supporters including the Ajuntament de Barcelona, Generalitat de Catalunya, and Localret.
The platform is built on Ruby on Rails as a modular framework of mountable engines and gems, organized around two architectural primitives: "Participatory Spaces" (Processes, Assemblies, Initiatives, Consultations, Conferences) and "Components" (Proposals, Meetings, Budgets, Accountability, Debates, Surveys, Sortitions, Blog, Pages). Notable technical features include multilingual support across at least eleven languages, a GraphQL API with OAuth and token authentication, mapping integrations with Mapbox and OpenStreetMap, ephemeral verification for anonymous voting, and a privacy-with-verification model that preserves participant uniqueness without exposing personal data. The project is released under AGPLv3 with content under CC BY-SA and Open Database License.
Customer adoption is anchored by high-profile public-sector deployments — including the European Commission's Conference on the Future of Europe, the Brazilian Presidency's Brasil Participativo platform, the French Assemblée Nationale petitions platform, the NYC Civic Engagement Commission (formalized via MoU in June 2026), Helsinki City Government's OmaStadi, and the City of Barcelona, where 30 million euros were allocated through participatory budgeting across 2020–2023. The platform is governed by the Metadecidim community, which hosts the project's own roadmap, governance votes, and bug reporting, and has grown to over 39,000 registered participants.
Decidim firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Decidim
- Legal name
- Associació de Software Lliure Decidim
- Website
- https://decidim.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2016
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Decidim is a free, open-source participatory democracy platform built on Ruby on Rails, enabling governments, NGOs, and cooperatives to deploy digital tools for participatory budgeting, consultations, and assemblies. Operated by a Spanish nonprofit, it is funded through donations and institutional membership fees.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where Decidim is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Barcelona
- HQ country
- Spain
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
Decidim business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Donations and Support: Decidim accepts donations through OpenCollective for continuous improvements to the platform.
- Association Membership: Organizations and individuals can become members of the Decidim Association by demonstrating commitment through participation in community activities, code contributions, or organizational support.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Pay-as-you-go | Free Open Source - No software cost |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels9 records
Decidim product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Decidim is a free/libre open-source participatory democracy framework built on Ruby on Rails that organizations download and self-host to run digital citizen participation platforms. It combines configurable participatory spaces (Processes, Assemblies, Initiatives, Consultations, Conferences) with modular components (Proposals, Meetings, Budgets, Debates, Surveys, Accountability, Sortitions, Blog, Pages) to support participatory budgeting, public consultations, citizen initiatives, and strategic planning. The platform is governed by the Metadecidim community under the Associació de Software Lliure Decidim nonprofit.
Product overview
Decidim is a free/libre, open-source participatory democracy platform provided as a modular framework built on Ruby on Rails. The core platform is supplemented by configurable components (Proposals, Meetings, Budgets, Accountability, Debates, Surveys, Sortitions, Blog, Pages) that can be combined within participatory spaces (Participatory Processes, Assemblies, Initiatives, Consultations, Conferences) to create tailored democratic systems. The ecosystem includes the Metadecidim community platform for project governance, comprehensive developer documentation at docs.decidim.org, and an online demo at try.decidim.org. Releases follow approximately monthly cadence with long-term support for multiple versions.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Metadecidim: The community platform and governance system for the Decidim project, where community members participate in decisions about the software roadmap, development, and governance.
Products and services
- Decidim Core Platform Free/libre, open-source participatory democracy framework built on Ruby on Rails engines. Enables cities, organizations, and institutions to create digital participation platforms with configurable spaces and components for democratic processes. For government institutions, NGOs, cooperatives, and other organizations.
- Metadecidim Community Platform The community platform managing the Decidim project in all its dimensions. Used for governance, roadmap co-creation, bug reporting, feature proposals, and community coordination. For developers, researchers, implementers, and users of the Decidim ecosystem.
- Proposals Component Core component allowing participants to create, publish, and manage proposals with titles, descriptions, locations, and estimated budgets. Supports comments, endorsements, amendments, and collaborative drafting. For organizations running participatory democracy processes.
- Meetings Component Enables creation and management of public meetings including registrations, agenda planning, polls, and close procedures. Supports both in-person and online meetings with integration to other components. For organizations facilitating in-person and online civic participation.
- Budgets Component Participatory budgeting module allowing organizations to allocate funds through democratic processes. Participants can vote on projects until district budget is exhausted with real-time budget tracking. For governments and organizations running participatory budgeting.
- Accountability Component Project tracking and results management for monitoring implementation status of approved proposals. Supports status updates, milestones, and timeline views. For organizations tracking implementation of citizen-approved proposals.
- Debates Component Enables structured public discussions on topics with opening and closing dates. Supports deliberation before voting or proposal phases. For organizations running deliberative democratic processes.
- Participatory Processes Configurable multi-phase participatory spaces with defined steps, components, and timelines for organizing strategic planning, consultations, or collaborative design processes. For governments and organizations running complex participatory projects.
- Assemblies Organizational structure for government bodies, councils, boards, and working groups with member management, components, and landing pages. For institutions with formal bodies requiring public-facing governance pages.
- Initiatives Citizen initiative system enabling direct democracy with signature collection, promoter committees, and configurable initiative types for triggering decision-making processes. For governments enabling citizen-led agenda-setting.
- Decidim Demo Online demo instance allowing users to explore and test the platform with generic credentials before deployment. For prospective organizations evaluating Decidim before self-hosting.
- Decidim Documentation Comprehensive developer and administrator documentation covering installation, configuration, development, API reference, and feature guides for all Decidim versions. For system administrators, developers, and integrators deploying Decidim.
Quantifiable outcome
- 30 million euros allocated through participatory budgeting in Barcelona 2020-2023 with 64,571 total participants
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Decidim
Customer profileNamed customers10 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Decidim technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration3 records
AI capability3 records
Feature5 records
Decidim partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Five partnerships are on record, tiered flagship, core and minor.
- New York City Civic Engagement CommissionflagshipOn June 24, the Decidim Association and the New York City Civic Engagement Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) during a ceremony in NYC. The partnership formalizes their collaboration for civic engagement and participatory democracy initiatives.
- Ajuntament de BarcelonacoreFounding institutional partner that developed Decidim and continues to support the project
- LocalretminorLocalret consortium supporting Decidim as institutional partners
- Generalitat de CatalunyacoreRegional government of Catalonia supporting Decidim as institutional partners
- Diputació de BarcelonaminorProvincial government supporting Decidim as institutional partners
Scale indicators19 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Decidim competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- OpenGov: US-based software company providing budgeting, permitting, and civic engagement tools to 2,000+ US state and local governments. A broader government-tech incumbent whose civic engagement suite overlaps Decidim's municipal government use cases but sits inside a much wider ERP-style product portfolio.
- Granicus: Major US government technology vendor covering communications, service delivery, and civic engagement for 5,500+ government agencies. Its govDelivery and engagement modules compete with Decidim in North American municipal procurement, particularly for councils seeking single-vendor procurement relationships.
Direct peers
- Consul: Open-source civic participation platform originally developed by Madrid City Council, Spain. Closely mirrors Decidim's value proposition — free, modular, self-hosted, used by municipalities for participatory budgeting, proposals, and debates. The two are the most comparable open-source civic-tech projects in the European market.
- CitizenLab: Belgium-based SaaS civic engagement platform serving 300+ governments across Europe and North America. Offers the same core use cases (participatory budgeting, ideation, consultations) as Decidim but as a paid managed service, making it the most direct commercial competitor in the same buyer segment.
- LiquidFeedback: Open-source liquid democracy platform developed in Germany, enabling delegated voting and proposal workflows for parties and associations. Comparable technology philosophy (free software, delegation, proposal-based participation) though narrower in scope than Decidim's full participatory stack.
- Bang the Table (EngagementHQ): Australian-headquartered civic engagement SaaS used by 500+ governments globally. EngagementHQ provides surveys, ideation, place-based engagement, and budgeting — directly overlapping Decidim's component set — and represents the established commercial alternative in Anglophone markets.
- Loomio: Open-source cooperative decision-making platform used by organizations, cooperatives, and NGOs for proposals, polls, and threaded deliberation. Targets the same secondary segments as Decidim (associations, cooperatives, civil society) with similar transparency and voting principles.
- Citizen Foundations (Your Priorities): Icelandic open-source civic engagement platform offering crowdsourced legislation, participatory budgeting, and petitions. Targets municipalities and parliaments — directly overlapping Decidim's citizen initiative and petition use cases in the Nordic and European markets.
Emerging players
- Pol.is: Open-source real-time deliberation platform using AI-assisted consensus mapping. Adopted by the Taiwanese government for vTaiwan and used in civic consultation contexts overlapping Decidim's Debates component, though narrower in functional scope.
Others
- Decidim is open source — Discourse: Open-source community discussion platform used by thousands of projects including Metadecidim-adjacent communities. Not a direct civic-participation competitor but a common infrastructure alternative for organizations considering participatory forums, and a community-software adjacency.
Market position
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks5 records
Customer concentration
Decidim social profiles
Digital presenceDecidim financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Decidim leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Decidim funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Decidim M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Decidim
What does Decidim do?
Decidim is a free/libre open-source participatory democracy framework built on Ruby on Rails that organizations download and self-host to run digital citizen participation platforms. It combines configurable participatory spaces (Processes, Assemblies, Initiatives, Consultations, Conferences) with modular components (Proposals, Meetings, Budgets, Debates, Surveys, Accountability, Sortitions, Blog, Pages) to support participatory budgeting, public consultations, citizen initiatives, and strategic planning. The platform is governed by the Metadecidim community under the Associació de Software Lliure Decidim nonprofit.
Is Decidim a public or private company?
Decidim is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Decidim founded?
Decidim was founded in 2016. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Decidim based?
Decidim is headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, in the Europe region.
How does Decidim make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Donations and Support is the primary driver. The others are association Membership.
Who are Decidim's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are OpenGov and Granicus. Direct peers are Consul, CitizenLab, LiquidFeedback, Bang the Table (EngagementHQ), Loomio and Citizen Foundations (Your Priorities). Pol.is is listed as an emerging player. Decidim is open source — Discourse is listed as an others.
Does Decidim have an API?
Yes. Decidim provides a GraphQL API for programmatic access to platform data and functionality. The API covers Spaces (Participatory Processes, Assemblies, Initiatives, Consultations, Conferences) and Components (Accountability, Budgets, Debates, Meetings, Proposals). Authentication methods include OAuth via social providers and token-based authentication. API reference documentation is available under /en/develop/develop/api/. Developer documentation is at docs.decidim.org/en/develop/develop/api.