Chobble Tickets vs Revel
Revel (letsrevel.io) is another open source ticketing platform. It was first built for queer, LGBTQ+ and kink communities, so like Chobble Tickets it is designed to keep attendee lists private.
Two platforms built for private communities
Both platforms are made for groups that cannot use a mainstream ticketing site. Revel was first built for queer, LGBTQ+ and sex-positive communities. Chobble Tickets is used by community groups, artists and small organisers who want to keep control of attendee data.
The two platforms protect privacy in different ways. Revel screens people with membership questionnaires before an event address is shared, and keeps guest lists private. Chobble Tickets encrypts attendee data at rest, so even someone with access to the server cannot read it without the organiser's private key.
Both platforms publish their source code and both can be self-hosted. The main practical differences are pricing, payment providers, the licence, and how much work self-hosting takes.
Two open source options
Revel is a source-published ticketing platform built with Python and Django. Its code is on GitHub under the letsrevel organisation and is licensed under the MIT licence, which lets anyone use, change or self-host it without a fee.
This page compares the two platforms to help you decide which fits your needs. Other open source comparisons cover Hi.Events, Pretix and Swicket with alf.io. The open source page describes Chobble Tickets without a competitor comparison.
Pricing comparison
The pricing models are different.
Revel hosted charges no annual fee. It takes 3% + €0.50 (about 43p, since Revel prices in euros) on each paid ticket it processes, and nothing for free events. It takes payment through Stripe, so Stripe processing fees apply on top of Revel's commission.
Revel self-hosted has no platform fee at all, because the code is MIT licensed. You pay only Stripe processing and your own server costs.
Chobble Tickets charges a flat £50/year or £5/month (£25/year for charities, community groups, artists and musicians on the annual plan) with no per-ticket platform fees. You also pay Stripe, Square or SumUp processing on top.
For small numbers of paid tickets, Revel hosted is cheaper because there is no annual fee. As volume grows, Chobble's flat fee becomes better value: if you sell more than about 57 tickets at £15 each in a year, you will pay less with Chobble Tickets. Neither platform charges a per-ticket fee on free events, though Chobble's flat annual fee still applies whether events are free or paid.
Interactive cost calculator
Drag the sliders to see how costs compare at different volumes:
| Chobble Tickets | Revel | |
|---|---|---|
| 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.
Revel's hosted service charges 3% + €0.50 (about 43p) on each paid ticket it processes, and nothing for free events or events where the organiser handles payment. Revel prices in euros; the figures here convert €0.50 to about 43p so they sit beside the pound amounts on this site. Revel takes payment through Stripe, so Stripe processing (1.5% + 20p in the UK) applies separately from Revel's commission. Revel's code is open source under the MIT licence, so self-hosting carries no Revel fee. Chobble Tickets: £50/year or £5/month flat (£25/year for charities, community groups, artists and musicians on the annual plan) + Stripe, Square or SumUp processing; this calculator uses Stripe's UK rate of 1.5% + 20p, and Square and SumUp differ. Source: letsrevel.io (August 2026).
Feature comparison
Both platforms share some features
- Open source with a self-hosting option
- Stripe payment processing
- QR code check-in at the door
- Apple Wallet tickets on the attendee's phone
- Free events with no per-ticket fee and no payment setup
- Custom questions asked when someone signs up
- Discount and promo codes
- Private attendee lists, built for communities that need them
Both platforms cover the core ticketing basics, but they focus on different things beyond that.
Revel has features Chobble Tickets doesn't
- Attendee vetting - membership questionnaires screen people before an event address is shared, so an organiser can approve or decline a request
- Digital door policy - questionnaires designed for community vetting at the door
- Reserved seating - a seat-map designer with zone pricing for venues (Chobble Tickets uses shared capacity, not allocated seats)
- Potluck boards - coordinate who brings what, with dietary flags
- Community membership - organisations manage members with roles and permissions, not only ticket buyers
- Global banning - block a person across all of your events at once
- Referral programme - track sign-ups that come from existing members
- XLSX export - export attendee data as an Excel file (Chobble Tickets exports CSV)
- Automated invoicing - sequentially numbered invoices with VAT handling, including EU business reverse charge
- Telegram integration - send updates through Telegram
Chobble Tickets has features Revel doesn't
- Encryption at rest - attendee data is stored with hybrid RSA-OAEP + AES-256-GCM encryption rather than plain database rows
- Square and SumUp payments - Chobble Tickets supports Stripe, Square and SumUp; Revel is Stripe only
- Pay-what-you-want pricing - let attendees choose their own price
- Daily and recurring events - built for events that repeat on a schedule, with capacity set per date
- Custom email providers - send confirmations through Resend, Postmark, SendGrid or Mailgun, from your own domain
- Customisable email templates - full control over confirmation emails using Liquid syntax
- RSS and calendar feeds - attendees get ICS calendar updates, and events can be syndicated over RSS
- Public website and CMS - a homepage, content pages, news posts and a contact form with spam protection, all edited in Markdown with custom CSS
- Custom domain included - managed hosting can use your own domain at no extra cost
- Activity logs - an audit trail of admin actions and booking activity
- Flat annual pricing - a fixed £50/year or £5/month with no per-ticket platform fee, rather than a commission on each paid ticket
- Serverless edge deployment - Chobble Tickets compiles to a single JavaScript file that runs on Bunny.net edge scripts with an edge database, so there is no server to keep online
Different philosophies
The two platforms are built very differently.
Revel is a Python and Django application with a PostgreSQL database, Redis and background workers. It is feature-rich, with community membership, vetting, seating plans and invoicing. Self-hosting it means running an always-on server; Revel's own guidance suggests around 2 CPU cores and 4GB of memory as a starting point.
Chobble Tickets is built on Deno and compiles to a single JavaScript file that runs as an edge script on Bunny.net, with an edge database. It focuses on privacy through encryption, data ownership and flat-rate pricing. It is run by a Community Interest Company, which cannot pay profit to shareholders and donates 10% of income to the Against Malaria Foundation.
Licensing and self-hosted costs
Both platforms are open source, but under different licences.
Revel uses the MIT licence. This is a permissive licence: anyone can use, change, rebrand or resell the code, and there is no requirement to publish changes or to show a "Powered by" link. Self-hosting is free.
Chobble Tickets uses AGPL-3.0-only. This is a copyleft licence: a business that changes Chobble Tickets and runs it as a service for others must publish its changes under the same licence. There is no attribution requirement, no commercial licence to buy, and self-hosting is free.
Neither platform charges a software fee to self-host. The difference in cost is the server: Revel needs a running application server with a database and background workers, while Chobble Tickets runs on serverless edge infrastructure with no server to manage.
Self-hosted cost calculator
Compare self-hosting costs - Chobble Tickets has no license fee:
| Chobble Tickets (self-hosted) | Revel Self-Hosted (self-hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| License fee | £0.00 | £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.
Revel is open source under the MIT licence, so self-hosting carries no Revel platform fee and no per-ticket commission. You pay only your own server costs and Stripe processing (1.5% + 20p in the UK). Revel needs a Django application server with PostgreSQL, Redis and background workers, so plan for a small always-on server. Chobble Tickets self-hosting also has no Chobble software licence fee; it compiles to a single JavaScript file and runs on serverless edge infrastructure. Source: github.com/letsrevel (August 2026).
The self-hosted comparison above shows both platforms with no software licence fee. The real difference is the infrastructure each one needs, which is not modelled here.
When Revel might be better
- You need to vet attendees with questionnaires and approve them before sharing an address
- You want reserved seating with a seat-map designer
- You run a membership community, not only ticketed events
- You want per-ticket pricing with no annual fee for lower volumes
- You need invoicing with EU VAT handling
- You want potluck coordination or Telegram updates
When Chobble Tickets might be better
- You want predictable flat-rate pricing with no per-ticket platform fee
- You want attendee data encrypted at rest
- You want Stripe, Square or SumUp, rather than Stripe only
- You prefer serverless hosting with no server to keep online
- You are a charity, community group, artist or musician (£25/year on the annual plan)
- You want a public website, calendar feeds, custom email providers or pay-what-you-want pricing
- You value a Community Interest Company, which cannot pay profit to shareholders
Who builds Revel?
Revel is published on GitHub under the letsrevel organisation and licensed under the MIT licence. Its terms name Biagio Distefano as the operator, an individual based in Vienna, Austria. Its pricing and invoicing are in euros with EU VAT handling.
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 and 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 project information was checked on 10 August 2026. Fees may change. Check the links below for the latest figures.
- Revel - 3% + €0.50 per paid ticket (hosted)
- Revel on GitHub - MIT licensed, free to self-host
- Chobble Tickets features