Feedback boards and in-app feedback are two fundamentally different approaches to collecting and managing user feedback. The choice between them shapes your entire feedback strategy, affects user behavior, and determines what kind of insights you'll collect.

Feedback Boards (Public Boards)

What they are: Separate websites or portals where users submit, view, and vote on feedback. Think Canny, UserVoice, ProductBoard's portal.

User experience:

1. User has feedback
2. Remembers you have a feedback board
3. Navigates to separate URL (feedback.yourcompany.com)
4. Logs in (hopefully)
5. Searches to see if someone already submitted it
6. Either votes on existing or submits new
7. Can see all feedback from all users
8. Returns to check status occasionally

Key characteristics:

• Public by default (users see everyone's feedback)
• Voting/upvoting mechanism
• Discussion threads on each item
• Roadmap often public too
• Community-driven

In-App Feedback

What it is: Feedback mechanism embedded directly in your product interface. Users never leave your application.

User experience:

1. User encounters issue or has idea
2. Clicks feedback button (always visible in product)
3. Types feedback in modal or slide-out
4. Optionally attaches screenshot
5. Submits in 30 seconds
6. Continues using product
7. Sees responses appear in-app next time they login

Key characteristics:

• Private by default (1:1 with company)
• No voting (individual submissions)
• Minimal friction
• Context-rich (automatic URL, user data capture)
• Embedded in workflow

When Feedback Boards Work Well

Best for:

Community-driven products: Open-source, developer tools, products where transparency is valued.

Consumer products with large user bases: Many casual users, democratic decision-making works.

Feature discovery: Users see what's planned/possible and get excited.

Public accountability: Company makes commitments publicly, creating expectation.

Network effects: Users can discover each other's use cases.

Engagement mechanism: Voting and commenting keeps users engaged with brand.

Examples: Superhuman, Linear, Height (developer tools with engaged communities)

When In-App Feedback Works Better

Best for:

B2B SaaS products: Enterprise customers don't want requests public to competitors.

Privacy-sensitive industries: Healthcare, finance, legal where feedback might contain sensitive info.

Complex products: Feedback requires context of what user was doing.

High-value customers: Personal relationship, not democratic voting.

Fast-growing companies: Don't want to commit to public roadmap when iterating rapidly.

Proactive feedback collection: Can prompt for feedback at specific moments.

Examples: Stripe, Figma, Notion (B2B tools that value privacy and context)

Pros and Cons Comparison

Feedback Boards

Pros:

• Reduces duplicate submissions (users see existing requests)
• Shows transparency ("we listen to community")
• Voting provides signal on popularity
• Creates engaged community around product
• Marketing value (prospects see active development)

Cons:

• High friction (separate site, login, search before submit)
• Loud minority can dominate
• Voting ≠ business value (100 votes from free users < 1 enterprise request)
• Enterprise customers uncomfortable with public requests
• Creates roadmap expectations hard to manage
• Doesn't capture moment-of-use context
• Lower submission rates (requires intent to navigate to board)

In-App Feedback

Pros:

• Zero friction (one-click from anywhere in product)
• Captures context automatically (URL, user data, timing)
• Higher submission rates (easy to give feedback in moment)
• Privacy (especially important for B2B)
• Flexibility in prioritization (not beholden to vote counts)
• Can prompt for feedback at optimal times
• Better for bug reports (includes context)

Cons:

• Users submit duplicates (don't see others' feedback)
• Less community engagement
• No public accountability/transparency
• More work to identify patterns (no automatic vote tallying)
• Can feel like feedback goes into black hole
• Less self-service (users can't see status updates unless you push)

The Hybrid Approach

Many companies use both:

In-app for:

• Bug reports
• Contextual feedback ("this feature confuses me")
• Support questions
• Private customer requests

Public board for:

• Feature requests
• Roadmap transparency
• Community engagement
• Marketing/social proof

Example flow:

1. User submits via in-app widget (private, easy, contextual)
2. Team triages and identifies patterns
3. Significant patterns get posted to public board
4. Community votes and discusses
5. Team uses both in-app patterns and public votes for decisions

Best of both: Low-friction collection + community engagement

The Voting Problem

Public boards rely on voting. Issues with voting:

Not representative: Vocal minority votes. Silent majority doesn't.

Gaming: Users brigade voting ("everyone vote for my feature!").

Misleading signal: 100 votes from free users generating $0 revenue vs. 1 request from customer paying $50k/year—which matters more?

Feature creep: Popular ≠ strategically important. Can lead to bloated feature sets.

Expectation management: High-vote items create pressure to build even if strategically wrong.

In-app feedback doesn't have voting problem but requires more work to identify patterns. AI helps here—automatically clusters similar requests.

Decision Framework

Choose feedback boards if:

• Transparent, community-driven culture is core to brand
• Consumer product with thousands of users
• Developer tool or open-source adjacent
• Community engagement is marketing strategy
• Users won't share sensitive information in feedback
• Democratic decision-making aligns with strategy

Choose in-app feedback if:

• B2B SaaS, especially enterprise
• Privacy matters (healthcare, finance, legal)
• You want high collection rates and context
• Strategic prioritization over popularity
• Fast iteration without public commitments
• Customers include competitors who shouldn't see roadmap
• Personal relationships with key customers matter

Choose both if:

• Resources to manage both systems
• Can clearly separate public vs. private feedback
• Want low-friction collection + community engagement

The Trend: Shift to In-App

Market evolution:

2010-2015: Feedback boards popular (UserVoice era). Transparency and voting novel and exciting.

2015-2020: Problems emerging. Vote gaming, enterprise pushback, roadmap commitment issues.

2020-present: Shift to in-app + AI. Lower friction, better context, smarter pattern detection without voting.

Why: Products more complex. More B2B/enterprise. Need for privacy. AI makes pattern detection without voting viable.

Public boards still work for certain products, but in-app is increasingly default for B2B SaaS.

Implementation Considerations

Feedback boards:

• Choose platform (Canny, Frill, Upvoty)
• Design categories and structure
• Decide on voting vs. commenting rules
• Connect to roadmap
• Moderate community
• Regular communication of what's shipped

In-app feedback:

• Choose feedback widget (FeedbackView, Beamer, Userback)
• Design in-app UI/placement
• Connect to backend systems
• Build pattern detection (AI helps)
• Create close-loop communication system
• Response workflow for high-priority items

Hybrid:

• All of the above
• Clear rules on what goes where
• Workflow for promoting in-app to public
• Unified prioritization across both

Real-World Examples

Feedback board success: Linear (developer tool, transparent, community loves seeing roadmap and voting)

In-app success: Stripe (B2B, private feedback, strong personal relationships, context matters)

Hybrid success: Figma (in-app for bugs/issues, community for feature discussions)

The right answer depends on your product, market, and strategy—not what's trending.