Documentation
Set up CrowdCAD for your team with step-by-step guides for Mac and Windows, no programming experience needed. You will also find Lite Mode guidance, self-hosting responsibilities, privacy considerations and answers to common questions.
Browse guides
Getting Started
Answer a few plain questions to choose between Lite Mode, PocketBase and Firebase.
Open Getting StartedPocketBase setup
Run CrowdCAD on one computer and share it over your local network. No cloud account, works without internet at the event. Step by step for Mac and Windows.
Open the PocketBase guideFirebase setup
Store CrowdCAD's accounts and data in your own Google Firebase project. Step by step for Mac and Windows.
Open the Firebase guideLite Mode
Understand browser-local evaluation workflows, practical fit and limits.
Open Lite Mode guidanceSelf-hosting
Review organizational ownership, deployment responsibilities and operational fit.
Open self-hosting guidancePrivacy and data considerations
Read a careful overview of deployment-model tradeoffs and internal review questions.
Open privacy guidanceChoose a deployment path
Both options cover the core CrowdCAD workflow. Lite Mode lowers the barrier to getting started, while self-hosted deployments add shared operations, customization and organization-managed administration.
Lite Mode
Lite Mode gives teams access to the core CrowdCAD workflow with a faster start and lower technical overhead.
- Available on crowdcad.org: Yes
- Requires your own deployment: No
- Core dispatch workflow: Included
- CrowdCAD server-side storage: Not used for Lite sessions
- Shared events: Not included
- Multiple dispatchers: Not included
- Venue maps: Not included
- Custom venues: Not included
- Interface customization: Not included
- Administrative control: Limited
- Best fit: Teams that want a faster starting point with lower setup overhead, or that want to try out the workflow before managing their own deployment
- Technical overhead: Lower
Self-Hosted
Self-hosting includes the full CrowdCAD workflow with support for shared operations, advanced configuration and organization-managed administration.
- Available on crowdcad.org: No
- Requires your own deployment: Yes
- Core dispatch workflow: Included
- CrowdCAD server-side storage: Organization-managed
- Shared events: Included
- Multiple dispatchers: Included
- Venue maps: Included
- Custom venues: Included
- Interface customization: Included
- Administrative control: Organization-managed
- Best fit: Teams that need shared operations, deeper customization and centralized administration
- Technical overhead: Higher
Important note
Organizations are responsible for evaluating legal, privacy, security and clinical documentation obligations for their own operating context. CrowdCAD documentation is informational and does not replace local legal, regulatory or policy review.
This public site is a demo, marketing and documentation environment and should not be treated as a production deployment for real patient data.
Documentation source note
Release history and selected project documentation are sourced from the public CrowdCAD repository submodule when available.
- • Submodule root:
core - • Docs directory:
core/docs - • Changelog path:
core/CHANGELOG.md - • Lite Mode: Local-only workflow guidance sourced from the project user guide. Source (updated 2026-11-12)
- • Self-Hosting: CrowdCAD supports two backends. Both are maintained in parallel and selected with NEXTPUBLICBACKEND (firebase or pocketbase). This guide helps you choose one. Each setup guide then covers everything through a running deployment: Source (updated 2026-11-12)
- • Privacy and Data Considerations: Privacy and data-handling considerations sourced from the project user guide. Source (updated 2026-11-12)
- • FAQ: <br/> Source (updated 2026-11-12)