# GitHub Releases for engineers. Herald for your users.

GitHub Releases is built for engineers. A customer-facing changelog is built for users. Herald reads your PRs to draft the changelog AND publishes back to GitHub Releases — so you don't have to choose.

GitHub Releases is great at what it does: a versioned, tagged, API-accessible release log for engineers and integrators. It's invisible to the people who actually use your product. Herald reads from your repo to draft the customer-facing changelog AND publishes back to GitHub Releases — so the same release lands in both places.

Primary CTA: [Start free trial](https://app.sendherald.com/sign_up)
Secondary CTA: [See bidirectional GitHub](/guides/herald-and-github-releases/)

Free 14-day trial · No credit card · One publish, two surfaces

## Two audiences, two surfaces

### GitHub Releases serves engineers

Discoverable on the repo. Tagged to a git ref. API-accessible to Dependabot, Renovate, and every release-watching CI script. If your audience is other engineers consuming your library or API, GitHub Releases alone is enough. You probably don't need Herald.

### Your users need something else

A SaaS product user is not going to navigate to your GitHub repo and click Releases. They want a clean changelog page on your own domain, an in-product widget with an unread badge, and an email when something ships. None of that is on GitHub Releases.

### Herald does both — bidirectionally

Connect your repo. Herald drafts the customer-facing release from your PRs (with AI in three source modes). You review and publish — and the same release publishes back to GitHub Releases with optional 'Posted with Herald' attribution. One source of truth, two surfaces, zero copy-paste. (Team+)

## Herald vs GitHub Releases — side by side

| Feature | Herald | GitHub Releases |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free plan | Self-hosted (MIT) | Free (built into GitHub) |
| Starting paid price | $19/mo (Solo) | Free |
| Reads merged PRs | Included (3 source modes) | Included (auto-generate notes) |
| AI draft from PRs | Included (all paid) | — (template, not AI) |
| Customer-facing changelog page | Hosted on your domain | On github.com only |
| Embeddable in-app widget | Included | — |
| Email subscribers | Included | — |
| Custom domain | Team+ | — |
| Branded for your product | Included | — (GitHub-branded only) |
| User segmentation / groups | Team+ | — |
| Analytics on release reads / clicks | Team+ | — (only stars/downloads) |
| SEO indexable for product queries | Yes (your domain) | Limited (github.com pages) |
| Publish back to GitHub Releases | Team+ | N/A |
| Multi-repo aggregation (parent/child) | Team+ | — (one repo per release stream) |
| Self-hostable / open source | Included (MIT) | N/A (GitHub-owned) |
| Scheduled publishing with timezone | Included | — |

## The bidirectional GitHub flow

### 1. Connect your repo

Paste the repo path (public) or install the Herald GitHub App (private repos, Team+). Herald gets read access to your merged PRs and write access to publish back to Releases.

### 2. Draft from your code

Open Releases → New Release. Pick a source mode: branch-to-branch diff, release/tag diff, or merged PRs in a time range. AI auto-curates what belongs and writes the entries.

### 3. Edit for your users

The Herald editor is where the voice shifts from engineer to user. Reorder items, cut internal-only changes, rewrite anything too technical. Same source of truth, different audience.

### 4. Publish to both surfaces

Hit Publish. Your hosted changelog page updates, the widget badge increments, subscribers get an email — AND the release appears on your GitHub Releases page too, with an optional 'Posted with Herald' footer. (Team+)

## When GitHub Releases alone is enough

If your audience is engineers — open-source library maintainers, SDK authors, API providers whose users are all in code — GitHub Releases is the right tool and Herald is overkill. The auto-generated release notes between two tags work, downstream tools watch your Releases for new versions, and adding a separate customer-facing changelog would be marketing surface area you don't need. Stay with GitHub Releases.

## When you need both

If your product is a SaaS, mobile app, dashboard, or anything used by humans who aren't in your code, you need a customer-facing changelog AND you probably want your engineering team to keep using GitHub Releases. That's the gap Herald closes. The release happens once, in Herald, with all the AI-drafting and user-focused editing tools — and lands in both places.

## Is Herald right for you?

### Use Herald if you...

- Ship a product used by humans who are not your engineering team
- Want a customer-facing changelog page on your own domain, indexed for your product-name queries
- Want an in-product widget with unread counts and read tracking
- Want subscribers and email notifications when you ship
- Want to keep using GitHub Releases AND have one publish action update both surfaces
- Have multiple repos that need to roll up into one customer-facing changelog

### Stick with GitHub Releases if you...

- Your audience is entirely other engineers, contributors, or downstream library consumers
- You only need a versioned release log that downstream automation can watch
- You don't have a customer-facing product, just a library or SDK
- You're shipping fewer than a few releases a year and a manual GitHub Release is enough

## Already on GitHub Releases? Keep going. Add Herald on top.

There's no migration. Your existing GitHub Releases stay where they are — Herald doesn't touch your history. New releases get drafted in Herald from your merged PRs and publish forward to both your customer-facing changelog AND your GitHub Releases page going forward.

1. Connect your repo to Herald (public: paste the path; private: install the GitHub App).
2. Pick a draft source — last 30 days of merged PRs is a fine starting point.
3. Review the AI draft, edit for your users, publish.
4. Enable "Publish on GitHub" in Settings → Integrations → GitHub to push future releases back to GitHub Releases too.

Old GitHub Releases stay in place. New releases get authored once in Herald and land in both surfaces.

## Start with Herald

Stop maintaining two changelogs.

Herald drafts the customer-facing release from your PRs and publishes back to GitHub Releases. One source of truth, two surfaces. Free 14-day trial, no credit card.

- [Start free trial](https://app.sendherald.com/sign_up)
- [Read the bidirectional GitHub guide](/guides/herald-and-github-releases/)

Self-hosting is always free. MIT licensed.