Kitsu production tracking for studios, $45K a month, self-reported in 2023: open source

Kitsu is an open-source production tracker for animation, VFX, and game studios. Its $45K a month was founder-reported on the Indie Hackers product page (not independently verified), as of July 2023.

What it actually sells

Kitsu is an open-source production tracker for animation, VFX, and game studios. Its site says, “Trusted by studios and schools all over the world.” It supports collaboration for distributed teams working in studios or from home.

Kitsu tracks production progress, assigns tasks, supports feedback, stores production content, and keeps that content accessible across the team and pipeline. Its site says, “Receive up-to-date information on your production's progress, allowing you to assign tasks and provide efficient feedback, keeping your team on track.”

How it charges

The product's price could not be identified on the pages we read. Kitsu offers a two-week trial, and API features—including REST routes, event stream, and full-text search—are included in the subscription. Cloud installations include user support, training, extra features, plugin deployment, and contractor synchronization. Artist Schools have a listed price of 3999€ a year for up to 100 students.

Where customers come from

CGWire publishes customer stories and links to further customer examples. Its site invites readers to discover how studios have used its products for collaboration and production completion. It also offers free trial access through two-week trials on all plans.

What stands out

Kitsu's site reports usage across 500+ studios, 25,000+ active users, 10,000+ video reviews per day, and 30+ countries. Its product also includes forecasting, dispatching, review, reporting, connection tools, and contractor synchronization.

From the official site

Trusted by studios and schools all over the world

Receive up-to-date information on your production's progress, allowing you to assign tasks and provide efficient feedback, keeping your team on track.

Excerpts from the official website, fetched October 1, 2026.

Where it sits in the data

CGWire's $45K a month is higher than 82% of the 6,604 projects with founder-reported monthly revenue in our dataset; the median across them is $2K. Snapshot: 2026-09-30. The dataset only covers founders who chose to publish their numbers, so it leans toward businesses that work; use it for scale, not as an average.

Currency

All figures are in US dollars as published. A rough yuan or euro conversion is not applied here because prices, taxes and acquisition costs differ by country.

Could you build something like this?

In my view, demand would come from studios managing animation, VFX, or game production across distributed teams. The buyer would be a studio or school responsible for production coordination, task assignment, feedback, and access to production content. Distribution would need to connect open-source adoption, customer stories, trials, and direct outreach to studio decision-makers.

Building the product would require real work around secure content storage, collaboration, production pipelines, integrations, and reliable operations. Customer data obligations add another layer. A production tracker also carries a substantial support load, and competition would come from established production-management and collaboration tools.

Verdict: Hard to replicate.

One thing to take from it

Kitsu brings task tracking, feedback, secure content access, forecasting, dispatching, review, reporting, and connection tools into one production tracker. Its site reports 500+ studios, 25,000+ active users, 10,000+ video reviews per day, and use in 30+ countries.

Sources

CGWire official website, fetched October 1, 2026
CGWire pricing page, fetched October 1, 2026
CGWire about page, fetched October 1, 2026
Indie Hackers product page: revenue founder-reported on the Indie Hackers product page (not independently verified), as of July 2023

Revenue, team and start-cost figures are what the founder reported at the interview date, not current figures and not a prediction of what you will earn. Product and pricing facts come from the business's own website as checked on 30 September 2026. Method & sources · Disclosure