Public vs Private Feedback Boards: How to Choose

One of the first decisions you make when setting up a feedback board is whether it should be public or private. It's a small toggle with a big effect on how feedback flows — so it's worth a minute of thought.

Feevox boards can be either, and you can run both at once for different audiences. Here's how to choose.

What a public board gives you

A public board is visible to anyone with the link. Visitors can see every idea, vote, and — if you allow it — submit their own.

The upside is momentum and trust:

• Social proof. People see others asking for the same things and pile on with votes instead of opening duplicates.
• Transparency. A public board paired with a public roadmap shows customers you're listening, which reduces "are you ever going to build X?" support tickets.
• Discovery. Public boards are indexable, so they can pull in search traffic from people looking for exactly what you do.

The trade-off: everything is visible, including requests that hint at your direction.

What a private board gives you

A private board is visible only to you and invited admins. Use it when:

• You're collecting internal feedback from your own team.
• You're running a closed beta and don't want requests public yet.
• The feedback is sensitive — enterprise deals, security topics, or early-stage ideas.

You still get voting, comments, tags, and status tracking — just without the public window.

A simple rule

Ask one question: do you want this feedback to build trust with customers, or to inform you quietly?

• Building trust and momentum with users → public.
• Internal planning, sensitive topics, or pre-launch → private.

Many teams run both: a public board for customer-facing feature requests, and a private board for internal or sensitive work.

You're not locked in

Whichever you pick, you can change it later. Start private while you find your footing, then flip to public once you're comfortable sharing — or keep a clean public board for customers and a separate private one for the team.

The board is just the container. What matters is that feedback has a home and a visible path forward. For the full cycle, see closing the feedback loop.

Create your first board — public or private, free to start.