← Back to Free Church ChMS
✝ Free for churches, forever 📄 ONE file · nothing else to install 🐘 PHP + SQLite · no build step

Free Church ChMS: Deploy & Pay It Forward

Everything you need to run your own Free Church ChMS instance. The whole platform is a single file — app.php. Upload that one file to any PHP web host and open it in a browser. No database to set up, no folders to arrange, nothing to download from the internet. And you are warmly encouraged to copy it and give it away to as many other churches as you like.

✝ Pay It Forward — copy it and give it away

Before you install anything: if you received Free Church ChMS on a USB stick or as a .ZIP file, you are warmly encouraged to make as many copies as you want and give them to fellow pastors and churches.

One pastor, one USB stick, copied 100 times, handed to 100 churches? That is wonderful — please do exactly that. There is no mistake in this and nothing to ask permission for: the software is free forever, and yours to share like an evangelism tract. Pastors sharing with pastors.

How: the download is a single file. Copy it onto as many USB sticks as you like, or email it, or hand it to a pastor on a thumb drive — make all your give-away copies first — then install your own at your church, use it, and keep it forever. You lose nothing; the fresh copies go out into the world to bless other congregations.

"Freely you have received; freely give." — Matthew 10:8 ✝

What you're deploying

One file. That is genuinely the whole thing.

Free Church ChMS is a single-file PHP application. Everything the platform needs — every screen, every style, every icon and font, and all of its JavaScript libraries — is contained inside app.php and served from it. The SQLite database is created automatically, next to the file, the first time you open it.

There is nothing to compile, no Node build, no database server to install, no assets folder to keep in the right place, and no external CDN is ever contacted — so your instance is fully self-contained and private, and it works even on a network with no internet access. If your host runs PHP (almost all do), it runs Free Church ChMS.

  • The platform: members, giving, attendance, groups, events, volunteers, pastoral care
  • Intelligence: deterministic engagement scoring, donor segments, leader pipeline, insights
  • AI: AI Studio and Assistant, powered by your own Anthropic Claude key (we never see your data)
  • Communications: real email (SMTP) and SMS (Twilio), no-code workflows, 47+ integrations
📄 The download contains exactly two things: app.php (the entire platform) and READ-ME-FIRST.txt (a one-page plain-English version of these instructions). Each copy also carries a build serial number, so you always know which version you're running.

Before you start

A 60-second requirements check.

  • A PHP web hosting account running PHP 7.4 or newer (8.x recommended). Infomaniak, or any standard shared/managed host, works.
  • Standard PHP extensions enabled, with nothing to install (no Composer/npm). Required are pdo_sqlite, curl, openssl, json, mbstring; optional are zip + simplexml (Excel) and gd (photos). All standard on Infomaniak. After install, Settings → System status gives a live green/red check of every one.
  • The web directory must be writable so PHP can create the aichurch.db SQLite file (and, when you add member photos, an uploads/ folder it makes for itself).
  • A way to put one file on your host — your hosting control panel's file manager, or an SFTP/FTP client (FileZilla, Cyberduck). Anything that can upload a file will do.
  • Optional: an Anthropic API key for the AI features (you can add it later in Settings).
💡 You do not need a database server. No MySQL, no Postgres, no setup. SQLite lives in a single file that Free Church ChMS writes for you on the first page load.

Setup in 4 steps

Upload one file, open it in a browser, and you're running.

1

Upload app.php to your web host

Unzip the download and you'll find a single file: app.php. Put it in an empty folder on your web host — using your hosting file manager, or an SFTP/FTP client. On Infomaniak that folder is sites/your-domain.com/.

⚠️ Nothing else goes with it. No assets folder, no database file, no configuration. If anything is already sitting in that folder from a previous install, start with a clean, empty folder instead.
2

Make sure the folder is writable

Free Church ChMS creates its own database (aichurch.db) the first time it runs, and later an uploads/ folder for member photos. On Infomaniak and most managed hosts the web root is already writable, so there is nothing to do. On a stricter host, set the folder to mode 755 — or 775 if PHP runs under a separate group.

3

Open it & create your administrator

Visit https://your-domain/app.php in a browser. The first account you create becomes the Super Admin for your church — you'll be guided through a short setup screen and can turn on two-factor authentication.

🔒 There is no default password to forget or leak. No account exists until you create one, and the very first one created is yours, with full control.
💡 Want the plain address to work? To open the app at https://your-domain/ without typing /app.php, add a file called .htaccess next to it containing one line: 
DirectoryIndex app.php
4

Add your team, your tools, and (optionally) the schedule

In Settings, connect whatever you use:

  • Paste your Anthropic API key (Bring-Your-Own Claude) and pick a model. Your key stays on your server, so your congregation's data is never sent to us. Until you add a key, the AI features simply stay switched off — everything else works fully.
  • Add SMTP (email) and Twilio (SMS) credentials to send real communications.
  • Connect your ChMS & giving platforms (Planning Center, Breeze, CCB, Stripe, Tithe.ly, …) from the Integrations catalog — useful for importing your existing people and giving history.

Add the rest of your staff under Admin → Users & Roles, choosing a role for each person.

To recompute engagement scores and run workflows automatically, copy the Cron URL from Settings → Automation and add a scheduled task on your host (e.g. every 4 hours):

curl -s "https://your-domain/app.php?action=cron&token=YOUR_TOKEN"

Your data stays yours

The same privacy posture we run on, now on your soil.

Swiss datacenter

Self-hosted means sovereign

When you run Free Church ChMS on your own hosting, your congregation's records live where you choose. We host freechms.org with data sovereignty in Switzerland (Infomaniak, Geneva), and your instance is just as private:

  • Encrypted in transit (HTTPS/TLS); enable the free certificate in your host's panel
  • Passwords securely hashed, never stored in plain text
  • AI runs on your Anthropic key, so we never see your data and never train on it
  • Nothing is ever fetched from the internet, so your instance leaks nothing just by being open
🔐 One thing worth doing: your database lives in aichurch.db beside the app. Ask your host to keep it out of the web (or add a .htaccess with Require all denied for that filename). Most managed hosts already block unknown file types, but it's a good belt-and-braces step — and remember to include that file whenever you take a backup.

What's in the download

app.phpThe entire platform — every screen, style, icon, font and script, all in one file. Your database auto-creates beside it on first run.
READ-ME-FIRST.txtA one-page plain-English version of these instructions, plus the no-warranty notice.

That really is everything. Two files, one of which is just a note to read.

Created for you as you go: aichurch.db (your SQLite database — this is your data, so back it up) and an uploads/ folder once you add member photos or a church logo.

🔐 For your security, the download intentionally excludes any database, any credentials, and any private business or legal documents. You start completely clean, and the very first account created is yours.

It's free, and we mean it

Free Church ChMS is free for every church, ministry, and faith-based nonprofit, forever. It's fully source-available: the code is yours to run. If you'd like a hand getting set up, just ask. We say yes to every church.

For setup and how-to questions, help is built in: the floating Office Helper chat sits in the corner of every page, and the full Knowledge Base — around 30 step-by-step guides — is always available at freechms.org/kb/.

Built in the spirit of service, and dedicated to the glory of God.

Open source — join the project ✝

We want to encourage further development of Free Church ChMS for all developers. This is an open-source project, and we warmly welcome developers around the world to take part. We have a GitHub repository, and we are always looking for fellow Christians to join our Dev Team for Christ — to help further the Free Church ChMS dream of providing this solution for the Church, free, forever.

✉️ Contact us — to request the full source code under the AI Church Community License, or to join the dev team, email admin@freechms.org. We'll gladly share the code under the License.