ChangeCrab vs Headway: A Practical Comparison

Both ChangeCrab and Headway are established tools designed to help teams publish changelogs and communicate product updates clearly. This guide provides a practical, side-by-side comparison to help teams decide which tool best fits their workflow, audience, and priorities.

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Overview

ChangeCrab

ChangeCrab is a changelog platform focused on flexibility, extensibility, and long-term usefulness. It supports public and private changelogs, embeds, automation, and user feedback, and is designed to scale alongside growing teams and evolving workflows.

Headway

Headway focuses on simplicity and presentation. It provides polished widgets, a clean writing experience, and removes many limits by default. It's often chosen by teams that want a lightweight, no-friction way to publish updates.

Core Changelog Functionality

Both tools support the essentials. At a basic level, either tool will comfortably handle standard changelog publishing.

Capability ChangeCrab Headway
Hosted public changelog
Embeddable widgets
Markdown / rich text
Categories (Added, Fixed, etc.)
Public & private entries

Widgets & Embedding

Headway

Headway is well regarded for:

  • polished, out-of-the-box widgets;
  • minimal setup; and
  • consistent visual presentation.

This makes it appealing for teams that want to embed a changelog quickly without much configuration.

Some users, however, have reported:

  • limited flexibility beyond provided styles; or
  • constraints when embedding in more complex layouts or environments

ChangeCrab

By comparison, ChangeCrab's widgets are designed to be:

  • more configurable;
  • adaptable to different product contexts; and
  • extendable with custom CSS (on paid plans)

This approach suits teams that want their changelog to feel like a natural extension of their product rather than a fixed UI element. It's designed to avoid many of the constraints experienced by some HeadwayApp users.

Customisation & Branding

Area ChangeCrab Headway
Custom domain
White-labelling Limited
Custom CSS Limited
Presentation flexibility High Moderate

ChangeCrab prioritises customisation and control, while Headway prioritises consistency and simplicity.

Collaboration & Team Workflows

ChangeCrab

  • Multiple team members
  • Role-based collaboration
  • Feedback and suggestions tied directly to changelog entries
  • API access for automation and integration

Headway

  • Simple editor
  • Clean editorial workflow
  • Scheduled publishing
  • Simpler collaboration model focused on content publishing

Integrations & Extensibility

Area ChangeCrab Headway
Slack notifications
Webhooks / Zapier Limited
API access No
Automation support Strong Limited

ChangeCrab is better suited to teams that want to integrate changelogs into existing product, CI/CD, or operational workflows. Headway is perhaps better suited to teams that prefer manual publishing with minimal tooling overhead.

Maintenance & Product Velocity

Both platforms continue to operate reliably for many teams, but they differ significantly in how visibly they evolve.

Headway's public changelog shows no new entries since June 2023, and its public GitHub repositories show their most recent activity in January 2023. These are the most recent publicly visible signals of product development and maintenance activity.

For some teams, this level of stability can be appealing. A slower rate of visible change may suit teams that prioritise consistency and prefer tooling that remains largely unchanged once adopted.

ChangeCrab's changelog entries are timestamped frequently over the past several weeks and months, reflecting ongoing product development. Recent updates span automation, APIs, writing assistance, integrations, and workflow improvements, all documented in its public changelog.

In practical terms, ChangeCrab demonstrates an active iteration cadence, while Headway's publicly visible development activity appears to have paused.

For teams that value long-term flexibility, integration potential, or tooling that adapts as workflows evolve, this difference in maintenance and product velocity is a meaningful consideration alongside core functionality.

Pricing & Plans (High Level)

Both tools offer free and paid plans, with different approaches to limits and value.

Headway removes many limits early, including unlimited changelogs.

ChangeCrab applies practical limits but includes broader functionality in its paid tier.

Rather than duplicating pricing detail here, we've broken down how the paid plans compare in practice and whether "unlimited changelogs" actually matters in a dedicated blog post.

👉 Paid plans compared: limits, value, and real-world usage

This keeps pricing discussions focused and up to date.

When Headway Is a Good Fit

Headway is often a strong choice if you:

  • Want a clean, simple changelog with minimal setup
  • Value polished widgets out of the box
  • Prefer a writing-first experience
  • Don't need APIs, automation, or deep customisation
  • Want to avoid thinking about limits entirely

When ChangeCrab Is a Good Fit

ChangeCrab is often a strong choice if you:

  • Want flexibility and control over presentation
  • Plan to integrate changelogs into broader workflows
  • Value feedback, automation, and extensibility
  • Expect your needs to evolve over time
  • Prefer a platform that can grow with your product

Summary

Both ChangeCrab and Headway are capable changelog tools, but they optimise for different priorities:

  • Headway emphasises simplicity, polish, and low cognitive overhead.
  • ChangeCrab emphasises flexibility, extensibility, and long-term value.

The right choice depends less on feature checklists and more on how changelogs fit into your product, team, and future plans.

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