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Stackmap

Lightweight architecture mapping for social purpose organisations.

What is Stackmap?

Stackmap is an open source tool that helps charities, social enterprises, and local councils map their technology architecture. It provides a guided wizard that walks anyone with operational knowledge through documenting their systems, integrations, data, and ownership — without requiring enterprise architecture expertise.

The result is an immediately useful architecture map with visual diagrams, cost analysis, and optional risk assessment.

Who is it for?

  • Small charities and social enterprises — No IT team, technology decisions made by the CEO or operations lead, systems accumulated over years with no single view of the whole picture.
  • Medium VCSE organisations — May have a part-time IT person or outsourced support, want to understand their stack before making changes or investments.
  • Local councils — Digital teams who want a lightweight tool for local government reorganisation (LGR) planning, or who want to pilot architecture mapping before committing to enterprise tooling.

Why Stackmap?

Commercial enterprise architecture tools (ArchiMate, TOGAF-based platforms) are expensive, complex, and designed for specialists. Most social purpose organisations do not have — and do not need — those tools. They need something that:

  • One person can complete in an afternoon
  • Requires no enterprise architecture training
  • Produces a useful artefact immediately
  • Is open source with zero vendor lock-in

Stackmap was built because I often find organisations struggle to do this in an easy and consistent way.

Key Features

  • Two wizard paths — start with organisational functions ("what we do") or services ("what we deliver")
  • Smart suggestions — system recommendations tailored to your organisation type and size, including function sets for councils and businesses
  • 14 service templates with auto-populated tools
  • Find your tools from what you pay for — import an accounting or bank export and Stackmap recognises the software in it
  • Import from CSV or JSON — bring in existing data from spreadsheets or previous exports, with merge support
  • TechFreedom risk assessment — integrated wizard step scoring systems across jurisdiction, continuity, surveillance, lock-in, and cost exposure
  • Cost estimation with per-seat pricing, tier selection and estimates for systems you have not costed
  • What to deal with first — risk crossed with how much you depend on each system
  • Contract renewals with notice-period warnings and a calendar export
  • Architecture and data flow diagrams — visual maps with status indicators, personal data flags, and sensitivity colouring
  • Systems inventory — edit or delete any system after the wizard, in one searchable table
  • Board report — a printable summary for trustees and funders
  • Several maps and snapshots — one map per organisation, and a labelled snapshot to go back to
  • Who sees your data — funders, regulators, auditors and partners, and what goes to each
  • Draft data protection record — a starting point for the register UK GDPR Article 30 asks for, built from your map
  • JSON, Markdown, CSV, SVG and PNG export of your complete architecture
  • Fully accessible — WCAG 2.1 AA, keyboard navigable, screen reader compatible

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/dataforaction-tom/stackmap.git
cd stackmap
npm install
npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000 and follow the guided wizard to start mapping your architecture.

For a detailed walkthrough, see the User Guide.