category.governance_tools.label

category.governance_tools.promise

Starting path

A signed message is not a decision. Ask what actually moves the money.

DAO governance platforms evaluated on whether the vote itself moves the money, who can still touch the funds after it passes, whether you can learn the price without a sales call, and what you keep if the vendor disappears.

category.governance_tools.promise Reviewed on whether the vote itself moves the money, who can still touch the funds after it passes, whether you can learn the price without a sales call, and what you keep if the vendor disappears.

Start with the smart category assistant or jump straight into quick questions. Both paths narrow to the same recommendation standard.

How we review

Recommendation first, comparison only if needed.

Reviewed and rechecked on the current cycle.

Commercial relationships disclosed before clickout.

Audit

Infrastructure

Methodology

2026.04.0

published 2026-04-27

Providers tracked

650+

across 72 categories

Last verified

2026-08-06

editorial freshness

Editorial board

4

audit-log live

Decision guide

What matters most before choosing in this category

Decide first whether your votes have to be enforceable, because that single answer splits this category in half. An off-chain signature vote is cheap, gasless and reversible by whoever controls execution — it records what members wanted, and something else has to act on it. An on-chain vote binds the treasury directly and costs gas to cast. Neither is wrong, but a treasury governed by signatures is governed by whoever holds the multisig, and that should be a choice rather than a surprise. Then ask what stands between a passed vote and funds moving: a timelock is only protection if it is set above zero, and at least one platform documents recommending a delay of zero for treasury-only governors. Price and exit come last, and both are thinner here than the category suggests.

Key question

Does a passing vote execute against the treasury, or does a human still have to act on it?

Key question

Is there a timelock between the vote and the funds moving, and what is it actually set to?

Key question

If the vendor shut down tomorrow, could you still run your own governance?

Current editor lead

Realms

Solana DAO platform built on the SPL Governance program, where a passed proposal's instructions execute against treasury accounts the governance program owns.

Data checked Aug 2026

Solana DAO platform built on the SPL Governance program, where a passed proposal's instructions execute against treasury accounts the governance program owns. Strongest on does the vote itself move the money (10/10): The instruction to be run is the object being voted on: SPL Governance's "cornerstone of functionality covers creating proposals containing blockchain instructions that DAO members may vote upon, and on successful voting, the instructions may be executed" (docs.realms.today/developer-resources/spl-governance, fetched… Weakest on what you keep if the vendor disappears (8/10): Corrected during verification, and this is the largest single change in the file: the draft scored 6 on the claim that Realms' docs point self-hosters at dead repositories and that "nothing fetched from Realms' own documentation tells a self-hoster" that maintenance moved to Mythic-Project. That is false. The same… Published price: "Realms does not charge any additional fees for platform usage." and the published deployment table: "DAO Creation ~2 SOL* | Metadata ~0.5 SOL*º | Treasury Accounts ~0.2 SOL* | Voter Account ~0.1 SOL* | Delegation Hub Profile ~0.1 SOL*", with "ºMetadata set…

Best for

Does the vote itself move the money — 10/10Whether you can learn the price without a sales call — 10/10Who can still touch the funds after the vote — 8/10

Main tradeoff

Realms is Solana-only, so it is not on the same shortlist as the EVM products here unless the treasury is already on Solana. Its costs are also denominated in SOL rather than fixed in dollars, which means the published "~2 SOL" deployment figure moves with the token: the $174.86 above is a 2026-08-06 13:23 UTC conversion at SOL/USD 72.86, not a price the vendor quotes in USD, and it will be a different number on the day you read this.

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"Realms does not charge any additional fees for platform usage." and the published deployment table: "DAO Creation ~2 SOL* | Metadata ~0.5 SOL*º | Treasury Accounts ~0.2 SOL* | Voter Account ~0.1 SOL* | Delegation Hub Profile ~0.1 SOL*", with "ºMetadata set up is free during DAO creation" and ongoing costs listed as "Voting: SPL ~ 0.0015 SOL" and "Proposal Creation: min ~ 0.0020 SOL" (docs.realms.today/introduction/costs.md, fetched 2026-08-06). NORMALISED 2026-08-06 on the common scenario of a DAO that passes and executes 24 treasury proposals in a year moving $2,000,000 in total: platform fee = 0% x $2,000,000 = $0 for the year. One-time setup, taking creation + treasury + voter + delegate profile and excluding metadata because the vendor states it is free at creation: 2 + 0.2 + 0.1 + 0.1 = 2.4 SOL. Corrected during verification: the draft converted at SOL/USD 73.27; re-fetched on 2026-08-06 at 13:23:20 UTC, CoinGecko simple/price returned SOL/USD 72.86 (corroborated the same minute by Coinbase spot at 72.805), so 2.4 x 72.86 = $174.86 one-time, not $175.85. The difference is a live-price tick, not an error of method, and it is exactly why this figure must be re-derived on the day it is shown. Twenty-four proposals plus their votes are a rounding error at these rates and are not padded into a figure here.

Weighted criteria

Does the vote itself move the money35%

Who can still touch the funds after the vote25%

Whether you can learn the price without a sales call20%

What you keep if the vendor disappears20%

Leading options

Shared shortlist for this category

These providers are pulled from the same category comparison catalog used in validation, so the category page, comparison page, and provider reviews stay aligned.

Cactus (formerly Tally)

OpenZeppelin Governor and Governor Bravo front end where proposals carry calldata and execute against the DAO's treasury on-chain.

Editor lead

OpenZeppelin Governor and Governor Bravo front end where proposals carry calldata and execute against the DAO's treasury on-chain. Strongest on does the vote itself move the money (10/10): Execution is on-chain by construction, and the fee page proves it rather than asserting it: the fee is triggered "Once a proposal is passed & executed onchain by the DAO" (docs.tally.xyz/on-chain-operations/tally-fees/, fetched 2026-08-06), which only makes sense if the passed proposal is itself the transaction. The… Weakest on what you keep if the vendor disappears (5/10): Corrected during verification: the draft scored this 4 and said "The codebase is not yours yet". That is too harsh, because one MIT-licensed Cactus/Tally voting client is forkable today. withtally/tally-zero is MIT, not archived, last pushed 2025-12-11, described by its own repository as "A decentralized zero… Published price: "The 0.25% fee on proposal transfers creates revenue to enable Cactus to continue to innovate & support the DAO ecosystem in the future." and "Once a proposal is passed & executed onchain by the DAO, the 0.25% fee is automatically applied to the final…

Best for: Does the vote itself move the money — 10/10

Aragon (OSx + Aragon App)

Permission-managed on-chain organisation framework where a governance plugin holds the right to execute against the DAO contract.

Permission-managed on-chain organisation framework where a governance plugin holds the right to execute against the DAO contract. Strongest on does the vote itself move the money (9/10): Execution runs through the DAO contract itself and is gated by an explicit permission: "Executing actions on behalf of the DAO is done through the execute function from the DAO.sol contract", "for the execute call to work, the address calling the function (the msg.sender) needs to have the EXECUTE_PERMISSION", and… Weakest on who can still touch the funds after the vote (8/10): The control surface is explicit and the docs name the failure mode instead of hiding it: "You probably don't want to grant EXECUTE_PERMISSION to any random address, since this gives the address access to execute any action on behalf of the DAO. We recommend you only grant EXECUTE_PERMISSION to governance plugins to… Published price: "The core and framework contracts are free to use, and no additional fees are charged." (docs.aragon.org/osx-contracts/1.x, fetched 2026-08-06). NORMALISED 2026-08-06 on the common scenario of a DAO that passes and executes 24 treasury proposals in a year…

Best for: Does the vote itself move the money — 9/10

Realms

Solana DAO platform built on the SPL Governance program, where a passed proposal's instructions execute against treasury accounts the governance program owns.

Best for: Does the vote itself move the money — 10/10

Browse this network

Methodology

How this category is reviewed

Reviewed on whether the vote itself moves the money, who can still touch the funds after it passes, whether you can learn the price without a sales call, and what you keep if the vendor disappears.

Reviewed on: Does the vote itself move the money, Who can still touch the funds after the vote, Whether you can learn the price without a sales call, What you keep if the vendor disappears.

This page is a maintained category surface, not a static marketing block. Review freshness, provider positioning, and recommendation logic should stay consistent with quiz and provider pages.

Frequently asked

Questions people ask before choosing governance

Is an off-chain vote real governance?

It is real signalling, and whether that is governance depends on what happens next. A standard off-chain vote is a signed message that costs no gas and touches nothing — the most widely used platform in this category says so in its own FAQ, reassuring voters that signing does not affect their assets. That is a genuine feature for polls and sentiment, and a genuine problem if the treasury is expected to follow, because execution then rests with whoever holds the multisig. If your DAO needs a vote to be binding, that is the criterion carrying the most weight here, and it is the one to settle before comparing anything else.

What still stands between a passed vote and the money moving?

Usually a timelock, and usually less of one than you would assume. A delay is what gives members time to exit or object between a vote passing and funds moving, so its value is entirely in the number it is set to — and one platform in this pool documents recommending a delay of zero for governors that only manage a treasury, which removes that window by design. Check the configured delay rather than the presence of the feature, and check who holds the keys that can bypass it, because a timelock with an emergency role beside it protects less than it appears to.

What happens to our governance if the vendor shuts down?

This is not hypothetical in this category. The most-used on-chain platform, serving several hundred DAOs, announced it was winding down during the period a buyer would have been evaluating it. What protects you is an open-source codebase you can actually deploy and a treasury that is governed by contracts you control rather than by a hosted interface. Several products here do publish self-hostable code under permissive licences, including one whose documentation actively recommends running your own deployment — that is worth more than a roadmap, because it is exercisable today.

REVIEWEDApr 2026METHOD4 criteriaCATEGORYgovernance_tools

Not financial advice · For informational purposes only · Always do your own research

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