Own it. All of it.
Most church websites are rented rooms. FaithKit is a deed: the files on your hosting, the domain in your name, the code in the open, and the prayer list inside the church. A visitor's browser talks to your domain and nothing else.
Four things you can actually hold.
"Own" is a word every platform uses. Here is what it means when it's true.
The files.
The whole site is one folder on hosting you pay for directly. Pages, photos, sermons, settings. Nothing runs on our server; nothing needs to.
The domain.
Registered in the church's name, at any registrar you like. Not "included with your plan," not held by a vendor who can decide what it points at.
The code.
Open-source under AGPL v3. Read it, change it, hire anyone to work on it. There is no license key, no plan tier, no "pro" version. The free path is the whole product.
Your people's data.
Prayer requests, the member directory, missionary letters — stored as plain files on your server behind the members password. Never in a vendor's database. Never sold, never "anonymized."
A church website that is a deed, not a lease.
Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it. — Psalm 127:1. We can't build the house. We can make sure that when you build the website, nobody else holds the keys. The moving picture above is the same kind of file your site will serve: yours, on your host, requested from your domain — it's in the ledger below.
What a visitor's browser talks to.
Every website makes requests when it loads. Here is the whole list for a FaithKit homepage, next to what a rented site usually adds.
FaithKit homepage
every request- yourchurch.org · the pageyours
- yourchurch.org · fonts, self-hostedyours
- yourchurch.org · photos & videoyours
- yourchurch.org · the radio clipsyours
A typical rented site
commonly added- an analytics beacontheirs
- a font servicetheirs
- a chat / forms widgettheirs
- a platform script that checks your plantheirs
A church website holds a prayer list. That is not inventory.
The directory has the widow's phone number. The prayer page has the deacon's diagnosis, the family whose son is deployed, the couple asking for prayer about a marriage. A pastor is trusted with that the way a doctor is trusted with a chart.
Hosted platforms treat that page as content in their database, with their staff, their subprocessors, and their terms of service between you and it. FaithKit treats it as the church's. It sits in a file on your server, behind the members password, and no line of code sends it anywhere.
You don't have to be paranoid to want that. You just have to be the one responsible.
Check it yourself, in two minutes.
The sample church runs the exact package you'd install. Here's how to look under the hood — no technical background needed.
Open the sample church.
Go to faithkit.org/demo in Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari on a computer.
Open the Network panel.
Press F12 (Mac: ⌥⌘I), or right-click the page and choose Inspect. Click the Network tab, then reload the page.
Read the list.
Every row is one request the page made. Look at the domain column: it's faithkit.org all the way down. On your own site after install, it'll be your domain all the way down.
Leaving is copying a folder.
No export wizard, no "your data will be available for 30 days," no partial dump that runs nowhere. The site is a folder. Download it, put it on any PHP host in the world, point your domain at it, and it's up. That is true whether you installed it yourself or MattCreates runs it for you — managed hosting is the same package, on a server run for you, and you can leave for $0.
public_html/ ├── index.php the homepage ├── admin/ your portal ├── config/ church name, colors, passwords ├── data/ prayer list, directory, missionaries ├── media/ photos, sermons, radio clips └── css/ images/ lib/ — that's the whole church. copy it and you have it.
Don't I already own my church's Wix or Squarespace site?
You own the words and photos you typed in. You rent everything else — the software, the hosting, the template, often the domain routing. Stop paying and the site is gone; export and you get a partial copy that doesn't run anywhere. With FaithKit the whole site is a folder on hosting you control, and it runs anywhere PHP runs.
What does "zero telemetry" mean, exactly?
The site never reports back — not to FaithKit, not to anyone. No analytics beacons, no license check, no usage pings, no third-party fonts or scripts on the homepage. A visitor's browser talks to your domain and nothing else. If you want analytics later, you can add a self-hosted one; that's your call to make, not a default we made for you.
Where exactly is the prayer list stored?
In plain JSON files inside the data/ folder on your own server, behind the members password. Not in a vendor's database, not in a third-party form service. Back them up like any other church files.
If MattCreates hosts it for me, do I still own it?
Yes. Managed hosting is the same package on a server run for you, with the domain in your name and hosting passed through at cost + 30%. Leave any time for $0 and take the folder with you. See both paths.
What about the sermon radio — does that stream from somewhere else?
No. The clips are files in your media folder, sliced from your own recordings and served from your own domain. How the radio works →
“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”Proverbs 22:7 · KJV
Look at one first. Then own one.
The sample church is a sample — poke around the admin with the password cornerstone. Then install it yourself in an afternoon, or have it done for you.