Open-source alternatives to Trello: 4 kanban board tools compared
A hosted board keeps its data on someone else's servers, and a self-hosted one puts a database on yours that you now have to back up. plankanban/planka is the one most readers should start with, since it is the closest match to the Trello feature list, and wekan/wekan is the pick when a plain MIT licence decides it.
What Trello does, and why people look elsewhere
Trello is a hosted kanban tool: boards, lists and cards with checklists, due dates, labels and Power-Up integrations.
- board data lives on Atlassian's servers
- per-user pricing for unlimited boards and automation
- no self-hosted edition
The candidates at a glance
| Project | Licence | Maintenance | Language | GitHub stars | Install |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plankanban/planka | Custom licenceCustom licence: read the LICENSE file | Commits in the last six monthsLast push November 6, 2026 | JavaScript | 12,665 | Command documented |
| mattermost-community/focalboard | Custom licenceCustom licence: read the LICENSE file | Commits in the last six monthsLast push May 18, 2026 | TypeScript | 26,550 | See analysis |
| wekan/wekan | MITPermissive: commercial use allowed | Commits in the last six monthsLast push November 6, 2026 | JavaScript | 21,159 | Command documented |
| kanboard/kanboard | MITPermissive: commercial use allowed | Commits in the last six monthsLast push November 4, 2026 | PHP | 9,945 | See analysis |
Each alternative in detail
plankanban/plankaElegant open source project tracking. Self-hosted Kanban for teams — free Community edition, with PLANKA Pro for organisations.
- Best for
- You want a Trello-shaped board on your own PostgreSQL with markdown, attachments, comments, custom fields, due dates, a stopwatch, notifications through more than 100 providers, webhooks, a documented REST API and two-factor authentication. The Community edition covers all of that.
- What you give up
- Phones and tablets are Pro only, along with calendar, timeline and map views, guest roles, SSO with OIDC, PDF and HTML export, and support from the developers. Moving up is a one-way in-place migration: the README says it adds a Valkey service and a one-off schema promote, that the promote accepts only 2.1.x and 2.2.x as a starting point, and that there is no downgrade back to Community. The licence is fair-code rather than OSI approved, so read both licence files before you commit.
- First install step
- Full setup guide
npm run server:db:init npm run server:db:create-admin-user npm run server:db:migrate
mattermost-community/focalboardFocalboard is an open source, self-hosted alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana.
- Best for
- You want a board that does not need a server at all, or a small personal one that does. It ships as a single-user desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux and as a Personal Server you can build from source with make or run as a Docker container against SQLite.
- What you give up
- The README opens with a warning that this repository is currently not maintained and asks readers to get in touch if they want to take it on, so you are adopting frozen code. The last push was 2026-05-18 and the most recent release listed is v8.0.0 from 2024-06-13, which is the gap you should plan around. The README also points anyone who wants the actively integrated path at the separate Mattermost plugin repository.
wekan/wekanWekan is a collaborative Kanban project management platform with drag-and-drop boards, card workflows, user permissions, and self-hosted deployment options.
- Best for
- You want an MIT-licensed kanban server with a real-time interface, and you are willing to track the newest release rather than sit on a pinned one. The default docker-compose.yml runs on FerretDB with embedded SQLite, so MongoDB is no longer the only database option.
- What you give up
- The README states that only the newest version is supported because older versions carry security issues from old Node.js runtimes, so there is no freeze-and-forget deployment, and the main branch uses Meteor 3.5 with Node.js 24.x. It also says there is no undo yet and that some bugs can leave a board unable to load at all until the database is fixed by hand, which makes the daily backup it requires non-optional. You should know which compose file matches your database preference, since the default and docker-compose-mongodb-v7.yml are different.
- First install step
- Full setup guide
docker-compose.yml FerretDB v1 + SQLite (default) docker-compose-ferretdb-v1-postgresql.yml FerretDB v1 + PostgreSQL docker-compose-ferretdb-v1-mysql.yml FerretDB v1 + MySQL docker-compose-ferretdb-v1-mariadb.yml FerretDB v1 + MariaDB docker-compose-ferretdb-v1-sap-hana.yml FerretDB v1 + SAP HANA docker-compose-ferretdb-v2-postgresql.yml FerretDB 2 + PostgreSQL docker-compose-mongodb-v7.yml MongoDB 7 docker-compose-multitenancy.yml MongoDB, multitenancy example
kanboard/kanboardKanban project management software. Kanboard ======== Kanboard is project management software that focuses on the Kanban methodology.
- Best for
- You want a small MIT-licensed board focused strictly on the Kanban methodology, on SQLite, MySQL or PostgreSQL, and you are content with a tool that is finished rather than one that is growing.
- What you give up
- The README says plainly that the application is in maintenance mode: the author is not actively developing new major features, only small fixes, and new releases depend on contributions from the community. So this is not the board to pick if your roadmap needs new capabilities shipped upstream. It is also a board and not an issue tracker, with no sprints or Gantt planning in the model.
Four boards, and only three of them are still growing
Trello is a hosted kanban tool: boards, lists and cards with checklists, due dates, labels and Power-Up integrations. The reasons people look elsewhere are short. The board data lives on Atlassian's servers. Pricing is per user, and unlimited boards and automation are attached to that. And there is no self-hosted edition at all.
All four projects here answer that, but they are at very different points in their lives, and that is the first thing to sort out.
plankanban/planka and wekan/wekan are both actively extended. Planka ships as a container image with a PostgreSQL database behind it, and its README sets out exactly what the Community edition covers: boards, lists and cards with real-time collaboration, markdown, attachments, comments, custom fields, a stopwatch and due dates, notifications through more than 100 providers, webhooks, a documented REST API, two-factor authentication, and self-hosting with your own database and backups. That list maps onto the Trello feature set closely enough that migration is mostly a matter of habit.
kanboard/kanboard is deliberately finished. The README states that the application is in maintenance mode, that the author is not actively developing any new major features beyond small fixes, and that new releases are published depending on community contributions. The last push was 2026-09-23, so the code is not abandoned, but it is not growing either. For a board whose shape will not change, that is a feature. For a team whose process will change, it is a ceiling.
mattermost-community/focalboard is frozen. The README opens with a warning that the repository is currently not maintained and invites readers to become a maintainer, which is the clearest signal available that no fixes are coming from the project. The last push was 2026-05-18 and the most recent release listed is v8.0.0 from 2024-06-13.
Left out, and worth saying why: the hosted team work tools that are not kanban, and the issue trackers with sprint planning, which are a different shape of problem from a board of cards.
Choosing by scenario: one person, a small team, a company with compliance needs, a developer who needs an API
The scenario decides more here than any feature list, because the four differ in how much they expect of you.
One person keeping a personal list should look at mattermost-community/focalboard. It has a single-user desktop edition for Windows, macOS and Linux that runs against SQLite locally, and nothing to deploy. The frozen status does not matter for a private todo list, and the board model is the same one Trello uses.
A small team that wants a shared board on its own hardware has two serious answers. plankanban/planka is the closer match to what people expect from Trello, with the feature list above and a REST API for anything the interface does not cover. wekan/wekan is the other, with a real-time interface and an MIT licence that needs no interpretation, at the cost of tracking the newest release.
A company with compliance or residency requirements is looking for the same thing in both, and the tie-breaker is operational. Planka keeps everything in PostgreSQL that you already run. Wekan's default compose file now runs on FerretDB with embedded SQLite, and a MongoDB variant is still shipped, so the database choice is a file you choose rather than a decision you inherit. Neither removes the need for someone to run backups.
A developer who needs an API is well served by either, for different reasons. Planka documents a REST API and webhooks in its README. Focalboard publishes Boards API documentation, which is one of the few reasons to consider frozen software for a new build. kanboard/kanboard is the odd one out here: it is built for a human reading a board, and its value is that there is very little surface to integrate against.
What each one asks you to run, and which one can lose your data
The install commands on this page make the differences concrete, and one of them comes with a warning that no other project states as plainly.
plankanban/planka is a generate-then-compose install. The command on this page generates a SECRET_KEY with openssl rand -hex 32 and then runs docker compose up -d, which means the file you are about to start is worth reading first, because the key and the PostgreSQL connection string both live in it.
wekan/wekan is also docker compose up -d, and the default compose file now runs on FerretDB with embedded SQLite rather than MongoDB. The README is unusually specific about the consequences: 1 GB of free RAM as a minimum and 4 GB total for a production server, alerts on low disk space because running out corrupts the database, and daily database backups. It also says there is no undo, and that some bugs can leave a board unable to load at all, requiring manual fixing of the database content. That last line is why the backup is a daily requirement rather than a recommendation.
kanboard/kanboard is docker compose -f docker-compose.sqlite.yml up -d, which is the smallest deployment here. Our analysis of Kanboard tells you to confirm the data volume in the image is writable and persisted, that the healthcheck endpoint responds through your reverse proxy, and that the database driver you chose is the one you are actually backing up.
mattermost-community/focalboard has no install command in our analysis, and the README's guidance is source-oriented: make prebuild, then make, then ./bin/focalboard-server on a port read from config.json, with EXCLUDE_ENTERPRISE set to 1 in a .env file. There is also a Docker path with a published image. Building it is the honest path for a project that no longer ships frequent builds.
Licences: two MIT, one fair-code, and one project that calls itself complete
Two of these four are MIT, one is fair-code, and the fourth is best described by its own roadmap.
wekan/wekan and kanboard/kanboard are MIT. You can run them, modify them, keep your changes, and nothing else follows. For a company hosting a board on its own network that is the whole conversation, and it is the reason both sit comfortably in a standard review.
plankanban/planka is different. The README describes it as fair-code distributed under a Fair Use License and a PLANKA Pro and Enterprise License, with source always visible, self-hostable anywhere and extensible. Source available is not the same as OSI approved, and the split between the Community edition and Pro is where the practical terms live: phones and tablets, the extra views, guest roles, SSO with OIDC, export and developer support are all in the Pro column of that table.
The upgrade path deserves attention because it is one-way. The README says Pro upgrades an existing Community installation in place, keeping your database, your volume and your data, and that it is a real migration rather than a new image: Pro adds a Valkey service and a one-off schema promote. The promote accepts only certain Community releases as a starting point, currently 2.1.x and 2.2.x, and from any other version it stops without changing anything. There is no downgrade back to Community, so the README's own advice is to take a backup first or try it on a copy.
kanboard/kanboard raises the question the licence does not. The README quotes a definition of maintenance mode and then says the project has reached the point where it is considered complete. That is a statement about the roadmap rather than the copyright, and a company should read it as one: the code is permissively licensed and stable, and the features will come from contributors if they come at all.
Bottom line
Pick mattermost-community/focalboard for a single person's local board and accept that it is frozen, plankanban/planka for a team that wants the Trello feature list on its own PostgreSQL and can live with a fair-code licence, wekan/wekan for a shared MIT-licensed board if you will track the newest release and run daily backups, and kanboard/kanboard when you want a finished Kanban board and nothing more. Before committing, read the compose file before starting the container, confirm which database variant and driver you are backing up, and for Planka check that your Community release is one the Pro promote accepts.
Sources
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