Focalboard: open source, self-hosted Trello alternative

An open source, self-hosted alternative to Trello

Focalboard is an open source, multilingual, self-hosted project management tool that the README positions as an alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana. It helps define, organize, track, and manage work across individuals and teams. The project ships in two editions. Personal Desktop is a standalone, single-user app for macOS, Windows, and Linux, aimed at your own todos and personal projects. Personal Server is a standalone, multi-user server for development and personal use.

Because the tool is self-hosted, your boards and data live on infrastructure you control rather than a vendor cloud. The README notes that this repository holds the standalone Focalboard only. Teams that want the Mattermost integration should use the mattermost-plugin-boards project instead. That split keeps the standalone build focused on a single purpose: a local or self-managed board server you run yourself.

Two editions: Personal Desktop and Personal Server

The Personal Desktop edition targets a single user. On Windows you download focalboard-win.zip from the latest release, unpack it, and run Focalboard.exe. On Mac it is available from the Mac App Store, and on Linux you download focalboard-linux.tar.gz, unpack it, and open focalboard-app. These are standalone apps for your own todos and personal projects, with no server to operate.

The Personal Server edition is a standalone, multi-user server meant for development and personal use. You can download and run the compiled server on Ubuntu by following the project install guide, or you can build it from source. The server edition is what you reach through a browser, and it is the option teams use when several people need to share the same boards.

Building and running the Personal Server from source

To build the server from source you first create an .env file in the focalboard directory that contains EXCLUDE_ENTERPRISE="1", then run the make targets to build and start the server. The README lists the exact commands for building and launching the server.

make prebuild
make

./bin/focalboard-server

After the build, navigate your browser to http://localhost:8000 to reach the server. The port is configured in config.json. Once the server is running you can rebuild just the web app with make webapp in a separate terminal and reload the browser to see changes. The developer guide covers setting up the environment in more detail.

Building standalone desktop apps for each platform

Focalboard can also be packaged as standalone desktop apps that run a local server against SQLite. On Windows the build needs Windows 10, the Windows 10 SDK 10.0.19041.0, and the .NET 4.8 developer pack. You open a git-bash prompt, run make prebuild, then make win-wpf-app, and run cd win-wpf/msix && focalboard.exe.

On Mac the build requires macOS 11.3 or later and Xcode 13.2.1 or later, using make prebuild then make mac-app and opening mac/dist/Focalboard.app. On Linux, tested on Ubuntu 18.04, you install the webgtk dependencies with sudo apt-get install libgtk-3-dev and libwebkit2gtk-4.0-dev, then run make prebuild and make linux-app, and launch focalboard-app from the chosen directory. Cross-compilation is not fully supported, so build on the target platform.

Running Focalboard in Docker

For a quick local deployment the README offers a Docker path. To run the official image locally you use docker run -it -p 80:8000 mattermost/focalboard, which maps the container port 8000 to host port 80. To build the image for your current architecture you run docker build -f docker/Dockerfile, and for a custom architecture, marked experimental, you add --platform linux/arm64.

The README points to the GitHub Actions workflows build-mac.yml, build-win.yml, and build-ubuntu.yml for the detailed step list on each platform, since cross-compilation is not fully supported. Docker is the simplest way to get a working server without installing the build toolchain, and it keeps the server isolated from the rest of the host.

Testing, contribution workflow, and maintenance status

Before checking in commits the README asks contributors to run make ci, which mirrors the .gitlab-ci.yml workflow and covers several checks. The server unit tests run with make server-test. The web app is checked with cd webapp; npm run check for ESLint, cd webapp; npm run test for unit tests, and cd webapp; npm run cypress:ci for UI tests.

One point the README states up front is that this repository is currently not maintained. The project invites interested parties to volunteer as maintainers through the linked issue. Because this repo holds only the standalone Focalboard, the README directs users who need the Mattermost plugin to mattermost-plugin-boards. Changes are tracked in the CHANGELOG, and bugs are filed through the project issue template.

Editorial conclusion

Focalboard is an open source, multilingual, self-hosted project management tool that gives you Trello, Notion, and Asana style boards on infrastructure you control. It ships as a single-user Personal Desktop app for Windows, Mac, and Linux, or as a multi-user Personal Server you build from source or run in Docker. The README keeps the guidance concrete, from the make targets that build and launch the server to the per-platform desktop builds and the Docker one-liners. The one caveat to weigh is the project status: the standalone repository is not currently maintained, so treat it as a stable but frozen tool and check the Mattermost plugin path if you need active integration.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. mattermost-community/focalboard on GitHub
3. Project website
4. README
5. Releases