Kanboard

What is Kanboard?

Kanboard is a free, open source Kanban project management tool that visualizes work as cards on a drag-and-drop board. It centers on the Kanban method — columns for workflow stages, work-in-progress (WIP) limits to keep teams focused, and swimlanes to split a board by team, product, or release. It’s self-hosted PHP software released under the permissive MIT license.

What is Kanboard best for?

Kanboard is best for small to medium teams and individuals who want a simple, fast, data-private board without the weight of an enterprise suite. It’s a strong fit if you value full control of your data, a tiny footprint (the install is under 13 MB), and Kanban done well over a polished modern UI or a long list of native integrations.

What can Kanboard do?

• Drag-and-drop Kanban boards with customizable columns and per-column WIP limits.
• Swimlanes to divide a board horizontally by team, product, or release.
• Multiple task views — Board, Calendar, List, and Gantt for scheduling by start and due dates.
• Automatic actions that trigger workflow changes on events, plus webhook events from GitHub and GitLab.
• Analytics and reporting — burndown chart, plus average lead time and cycle time across swimlanes, categories, and dates.
• Rich tasks with subtasks, attachments, comments, Markdown descriptions, and subtask-based time tracking.
• Advanced search using a simple query language to filter tasks.
• LDAP and OAuth2 authentication, a JSON-RPC API, a plugin ecosystem, and 30+ interface languages.

Where does Kanboard fall short?

Kanboard is in maintenance mode — the original author, Frédéric Guillot, focuses on small fixes rather than major new features, so most forward motion now comes from community plugins and pull requests. Don’t expect a fast-moving roadmap.

Its UI is deliberately minimal and dated next to modern SaaS boards; it prioritizes speed and function over aesthetics, and there’s no polished official mobile app. It also ships with far fewer built-in integrations than hosted tools like Trello or Asana — connecting to outside services often means a community plugin or building against the API yourself. Finally, it’s Kanban-first: for heavy sprint planning, portfolio roadmaps, or issue-tracker workflows, a tool like Jira or OpenProject will feel more complete.

Is Kanboard free?

Yes — Kanboard is completely free and open source under the MIT license, with no paid tiers, no feature gating, and no official commercial cloud. You run it on your own server (PHP 8.1+ with MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite), so your only costs are the hosting and the time to maintain it.

What does Kanboard replace?

Kanboard is a self-hosted stand-in for hosted board tools like Trello and the simpler board views of Asana and Jira. It covers the same core loop — cards, columns, and drag-and-drop flow — while keeping your data on infrastructure you control. If you want a self-hosted board with a more modern interface, compare it with Wekan, Vikunja, or Plane.

FAQ

Is Kanboard open source? Yes. Kanboard is released under the permissive MIT license, and its full source is on GitHub with contributions from 330+ people.

Can I self-host Kanboard for free? Yes. Self-hosting is the only way to run Kanboard, and it’s free — you need a server with PHP 8.1 or newer and MySQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite. The install is lightweight at under 13 MB.

Is Kanboard a good Trello alternative? For teams that want data control and Kanban essentials — boards, WIP limits, swimlanes, automation — yes. It trades Trello’s polished UI and large integration marketplace for a free, private, self-hosted board you own.

Is Kanboard still maintained? Yes, but in maintenance mode. The core gets small fixes and security updates while the community drives new features through plugins and pull requests, so it’s stable rather than fast-evolving.