Wekan vs Kanboard
Both are free/open-source alternatives to Trello. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Wekan
TOP PICKThe closest open-source, self-hosted match to Trello's own card-and-list model.
Wekan is a free, open-source Kanban board that deliberately mirrors Trello's UI: boards, swimlanes, lists, and cards with labels, checklists, due dates, and attachments. It self-hosts via Docker, a Linux Snap package (with automatic updates), or from source, and stores everything in MongoDB you control. It even ships a dedicated Trello-import tool for migrating existing boards and attachments.
Kanboard
A minimalist, low-overhead Kanban board for teams who want speed over features.
Kanboard is a lightweight, self-hosted PHP Kanban application focused on simplicity: boards, swimlanes, task automation rules, subtasks, and time tracking, extendable through a plugin system. It runs on very modest hardware (a small VPS is plenty) and has no external database service dependency by default (SQLite works out of the box, with MySQL/PostgreSQL supported for larger installs).
Side by side
| Wekan | Kanboard | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 90 | 86 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| Local-first | Yes | Yes |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Pricing | Free / self-host (commercial support available separately) | Free / self-host (paid cloud hosting plans available from the maintainer) |
Wekan is Macrostack's recommended Trello alternative, so it's our pick here.
Wekan
Strengths
- +Free MIT license, no per-seat cost ever
- +UI and workflow are the most Trello-like of any open-source option, so the switch is low-friction for a team used to Trello
- +Dedicated Trello JSON/attachment import tool eases migration
- +Active project with regular releases and a large, engaged community (20k+ GitHub stars)
Trade-offs
- −Interface is functional but less visually polished than Trello's current design
- −Advanced reporting/analytics views are limited compared to Trello Premium
- −You are responsible for your own backups, updates, and uptime once self-hosted
- −MongoDB dependency adds a small extra piece of infrastructure to operate versus a single-binary tool
Kanboard
Strengths
- +Very low resource requirements — runs comfortably on a small, cheap VPS
- +Free MIT license with a genuinely simple, fast interface
- +Built-in automation rules and time tracking without needing plugins
- +Plugin ecosystem covers common gaps (Gantt, LDAP, extra integrations)
Trade-offs
- −Visual design is utilitarian — noticeably plainer than Trello or Wekan
- −Smaller contributor base than Wekan or Vikunja, so feature velocity is slower
- −Fewer native views than richer PM tools (no built-in Gantt or table view without a plugin)
- −Collaboration features (comments, mentions, notifications) are narrower than larger suites
More Trello head-to-heads
Facts verified 2026-07-08. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.