Best Trello Alternatives in 2026: Free Kanban Boards, Open-Source and Self-Hosted Options

Planka, WeKan and Kanboard are the closest self-hosted Trello alternatives. Planka gives you a Trello-style board with real-time updates, WeKan is a long-running MIT-licensed board, and Kanboard is a minimal PHP app. If you would rather stay hosted, MeisterTask and Kanban Tool offer simple boards without running a server.

Trello users mostly want boards, lists and cards without a heavy suite, so this guide favors simplicity. It starts with open-source kanban boards, moves to hosted board tools, then ends with wider work platforms for teams that have outgrown plain boards. Free-plan limits are described in general terms, because the caps change.

Why people look for Trello alternatives

Trello is Atlassian's board tool, built on boards, lists and cards, with an inbox, planner, automation and Power-Ups. It is popular for good reason, and people still go looking for something else.

• Free-plan ceilings. Trello's pricing page limits what the free tier gives a workspace, including how many boards it can hold, how many collaborators it can have and how much automation it can run each month. Views such as calendar, timeline and table sit on the Premium tier.
• Per-user paid plans. Standard, Premium and Enterprise are charged per user, so a growing team pays more with each seat.
• No self-hosting. Trello is closed source and hosted only, so teams with data-residency or policy requirements cannot run it themselves.
• Boards only. Cards and lists suit simple work. Teams that want sprints, dependencies or portfolios usually add Power-Ups or move to a wider tool.

How we picked

Each tool here does the core job of Trello: visual task boards where cards move between stages. Open-source boards were screened for a licence you can read, a repository with recent commits and a documented way to self-host, and anything whose README calls it unmaintained is flagged. Hosted tools are described by their published free plan and pricing model. The descriptions are built from catalogue entries and vendor sites, with no first-hand experience claimed. See how Enlisted ranks tools.

1. Planka: best Trello-style board you can host yourself

Planka is a self-hosted kanban project tracker where you create projects, boards, lists and cards and move work around with drag and drop, with changes appearing for collaborators in real time. Its repository topics position it as an alternative to Trello.

The free Community edition has Markdown cards with comments, attachments and custom fields, due dates, a stopwatch, notifications through many providers, webhooks, a documented REST API and two-factor authentication. Planka Pro adds phone and tablet apps, calendar, timeline and map views, templates, guest roles, OIDC single sign-on and PDF export, charged per user either self-hosted or hosted, with a trial. Enlisted lists the licence as Other, so read the repository's terms.

• Best for: small teams moving off Trello that want the same board model on their own server.
• Watch out for: SSO, extra views and mobile apps are Pro features, and self-hosting means you run upgrades and backups.

2. WeKan: best long-running MIT-licensed kanban board

WeKan is an open-source, self-hostable kanban board for personal and team task tracking, built with Meteor and licensed under MIT. Cards move across lists on a board, and boards update in real time for everyone viewing them.

You can install it from Docker images, a docker-compose file, Snap packages or Sandstorm. The project states that it collects no telemetry, volunteers translate the interface through Transifex, and the maintainers offer paid commercial support.

• Best for: organizations that want a permissively licensed board with several install routes and no vendor in the loop.
• Watch out for: it is a board app without a vendor-hosted option in Enlisted's data, so hosting and backups fall to you.

3. Kanboard: best minimal kanban app for a basic web server

Kanboard is a free, open-source kanban application written in PHP, distributed under the MIT licence and simple to host on a typical web server or in a Docker container. Tasks are organized visually on boards, and the project has a website, change log, forum and official documentation.

The maintainers say the application is in maintenance mode: the main author makes small fixes rather than building major features, but new releases still appear regularly from community contributions.

• Best for: small teams and individuals who want a lean, stable board and do not expect new features.
• Watch out for: maintenance mode means few new capabilities, so teams that want automation, mobile apps or modern integrations may outgrow it.

4. Nextcloud Deck: best when your team already uses Nextcloud

Nextcloud Deck is a kanban-style planning app that runs inside Nextcloud and is described as similar to Trello. Cards sit in stacks, with Markdown descriptions, labels, assignments, file attachments, comments and an activity stream, and boards can be shared with team members, friends or family.

Because it lives inside Nextcloud, it uses the same file storage, sharing and user management as the rest of the platform. Android and iOS apps exist, and third-party tools can migrate cards from Trello or create cards from email. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0.

• Best for: teams already running Nextcloud that want boards next to their files.
• Watch out for: it is an app inside Nextcloud rather than a standalone product, so you need a Nextcloud installation first.

5. Vikunja: best self-hosted task manager that also offers kanban

Vikunja is an open-source, self-hostable task and project manager with a Go backend and a Vue front end. Its site lists list, Kanban, Gantt and table views, team sharing and task assignment, and built-in import from Trello, Todoist and Microsoft To-Do.

Self-hosting under AGPL-3.0 costs nothing, Vikunja Cloud is the managed paid route, and a Pro tier adds an admin panel, audit logs and time tracking. The REST API makes it easy to connect to other tools.

• Best for: people who want to-do lists and boards in one private tool, and who value a Trello importer.
• Watch out for: it is a task manager that includes boards, so its board interface is one view among several rather than the whole product.

6. MeisterTask: best hosted kanban with EU data hosting

MeisterTask is a hosted task management tool built around shared visual project boards, with task assignment, a knowledge base, reports, time tracking, project templates and automations. The vendor says it is made in the EU, hosted in Germany and GDPR compliant.

It has a free plan, paid plans charged per user with a trial, and higher tiers on request. It is closed source and hosted only.

• Best for: European teams and small businesses that want simple boards with data hosting in the EU.
• Watch out for: there is no self-hosted version, so compare its integrations list against the Power-Ups your boards rely on.

7. Kanban Tool: best hosted board with built-in time tracking

Kanban Tool provides online Kanban boards for business teams, with built-in time tracking, customizable workflows and automation, and support for both Scrum and Kanban styles of work. Each account gets its own address on the kanbantool.com domain.

There is a free plan for very small teams, a trial of paid plans, and per-user paid tiers. Enlisted's pricing note also mentions an on-site version that larger teams can install on their own server, which is unusual for a commercial board.

• Best for: operations and software teams that want boards with time tracking and the option of an on-site install.
• Watch out for: the free plan is aimed at very small teams, and the on-site option applies to larger ones.

8. Asana: best step up when boards are not enough

Asana is the usual next step for teams whose Trello boards have turned into projects with owners, deadlines and reporting. It handles board-style work and adds goals and reporting, workflow automation, resource management and a portfolios view for managers.

There is a free Personal plan for very small teams, paid plans are per user, and no self-hosted edition. The Asana alternatives guide has more options in this tier.

• Best for: teams whose projects have grown beyond a single board and need cross-project visibility.
• Watch out for: it is heavier than Trello, so it is a poor trade if boards were all you wanted.

9. Notion: best for boards that live next to documents

Notion treats a board as one view of a database inside a wider workspace, so the same pages can also appear as a timeline or a calendar. Its project pages describe kanban boards, tasks with status, assignee and due date, and task dependencies, next to docs and wikis.

A free plan covers individuals, and paid plans are per member. There is no self-hosted edition. If your Trello boards mostly track content or planning that also needs written context, one workspace can replace two tools. The Notion alternatives guide covers the wider market.

• Best for: teams that want a board next to meeting notes, specs and a wiki.
• Watch out for: a general workspace takes more setup than a dedicated board app.

10. Linear: best for software teams that outgrow generic boards

Linear is the hosted tracker to consider when a Trello board has turned into a makeshift bug list. It covers issue tracking, projects and company-level initiatives for engineering and product teams planning sprints and releases, and its newer features let teams hand work to AI agents.

The free plan caps teams and issues, and paid plans are per user. There is no self-hosted edition. See the Jira alternatives guide for other trackers in this space.

• Best for: software teams whose Trello board has become a makeshift issue tracker.
• Watch out for: it is purpose-built for software work, so general-purpose boards for marketing or personal planning fit less well.

Other options worth a look

• More open-source boards: 4ga Boards is a self-hosted real-time kanban app with a project, board, list and card hierarchy and sign-in through Google, GitHub, Microsoft or OIDC. Eigenfocus pairs list and board views with time tracking and a focus timer.
• Boards with planning on top: Leantime has Kanban, Gantt, table and calendar views for teams without a trained project manager, and Kaneo is an MIT-licensed board with list, calendar and Gantt views.
• A caution: Focalboard is positioned as an alternative to Trello, Notion and Asana, but its README says the repository is not currently maintained, so check the status before choosing it.
• Wider work platforms: ClickUp is covered in the ClickUp alternatives guide.

Which Trello alternative should you choose?

For the full list, see all open-source Trello alternatives on Enlisted, plus the project management category. If cost is the main driver, the free project management software guide sorts free plans and self-hosted tools by team type.

Which Trello features will you miss?

Trello's own page describes an inbox that collects tasks from email and Slack, a planner that syncs with your calendar, automation, templates and Power-Ups that link other tools, plus an MCP server for AI tools. Few alternatives match the whole set.

• Integrations. Planka has webhooks and a documented REST API, Vikunja has a REST API, and Kaneo has an API and GitHub integration. None of them is a Power-Up marketplace, so list your connected apps before you move.
• Automation. Hosted tools such as Asana and Kanban Tool list automation. Among the self-hosted boards, check each project's documentation, because simple boards often have little.
• Calendar and timeline views. Trello keeps these on a paid tier. Planka offers calendar and timeline views in Pro, and Vikunja and Kaneo include Gantt or calendar views.
• Email and Slack capture. This is hard to replace with a self-hosted board, so decide whether you can live without it.

Moving your boards

Check what Trello lets you export on your plan, then see which alternatives import it directly: Vikunja lists a Trello importer on its site, and Nextcloud Deck has third-party tools that migrate cards from Trello. For the rest, test an export on one small board before moving everything, and if you choose a self-hosted board, assign someone to own upgrades and backups.