head to head · open source
kanboard vs Fizzy
kanboard has 9,874 GitHub stars, 1,996 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Fizzy has 8,212 stars, 1,194 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kanboard leads on adoption by 20% (9,874 vs 8,212 stars). kanboard is written in PHP under MIT; Fizzy is written in Ruby under a custom or non-standard licence. kanboard has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, Fizzy 15%. Fizzy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (kanban), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| kanboard | Fizzy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.9K | ★ 8.2K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | PHP | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-11 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick kanboard if
- You weight community size — 9.9K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Fizzy if
- You want the Fizzy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and Fizzy fits your workflow better
About kanboard
Kanboard is MIT licensed, self hosted Kanban project management software written in PHP, aimed at teams and individuals who want to run their own board based task tracking instead of renting a hosted service.
read the full kanboard overview →
About Fizzy
Fizzy is an open source kanban tool for tracking issues and ideas, published by 37signals as a Ruby on Rails application, and it is aimed at teams that want a fast, simple board together with the source code and the option to run that board on their own server.
read the full Fizzy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kanboard or Fizzy more popular?
kanboard has 9,874 GitHub stars and Fizzy has 8,212. kanboard has the larger community by that measure.
Are kanboard and Fizzy free?
Both are open source. kanboard is licensed under MIT, and Fizzy has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between kanboard and Fizzy?
kanboard is written in PHP and Fizzy in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, kanboard or Fizzy?
Choose kanboard if you want the larger community (9,874 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Fizzy if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.