head to head · open source
Leantime vs kanboard
Leantime has 11,612 GitHub stars, 1,131 forks, 328 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. kanboard has 9,874 stars, 1,996 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Leantime leads on adoption by 18% (11,612 vs 9,874 stars). Leantime is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; kanboard is written in PHP under MIT. Leantime has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, kanboard 20%. kanboard was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (agile, 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
| Leantime | kanboard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-07 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Leantime if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kanboard if
- You want the kanboard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and kanboard fits your workflow better
About Leantime
Leantime is an open source project management system in the Business Software / Project & Work Management category, written in PHP and licensed under AGPL 3.0. It is aimed at non project managers and combines strategy, planning, and execution in one place. The project describes itself as built with ADHD, autism, and dyslexia in mind.
read the full Leantime overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Leantime or kanboard more popular?
Leantime has 11,612 GitHub stars and kanboard has 9,874. Leantime has the larger community by that measure.
Are Leantime and kanboard free?
Both are open source. Leantime is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and kanboard under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Leantime and kanboard?
Leantime is written in PHP and kanboard in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Leantime or kanboard?
Choose Leantime if you want the larger community (11,612 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose kanboard if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.