head to head · open source
Leantime vs kanboard
Leantime has 11,958 GitHub stars, 1,169 forks, 328 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. kanboard has 9,938 stars, 2,017 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Leantime leads on adoption by 20% (11,958 vs 9,938 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%. Leantime 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 | 2026-11-01 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 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® ⭐ If you find Leantime useful, please star us on GitHub! ⭐ Leantime is an open source project management system for non project managers. We combine strategy, planning and execution while making it easy for everyone on the team to use. Built with ADHD, dyslexia and autism in mind. 🧠 💪 As simple as Trello but as feature rich as Jira 🔄 A perfect alternative to ClickUp, Monday, or Asana 🌐 🚀 Features yes, all of these features are included in the OSS version 📸 Screenshots ❗System Requirements PHP 8.2+ MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.6+ Apache or Nginx (IIS works with some modifications) PHP Extensions…
read the full Leantime overview →
About kanboard
Kanboard ======== Kanboard is project management software that focuses on the Kanban methodology. This application is in maintenance mode . What does it mean? Citing Wikipedia: In the world of software development, maintenance mode refers to a point in a computer program's life when it has reached all of its goals and is generally considered to be "complete" and bug free. The term can also refer to the point in a software product's evolution when it is no longer competitive with other products or current with regard to the technology environment it operates within. The author of this application is not actively…
read the full kanboard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Leantime or kanboard more popular?
Leantime has 11,958 GitHub stars and kanboard has 9,938. 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 (11,958 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose kanboard if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.