head to head · open source
Planka vs kanboard
Planka has 12,567 GitHub stars, 1,378 forks, 425 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. kanboard has 9,874 stars, 1,996 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Planka leads on adoption by 27% (12,567 vs 9,874 stars). Planka is written in JavaScript under a custom or non-standard licence; kanboard is written in PHP under MIT. Planka has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, kanboard 20%. Planka was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (kanban, project-management, self-hosted), 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
| Planka | kanboard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Planka if
- You weight community size — 13K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- 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 Planka
Planka is a self hosted Kanban board for project and task management. It lives in the open source project and work management ecosystem, with JavaScript as its implementation language, and it positions itself as an open alternative to Trello and Monday.com. The project provides a free Community edition for self hosting, while PLANKA Pro adds organization features and developer support.
read the full Planka 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 Planka or kanboard more popular?
Planka has 12,567 GitHub stars and kanboard has 9,874. Planka has the larger community by that measure.
Are Planka and kanboard free?
Both are open source. Planka has no licence declared in this registry, and kanboard is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Planka and kanboard?
Planka is written in JavaScript 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, Planka or kanboard?
Choose Planka if you want the larger community (12,567 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose kanboard if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.