head to head · open source
kanboard vs nimbalyst
kanboard has 9,874 GitHub stars, 1,996 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. nimbalyst has 1,751 stars, 254 forks, 642 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. kanboard leads on adoption by 464% (9,874 vs 1,751 stars). kanboard is written in PHP under MIT; nimbalyst is written in TypeScript under MIT. kanboard has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, nimbalyst 15%. nimbalyst 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 | nimbalyst | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.9K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-11 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 254 |
| 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 nimbalyst if
- You want the nimbalyst feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and nimbalyst 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 nimbalyst
Nimbalyst is an open source visual workspace for Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and other coding agents. It lives in the agentic coding ecosystem and brings sessions, worktrees, tasks, docs, diagrams, mockups, commits, and code into one desktop application. It is written in TypeScript, uses Electron, and is MIT licensed.
read the full nimbalyst overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kanboard or nimbalyst more popular?
kanboard has 9,874 GitHub stars and nimbalyst has 1,751. kanboard has the larger community by that measure.
Are kanboard and nimbalyst free?
Both are open source. kanboard is licensed under MIT and nimbalyst under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kanboard and nimbalyst?
kanboard is written in PHP and nimbalyst in TypeScript. 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 nimbalyst?
Choose kanboard if you want the larger community (9,874 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nimbalyst if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.