head to head · open source
OpenProject vs kanboard
OpenProject has 16,933 GitHub stars, 3,676 forks, 224 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kanboard has 9,938 stars, 2,015 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. OpenProject leads on adoption by 70% (16,933 vs 9,938 stars). OpenProject is written in Ruby under GPL-3.0; kanboard is written in PHP under MIT. OpenProject has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, kanboard 20%. OpenProject 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
| OpenProject | kanboard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.7K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenProject if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- 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 OpenProject
OpenProject We empower teams to achieve great things together for the good of society. OpenProject is a web based open source project management software for teams and organizations that require transparency, flexibility, and data sovereignty. Manage projects, portfolios, products, tasks, bugs, agile workflows, roadmaps, and team collaboration in a single platform. OpenProject can be self hosted and is designed for organizations looking for an open source enterprise ready alternative to tools such as Jira, MS Project, Monday, Asana, YouTrack while maintaining full control over their data and infrastructure…
read the full OpenProject 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 OpenProject or kanboard more popular?
OpenProject has 16,933 GitHub stars and kanboard has 9,938. OpenProject has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenProject and kanboard free?
Both are open source. OpenProject is licensed under GPL-3.0 and kanboard under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenProject and kanboard?
OpenProject is written in Ruby 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, OpenProject or kanboard?
Choose OpenProject if you want the larger community (16,933 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose kanboard if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.