head to head · open source
kanboard vs paca
kanboard has 9,874 GitHub stars, 1,996 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. paca has 1,836 stars, 154 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. kanboard leads on adoption by 438% (9,874 vs 1,836 stars). kanboard is written in PHP under MIT; paca is written in Go under Apache-2.0. kanboard has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, paca 8%. paca was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (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
| kanboard | paca | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.9K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-11 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 154 |
| 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 paca if
- You want the paca feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and paca 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 paca
Paca is a free, open source, self hosted, AI native project management platform in which human Scrum teams and AI agents work as equal teammates on the same board, the same sprints, and the same goals.
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Frequently asked questions
Is kanboard or paca more popular?
kanboard has 9,874 GitHub stars and paca has 1,836. kanboard has the larger community by that measure.
Are kanboard and paca free?
Both are open source. kanboard is licensed under MIT and paca under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kanboard and paca?
kanboard is written in PHP and paca in Go. 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 paca?
Choose kanboard if you want the larger community (9,874 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose paca if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.