head to head · open source
paca vs kanzo
paca has 2,018 GitHub stars, 186 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kanzo has 844 stars, 51 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. paca leads on adoption by 139% (2,018 vs 844 stars). paca is written in Go under Apache-2.0; kanzo is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. paca has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, kanzo 6%. kanzo was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (mcp, project-management), 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
| paca | kanzo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 2.0K | ★ 844 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 186 | ⑂ 51 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick paca if
- You weight community size — 2.0K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick kanzo if
- You want the kanzo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and kanzo fits your workflow better
About paca
Paca AI native. Free. Lightweight. Open source. The fully customizable alternative to Jira, Trello, ClickUp, and Monday. ✨ Sponsored by Getting Started · MCP Server · Paca Skills · Architecture · Contributing · Roadmap What is Paca? Paca is a self hosted project management platform where AI agents and humans collaborate as equal teammates inside a Scrum team — not as chatbots bolted on the side. Jira gives you a backlog. ClickUp gives you automations. Monday gives you dashboards. Paca gives your AI agents a seat at the table. They join sprint planning, pick up tasks from the board, write BDD specs, and adapt…
About kanzo
Kanzo is a kanban board in your browser and an MCP server in one 4.5 MB program, so you and your coding agents work on the same tasks: on one computer, or on one board shared by all of them. No account, no server, no setup: run kanzo and it works. You never edit a file. Everything is done in one of three places: the board , in your browser, for you; MCP , for your agents: they take tasks, move cards and comment; the kanzo command , for the terminal and scripts. Install [!TIP] Just ask your agent: "install Kanzo from github.com/emanuele em/kanzo." For macOS and Linux, including every Raspberry Pi. On Windows, in…
read the full kanzo overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is paca or kanzo more popular?
paca has 2,018 GitHub stars and kanzo has 844. paca has the larger community by that measure.
Are paca and kanzo free?
Both are open source. paca is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kanzo under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between paca and kanzo?
paca is written in Go and kanzo in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, paca or kanzo?
Choose paca if you want the larger community (2,018 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kanzo if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.