head to head · open source
kanboard vs SparkleShare
kanboard has 9,938 GitHub stars, 2,017 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. SparkleShare has 4,999 stars, 569 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. kanboard leads on adoption by 99% (9,938 vs 4,999 stars). kanboard is written in PHP under MIT; SparkleShare is written in C# under GPL-3.0. kanboard has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, SparkleShare 11%. kanboard was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | SparkleShare | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.9K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | C# |
| Last push | 2026-10-31 | 2026-09-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 569 |
| 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 SparkleShare if
- You want the SparkleShare feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and SparkleShare fits your workflow better
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 →
About SparkleShare
SparkleShare [!NOTE] Please read 🌱 issue 2006 for the future of this project. [!IMPORTANT] Hello! Hylke here. I was recently laid off . I'd love to work full time creating apps for Linux and contributing design for FOSS projects . I hope to gather enough monthly sponsors for a minimum wage. Every little helps. Thank you. SparkleShare is a file sharing and collaboration app. It works just like Dropbox, and you can run it on your own server. It's available for Linux distributions, macOS, and Windows. You can support this project through 💕 GitHub Sponsors. How does it work? SparkleShare creates a special folder…
read the full SparkleShare overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kanboard or SparkleShare more popular?
kanboard has 9,938 GitHub stars and SparkleShare has 4,999. kanboard has the larger community by that measure.
Are kanboard and SparkleShare free?
Both are open source. kanboard is licensed under MIT and SparkleShare under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kanboard and SparkleShare?
kanboard is written in PHP and SparkleShare in C#. 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 SparkleShare?
Choose kanboard if you want the larger community (9,938 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose SparkleShare if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.