head to head · open source
kanboard vs SparkleShare
kanboard has 9,874 GitHub stars, 1,996 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. SparkleShare has 4,979 stars, 569 forks, 69 open issues and last shipped 19 days ago. kanboard leads on adoption by 98% (9,874 vs 4,979 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 | 2026-09-11 | 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 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 SparkleShare
SparkleShare is a free and open source file sharing and collaboration application written in C and released under the GNU GPLv3 or later, with its Sparkles library under the GNU LGPLv3 or later. It runs on Linux distributions, macOS, and Windows, and it lives in the desktop and self hosted cloud storage ecosystem alongside the Git and Git LFS tooling it depends on. The project has been on GitHub for roughly sixteen years, carries about 4,979 stars and 569 forks, and had its most recent push in September 2026.
read the full SparkleShare overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kanboard or SparkleShare more popular?
kanboard has 9,874 GitHub stars and SparkleShare has 4,979. 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 (9,874 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose SparkleShare if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.