head to head · open source
vibe-kanban vs freeplane
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars, 3,013 forks, 540 open issues and last shipped yesterday. freeplane has 4,362 stars, 498 forks, 453 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vibe-kanban leads on adoption by 544% (28,112 vs 4,362 stars). vibe-kanban is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; freeplane is written in Java under GPL-2.0. vibe-kanban has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, freeplane 11%. freeplane 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
| vibe-kanban | freeplane | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 498 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vibe-kanban if
- You weight community size — 28K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick freeplane if
- You want the freeplane feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and freeplane fits your workflow better
About vibe-kanban
Vibe Kanban is an open source, Apache 2.0 kanban board written in Rust that lets software engineers plan work as issues and hand each issue to a coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI or Amp inside an isolated workspace.
read the full vibe-kanban overview →
About freeplane
Freeplane is a free and open source desktop application for mind mapping, concept mapping and information mapping, written in Java with OSGi and Java Swing. It lives in the Java desktop ecosystem and is distributed under the GPL 2.0 license, with source hosted on GitHub and binary downloads published through SourceForge. The project has been under development for roughly 14 years and sits in the business software category of project and work management tools.
read the full freeplane overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vibe-kanban or freeplane more popular?
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars and freeplane has 4,362. vibe-kanban has the larger community by that measure.
Are vibe-kanban and freeplane free?
Both are open source. vibe-kanban is licensed under Apache-2.0 and freeplane under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vibe-kanban and freeplane?
vibe-kanban is written in Rust and freeplane in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, vibe-kanban or freeplane?
Choose vibe-kanban if you want the larger community (28,112 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose freeplane if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.