head to head · open source
vibe-kanban vs Kan
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars, 3,013 forks, 540 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Kan has 5,656 stars, 477 forks, 135 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. vibe-kanban leads on adoption by 397% (28,112 vs 5,656 stars). vibe-kanban is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; Kan is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. vibe-kanban has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Kan 8%. vibe-kanban 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 | Kan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 5.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 477 |
| 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 Kan if
- You want the Kan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Kan 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 Kan
Kan is an open source project management application that provides kanban boards, positioned by its maintainers as the open source alternative to Trello. It is written in TypeScript under the AGPL 3.0 license, and it lives in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem: the stack is built on Next.js, tRPC, Better Auth, Tailwind CSS, Drizzle ORM, React Email, Zod, and Turborepo. The repository has gathered 5,634 stars and 472 forks, with 135 open issues, and its homepage is hosted at kan.bn. It is actively maintained, with the most recent push recorded on 14 September 2026.
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Frequently asked questions
Is vibe-kanban or Kan more popular?
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars and Kan has 5,656. vibe-kanban has the larger community by that measure.
Are vibe-kanban and Kan free?
Both are open source. vibe-kanban is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Kan under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vibe-kanban and Kan?
vibe-kanban is written in Rust and Kan in TypeScript. 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 Kan?
Choose vibe-kanban if you want the larger community (28,112 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Kan if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.