head to head · open source
vibe-kanban vs kanboard
vibe-kanban has 28,569 GitHub stars, 3,050 forks, 540 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. kanboard has 9,938 stars, 2,015 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. vibe-kanban leads on adoption by 187% (28,569 vs 9,938 stars). vibe-kanban is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; kanboard is written in PHP under MIT. vibe-kanban has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, kanboard 20%. kanboard was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (kanban), 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
| vibe-kanban | kanboard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 9.9K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vibe-kanban if
- You weight community size — 29K 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 kanboard if
- You want the kanboard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and kanboard fits your workflow better
About vibe-kanban
Get 10X more out of Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex, Amp and other coding agents... Vibe Kanban is sunsetting. Read the announcement. Overview In a world where software engineers spend most of their time planning and reviewing coding agents, the most impactful way to ship more is to get faster at planning and review. Vibe Kanban is built for this. Use kanban issues to plan work, either privately or with your team. When you're ready to begin, create workspaces where coding agents can execute. Plan with kanban issues — create, prioritise, and assign issues on a kanban board Run coding agents in workspaces — each…
read the full vibe-kanban overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vibe-kanban or kanboard more popular?
vibe-kanban has 28,569 GitHub stars and kanboard has 9,938. vibe-kanban has the larger community by that measure.
Are vibe-kanban and kanboard free?
Both are open source. vibe-kanban is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kanboard under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vibe-kanban and kanboard?
vibe-kanban is written in Rust and kanboard in PHP. 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 kanboard?
Choose vibe-kanban if you want the larger community (28,569 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kanboard if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.