head to head · open source
vibe-kanban vs kandev
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars, 3,013 forks, 540 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kandev has 801 stars, 120 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vibe-kanban leads on adoption by 3,410% (28,112 vs 801 stars). vibe-kanban is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; kandev is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. vibe-kanban has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, kandev 15%. kandev was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai-agents, 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 | kandev | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 801 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 120 |
| 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 kandev if
- You want the kandev feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and kandev 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 kandev
Kandev is an open source AI Kanban and development environment written in Go and licensed under AGPL 3.0. It lives in the developer tools and agentic AI ecosystem, providing a control plane for coding agents such as Claude Code, Codex, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Cursor, Devin, and Qwen.
read the full kandev overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vibe-kanban or kandev more popular?
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars and kandev has 801. vibe-kanban has the larger community by that measure.
Are vibe-kanban and kandev free?
Both are open source. vibe-kanban is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kandev under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vibe-kanban and kandev?
vibe-kanban is written in Rust and kandev in Go. 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 kandev?
Choose vibe-kanban if you want the larger community (28,112 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kandev if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.