head to head · open source
vibe-kanban vs kanzo
vibe-kanban has 28,569 GitHub stars, 3,050 forks, 540 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. kanzo has 844 stars, 51 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vibe-kanban leads on adoption by 3,285% (28,569 vs 844 stars). vibe-kanban is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; kanzo is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0. vibe-kanban has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, kanzo 6%. kanzo 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 | kanzo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 844 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 51 |
| 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 kanzo if
- You want the kanzo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and kanzo 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 kanzo
Kanzo is a kanban board in your browser and an MCP server in one 4.5 MB program, so you and your coding agents work on the same tasks: on one computer, or on one board shared by all of them. No account, no server, no setup: run kanzo and it works. You never edit a file. Everything is done in one of three places: the board , in your browser, for you; MCP , for your agents: they take tasks, move cards and comment; the kanzo command , for the terminal and scripts. Install [!TIP] Just ask your agent: "install Kanzo from github.com/emanuele em/kanzo." For macOS and Linux, including every Raspberry Pi. On Windows, in…
read the full kanzo overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vibe-kanban or kanzo more popular?
vibe-kanban has 28,569 GitHub stars and kanzo has 844. vibe-kanban has the larger community by that measure.
Are vibe-kanban and kanzo free?
Both are open source. vibe-kanban is licensed under Apache-2.0 and kanzo under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vibe-kanban and kanzo?
vibe-kanban is written in Rust and kanzo in Rust. 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 kanzo?
Choose vibe-kanban if you want the larger community (28,569 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose kanzo if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.