head to head · open source
vibe-kanban vs nimbalyst
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars, 3,013 forks, 540 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nimbalyst has 1,731 stars, 254 forks, 642 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vibe-kanban leads on adoption by 1,524% (28,112 vs 1,731 stars). vibe-kanban is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; nimbalyst is written in TypeScript under MIT. vibe-kanban has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, nimbalyst 15%. nimbalyst 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 | nimbalyst | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 254 |
| 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 nimbalyst if
- You want the nimbalyst feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and nimbalyst 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 nimbalyst
Nimbalyst is an open source visual workspace for Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, and other coding agents. It lives in the agentic coding ecosystem and brings sessions, worktrees, tasks, docs, diagrams, mockups, commits, and code into one desktop application. It is written in TypeScript, uses Electron, and is MIT licensed.
read the full nimbalyst overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vibe-kanban or nimbalyst more popular?
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars and nimbalyst has 1,731. vibe-kanban has the larger community by that measure.
Are vibe-kanban and nimbalyst free?
Both are open source. vibe-kanban is licensed under Apache-2.0 and nimbalyst under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vibe-kanban and nimbalyst?
vibe-kanban is written in Rust and nimbalyst 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 nimbalyst?
Choose vibe-kanban if you want the larger community (28,112 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose nimbalyst if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.