head to head · open source
vibe-kanban vs projectile
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars, 3,013 forks, 540 open issues and last shipped yesterday. projectile has 4,238 stars, 588 forks, 13 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. vibe-kanban leads on adoption by 563% (28,112 vs 4,238 stars). vibe-kanban is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; projectile is written in Emacs Lisp under GPL-3.0. vibe-kanban has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, projectile 14%. 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 | projectile | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Emacs Lisp |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 588 |
| 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 projectile if
- You want the projectile feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Emacs Lisp
- You evaluated both and projectile 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 projectile
Projectile is a project interaction library for Emacs, and it lives in the Emacs ecosystem. It treats a directory or repository as a project, then adds commands that operate on the whole project rather than on a single buffer.
read the full projectile overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vibe-kanban or projectile more popular?
vibe-kanban has 28,112 GitHub stars and projectile has 4,238. vibe-kanban has the larger community by that measure.
Are vibe-kanban and projectile free?
Both are open source. vibe-kanban is licensed under Apache-2.0 and projectile under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vibe-kanban and projectile?
vibe-kanban is written in Rust and projectile in Emacs Lisp. 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 projectile?
Choose vibe-kanban if you want the larger community (28,112 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose projectile if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.