head to head · open source
Wekan vs Operately
Wekan has 21,089 GitHub stars, 3,000 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Operately has 554 stars, 70 forks, 85 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Wekan leads on adoption by 3,707% (21,089 vs 554 stars). Wekan is written in JavaScript under MIT; Operately is written in Elixir under a custom or non-standard licence. Wekan has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Operately 13%. Operately 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
| Wekan | Operately | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 554 |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | JavaScript | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 70 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Wekan if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Operately if
- You want the Operately feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You evaluated both and Operately fits your workflow better
About Wekan
Wekan is an open source collaborative kanban board application written in JavaScript and built with Meteor. It is licensed under the MIT license and is positioned as a free and open source alternative to Jira and Monday.com. The project lives in the self hosted business software and project management ecosystem.
read the full Wekan overview →
About Operately
Operately is an open source company operating system, written in Elixir with a TypeScript and React front end, and distributed under the Apache 2.0 license according to its README. It is pitched as an opinionated operating system for running an organization rather than as another generic project management tool. The project lives in the open source business software and project management ecosystem, with a hosted home at operately.com and a self hostable release archive on GitHub.
read the full Operately overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Wekan or Operately more popular?
Wekan has 21,089 GitHub stars and Operately has 554. Wekan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Wekan and Operately free?
Both are open source. Wekan is licensed under MIT, and Operately has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Wekan and Operately?
Wekan is written in JavaScript and Operately in Elixir. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Wekan or Operately?
Choose Wekan if you want the larger community (21,089 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Operately if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.