head to head · open source
Wekan vs Watson
Wekan has 21,089 GitHub stars, 3,000 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Watson has 2,539 stars, 257 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. Wekan leads on adoption by 731% (21,089 vs 2,539 stars). Wekan is written in JavaScript under MIT; Watson is written in Python under MIT. Wekan has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Watson 10%. Wekan 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 | Watson | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-12-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 257 |
| 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 Watson if
- You want the Watson feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Watson 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 Watson
Watson is a Python command line application for tracking time spent on projects and activities. It lives in the open source Python ecosystem, where it is distributed as td watson on PyPI and as watson through Homebrew on OS X. The tool records work as frames, and each frame can have a project name, tags, a start time, and a stop time.
read the full Watson overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Wekan or Watson more popular?
Wekan has 21,089 GitHub stars and Watson has 2,539. Wekan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Wekan and Watson free?
Both are open source. Wekan is licensed under MIT and Watson under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Wekan and Watson?
Wekan is written in JavaScript and Watson in Python. 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 Watson?
Choose Wekan if you want the larger community (21,089 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Watson if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.