head to head
Trello vs Planka
Planka is the open source alternative to Trello — kanban-based project management boards. Here is the honest comparison.
Yes — Planka is a viable free replacement for Trello. Planka is open source under its own open-source terms, written in JavaScript, with 12,557 GitHub stars, 1,378 forks and 425 open issues; it was last pushed 26 hours ago. Trello costs from $5, while self-hosting Planka carries no licence fee — the trade is your operational time instead of a subscription. 1 other open source Trello alternative is tracked here, led by Vikunja at 5,438 stars. Planka ranks #1 of 2 tracked open source Trello alternatives by stars. The tracked set, by adoption: Vikunja (5,438 stars). Replacement criteria on this page: 4 reasons to move to Planka and 3 reasons to stay on Trello.
choose Planka if
- Your Trello bill is growing with seats or usage
- You need your data in a format and server you control
- Your compliance posture requires auditing the code that touches sensitive data
- You have (or can rent) a server and basic Docker comfort
stick with Trello if
- You need the polished onboarding and support SLAs of a commercial vendor
- Your team has zero capacity to operate software, even self-hosted-simple
- You depend on a Trello integration ecosystem that the OSS alternatives have not replicated
Side by side
| Planka (open source) | Trello | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | $5-$17.50/user/month |
| License | Custom / other | Proprietary |
| Source code | Public, auditable | Closed |
| Self-hosting | Yes — plankanban/planka | Cloud only |
| Data ownership | Your server, your format | Vendor's cloud |
| Community | ★ 13K · ⑂ 1.4K | — |
| Built with | JavaScript | — |
Why people look for a Trello alternative
About Planka
Planka is a self hosted Kanban board for project and task management. It lives in the open source project and work management ecosystem, with JavaScript as its implementation language, and it positions itself as an open alternative to Trello and Monday.com. The project provides a free Community edition for self hosting, while PLANKA Pro adds organization features and developer support.
read the full Planka overview →
Other open source alternatives to Trello
last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked
Frequently asked questions
Is Planka a good replacement for Trello?
Planka is an open source alternative to Trello (Kanban-based project management boards). It is written in JavaScript and licensed under its own terms, with 12,557 GitHub stars.
Is Planka free compared to Trello?
Yes. Planka is open source — there is no licence fee, and you can self-host it. Trello is typically a paid subscription, so the trade-off is licence cost against the operational work of running it yourself.
How do I migrate from Trello to Planka?
Migration effort depends on the data formats involved. Check Planka's documentation for import options, and compare the feature table above to confirm the capabilities you depend on are covered before switching.