Kanboard review

Kanboard is the simplest tool on this list and that is the point: its site says the number of features is voluntarily limited and the interface avoids anything fancy. What you get is a Kanban board with drag-and-drop tasks, columns you can add or rename at any time, WIP limits that highlight a column when it is over capacity, swimlanes, subtasks with time or complexity estimates, attachments and Markdown descriptions. Automatic actions can change assignees, colors or categories when events happen, and a small query language filters the board. It supports LDAP or Active Directory and OAuth2 providers including Google, GitHub and GitLab, and the documentation covers Docker, SQLite, MySQL and PostgreSQL installs. Kanboard is released under the MIT License and there is no paid tier or hosted plan. It ranks last because it lacks Gantt charts, docs and reporting depth, but for a small team that wants a board on its own server it costs nothing.

Who it is for

small teams that want a simple self-hosted Kanban board

Price

Free and open source; no paid plan.

Kanboard is distributed under the permissive MIT License
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 12, 2026.

Key features

• Kanban board with drag-and-drop tasks and WIP limits per column
• Search query language for filtering by assignee, category, due date and more
• Automatic actions that change assignees, colors and categories on events
• Tasks with subtasks, attachments, comments and Markdown descriptions
• LDAP or Active Directory and OAuth2 sign-in with Google, GitHub or GitLab

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Free under the permissive MIT License
• Strength: Translated into more than 30 languages
• Strength: Documented API, webhooks and plugin system
• Weakness: Features are deliberately limited, per the Kanboard site
• Weakness: No hosted version, so you run the server yourself
• Weakness: Mainly developed by one maintainer, though more than 334 people have contributed

Key facts

• License: MIT
• Price: Free
• Languages: 30+
• Hosting: Self-hosted only

Where it ranks

Kanboard is No. 10 in our Best Open Source Project Management Software verdict.