Trello nails the simple case: drag a card across a few lists and the whole team instantly sees where the work stands, and for a lightweight backlog that clarity is hard to beat. The friction arrives when a board stops being a to-do list and becomes actual project infrastructure. The moment you want real custom fields, reporting, or automation, you are stacking paid power-ups and bumping into the free plan's ceilings, and all of it lives on someone else's cloud on export terms you do not set. The open source boards here keep the same fast, visual flow without the metered tiers: you self-host them beside your other tools, keep cards and attachments on storage you control, and the data stays in formats you can actually export and back up.
Plane is an open-source project management tool for teams that need to track issues, run cycles, plan product work, and keep projects organized. It is built to handle tasks, docs, and triage without forcing teams into a proprietary workflow.
Focalboard is an open source, multilingual, self-hosted project management tool for organizing and tracking work across individuals and teams. It offers a Trello, Notion, and Asana alternative for people who want to manage tasks and projects in a tool they can run themselves.
WeKan is an open-source collaborative kanban board application for organizing personal tasks or team work. It is built to be installed on your own computer or server, so your board data can stay under your control instead of being tied to a hosted service.
Super Productivity is an open-source todo list and deep work task manager for developers. It combines task planning, timeboxing, time tracking, and notes in one workspace for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and the web. It has no user accounts or registration, does not collect data, and lets you decide where to store your data.
OpenProject is web-based project management software for managing projects, tasks, and goals. It combines classic, agile, and hybrid project management in one place so teams can plan work, track progress, and collaborate on work packages.
PLANKA is a self-hosted Kanban-style project management tool for teams that organize work into projects, boards, lists, cards, and tasks. It is built for agile workflows and keeps all project data on infrastructure you control rather than in a hosted service.
Leantime is an open source project management system for non-project managers. It focuses on goals and combines strategy, planning, and execution so teams can connect high-level direction to day-to-day work in one web app. It is built with ADHD, dyslexia, and autism in mind.
Kanboard is project management software focused on the Kanban methodology. It is built for teams that want to organize work on boards and keep the workflow in a self-hosted system they control.
Redmine is a flexible project management web application that supports multiple projects from a single install. Each project gets its own issue tracker, Gantt chart and calendar, wiki, forums, news, and document and file storage, with role-based access control deciding who can do what.
Tasks.org is an open source, privacy-friendly to-do list and reminder app for Android, with desktop builds in alpha and Pebble watch support. Its code descends from the open source Android app behind Astrid, the cross-platform task service that shut down in 2013.
Vikunja is open-source task management for organizing personal or team work, with your data kept under your control rather than tied to one provider. Run it on your own server, or let Vikunja Cloud host a fully managed instance for you.
Worklenz is an open-source project management platform for teams that want planning, collaboration, and execution in one place. It covers project tracking, task management, resource planning, time tracking, financial insights, analytics, and reporting so work can stay organized from start to finish.
tududi is a task management app for organizing life and work with tasks, projects, areas, notes, and tags. It is built for people who want a clear structure for daily work, recurring follow-ups, and a place to keep related notes with the same system.
Donetick is an open-source app for managing tasks and chores for one person or a group. It helps households and teams organize shared work, assign items to others, and keep recurring chores on track.
WeekToDo is a free, open source minimalist weekly planner that mixes a calendar and to-do lists in one interface. Plan your week by scheduling tasks across days, set priorities, and keep everything on Windows, macOS, Linux, or straight from a web browser.
Kanri is a desktop Kanban board app for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It helps people create and manage boards locally without an internet connection or account, so work stays on the device instead of in a cloud service.
Taiga is open source agile project management software that adapts to how each team works. Run it as a Kanban board with swim lanes and WIP limits, as Scrum with a backlog and sprints, or switch between the two modes at any time without losing your work.
Choose by whether you want to keep a pure board or grow into fuller project management.
Closest Trello-style team board: PLANKA PLANKA keeps the familiar projects, boards, lists, cards, and tasks with drag-and-drop and real-time updates across users, so a Trello team feels at home immediately. It adds Markdown card descriptions, single sign-on with OpenID Connect, and notifications through a hundred-plus providers, and deploys with Docker or its own cloud.
Easiest migration from Trello: Vikunja Vikunja is the easiest landing spot because it ships a built-in importer for Trello boards, so the most tedious part of the move is handled for you. Beyond the board it offers list, Gantt, and table views, scales from a personal to-do list to shared team projects, and runs self-hosted or on EU-based Vikunja Cloud.
Simplest self-hosted board: WeKan WeKan is the barebones classic board: lists as workflow stages, and cards carrying due dates, labels, checklists, comments, and attachments, with custom fields when you need them. Changes appear in real time across users, it is MIT-licensed, and it installs on your own computer or server with Docker.
For teams outgrowing a board: Plane When a board has become real project infrastructure, Plane trades some Trello simplicity for Work Items with rich text and file uploads, Cycles with burndown charts, Modules, and real-time analytics. It runs on Plane Cloud, on your own servers, or fully air-gapped under AGPL, which suits stricter environments.
Because Trello's model is deliberately narrow - boards, lists, cards, labels, checklists, due dates, and attachments - it is unusually easy to adopt, and the first decision when replacing it is whether to keep that exact shape or move to something with milestones, custom fields, and reporting built in. The catch is schema discipline: Trello lets teams improvise with card text and Power-Ups, which hides process inside conventions, so a replacement should make that structure explicit enough to report on and back up. PLANKA and WeKan keep the familiar board, while Plane trades some simplicity for cycles, modules, and analytics once a board has become real project infrastructure.
Expect the gaps around polish, integrations, and operations rather than the board itself. Trello's mature drag-and-drop, notifications, mobile apps, and large Power-Up marketplace are hard to match one for one, and open source options tend to be stronger on control but weaker on no-code automation, calendar sync, or email-to-card flows. Self-hosting also means you inherit email delivery, file storage, authentication, upgrades, and backups, so a tool that shines in a demo can still fail if reminders or attachments are unreliable for your team.
Migration usually starts with Trello's own export. Individual boards come out as JSON that preserves much of the structure - lists, cards, descriptions, labels, checklists, due dates, members, comments, and activity - but how much survives depends on the importer on the other side. Vikunja is worth a look here because it ships a built-in Trello importer, which shortens the most tedious part. Attachments often need separate handling, and Power-Up data, automation rules, custom fields, watchers, and votes usually require cleanup. Run a test import on one representative board, map users and labels deliberately, freeze the old board during cutover, and keep the export as a permanent audit copy.
Usually a dedicated kanban tool that treats boards, lists, and cards as the primary workflow rather than forcing everything into a heavier issue tracker. PLANKA and WeKan fit that description most directly, with drag-and-drop cards, labels, checklists, due dates, comments, and attachments. After the basics, compare whether the tool supports the specific Trello habits your team leans on, like templates, calendar views, or simple automation.
For a small workspace it is manageable, especially if the target has a Trello importer. Vikunja ships a built-in Trello importer, which handles the tedious part; other tools rely on Trello's JSON export and their own API. The hard part is not card titles but preserving comments, checklist state, attachments, labels, due dates, and user mapping cleanly, so test one representative board first.
Basic card structure transfers well; Trello-specific behavior does not. Power-Up data, Butler automation rules, watched-card state, votes, custom-field formatting, calendar settings, and some archived history rarely map directly. Attachments can be awkward too, since exports may reference files rather than bundle them for import. Keep the original export and write down any fields you have to recreate by hand after the move.
Sometimes, but be specific about which ones. Power-Ups often cover calendars, forms, time tracking, reporting, and automation, and a replacement may offer native integrations, webhooks, an API, or scriptable rules instead of a one-click marketplace. PLANKA, for instance, has notifications through a hundred-plus providers and OIDC single sign-on. Inventory your current Power-Ups and Butler rules, then mark each one required, replaceable, or safe to drop.
It depends on the tool. Some keep the low-friction feel that makes Trello easy for non-technical users - PLANKA and WeKan stay close to a plain board - while others, like Plane or Leantime, expose more project-management structure than a Trello team may want. During evaluation, invite the people who move cards every day, not only admins, because better reporting does not help if daily work feels slower.
You have both options. Some tools are self-hosted only, while PLANKA and Vikunja also offer managed cloud, with Vikunja Cloud hosted in the EU. Self-hosting makes sense when you need control over data residency, network access, or authentication; managed hosting is better when you want to leave Trello without owning uptime, upgrades, file storage, and email notifications. The software can be identical either way.
Do not assume mobile matches Trello. Test the real app or mobile web with the actions your team relies on: creating cards, moving them between lists, adding checklist items, uploading photos, and receiving push notifications. PLANKA publishes iOS, Android, and Windows apps, and Vikunja has Android and iOS clients. For field teams, check offline behavior specifically, since sync conflicts on shared cards can be painful.
