Kanboard

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 806 words

Kanboard looks roughly the way it looked in 2016, and that is the strongest argument for it. It is one PHP application with a SQLite file behind it, it runs in 256 MB of RAM, and a board I set up years ago still works the same way with the same plugins after every update since. If you want a Trello-shaped board that you never have to think about again, this is the one. If you want a modern-feeling tool with rich cards and a phone app, it is the wrong one, and the rest of this guide is about telling those two readers apart.

"Minimalist" includes more than the tagline admits

A Kanboard project has columns, swimlanes, WIP limits per column, subtasks with time estimates, task links (blocks, is blocked by, duplicates, relates to), comments, attachments, due dates, per-project categories and tags. There is a calendar view, a list view and an analytics page with cumulative flow, lead time and cycle time charts. Automatic actions are the sleeper feature: rules like "when a task moves to Done, unassign it and colour it green" or "when a task is created with the Bug category, assign it to Sam" run in core with no plugin. For a team of 2 to 15 people that is most of what a paid board sells you.

What is missing is deliberate: no card cover images, no built-in chat, no threaded discussions, no native mobile apps. The web UI is responsive enough to drag a card on a phone and not much more.

Docker in 8 lines, and where the data lives

services:
  kanboard:
    image: kanboard/kanboard:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    volumes:
      - ./data:/var/www/app/data
      - ./plugins:/var/www/app/plugins
    restart: unless-stopped

Log in as admin with password admin and change it before doing anything else. The SQLite database, uploaded files and everything else you care about sit in the data volume; the plugins volume is what lets plugins installed from the web UI survive a rebuild. Back up both directories and you have the whole install. MySQL and PostgreSQL are supported through config.php or a DATABASE_URL variable, but I would not bother below several thousand tasks. SQLite is the default for a reason.

Put it behind whichever reverse proxy you already run, and set PLUGIN_INSTALLER=true in the environment if you want the in-app plugin installer, which the image disables by default.

Plugins are how it competes

The plugin directory is long and uneven. The ones that matter: the Gantt chart (moved out of core into a plugin some years ago), the Gitea, GitHub and GitLab webhook plugins that move a card when a pull request closes, OAuth and LDAP login, a handful of themes that soften the 2014-era look, and a Wiki plugin for people who want a project home page. Install from the UI or drop a directory into plugins/. Two cautions from experience: a plugin untouched for 3 years will sometimes break on a Kanboard release, and the themes only go so far. The interface will still read as dated to anyone arriving from Linear.

The API is JSON-RPC and it is complete

Every action in the UI is available at /jsonrpc.php over JSON-RPC 2.0, authenticated with a per-user API token or the application token. Creating a task from a script is one POST. This is how I feed it: a cron job that opens a "check backups" task every Monday, and an n8n flow that turns tagged emails into cards. Ticket-style imports from other tools go the same way, since the only CSV import covers tasks and users and nothing else.

Where it hits a wall

Three situations where I would not choose it. First, a team that wants @-mentions, threaded comments and notifications that feel like Slack; Kanboard's notifications are email and a small in-app bell. Second, anything above the project level: portfolios, epics, cross-project roadmaps. Kanboard has projects and that is all. Third, a good-looking board being part of the pitch to non-technical colleagues. For those readers Planka is the closest Trello clone visually, Vikunja mixes lists and kanban with better mobile support, and the project management category has the heavier options.

What I'd do

For a personal or small-team board that should outlive every other tool on the server, run the compose file above, install the Gantt plugin and the webhook plugin for your git host, wire one automatic action per column, and back up data/ nightly. Budget 15 minutes for setup and effectively zero for upkeep. If the dated look bothers you after a week, switch to Planka before you have real history in it, not after.