Focalboard vs TriliumNext Notes
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Focalboard with
choose an app… AppFlowy AFFiNE Memos Mark Text Joplin Plane SiYuan Logseq Outline Trilium Notes Khoj Chatwoot Wiki.js Notable Docmost Super Productivity Wekan Obsidian SimpleX Chat BookStack Etherpad Docs by Suite Numerique OpenProject Notesnook Gollum Habitica Self-Hosted Zettlr Quartz MarkText Workspace Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot git-bug Kanboard Berty TiddlyWiki Anytype Mumble Kaneo The Lounge Papercups Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure OpenEMR Maybe Tasks Taskcafe Vikunja Kimai2 Octobox Nullboard Godo Worklenz Donetick Tasks.md Restyaboard Kanban Tegon Taskell FossBilling Nextcloud Deck Kanban Lite eLabFTW Tracks Gerrit OrangeHRM GanttProject eigenfocus osem Taiga Firefly III Importer LibreBooking 4ga Boards Todoman Web Vikunja Frontend Mobile Admidio Agorakit Facilmap LibrePlan HamsterBase Tasks DumbBudget WorkAdventure Tasks ShipShipShip TaskLite OpenHabitTracker Fab-manager May croodle rgit Traq myTinyTodo Our Shopping List DumbDo DumbKan SCM Manager FlowInquiry Satdress motion.tools (Antragsgrün) Grr Task Keeper Mergeable Bileto Mobilizon Tasks Galette phpCollab minimal-git-server Rukovoditel PyInventory CiviCRM on Drupal Listaway 92five Active Collab Bénévalibre BitBucket Server Buddy Enterprise Coin Crucible Cultivons Diacamma Dokos Kanban Tool Kantree Liberaforms Paheko PMB Pollaris ProjeQtOr Smederee Solo Tuleap
Compare TriliumNext Notes with
choose an app… AppFlowy AFFiNE Memos Mark Text Joplin Plane SiYuan Logseq Outline Trilium Notes Khoj Wiki.js Karakeep ArchiveBox Notable Docmost Super Productivity Wekan Obsidian Linkwarden BookStack Foam Omnivore OpenProject Notesnook Habitica Self-Hosted Zettlr VNote Wallabag Planka Self-hosted LiveSync Shiori Leantime Linkding Blinko git-bug Kanboard Laverna Anytype Reor nb Notes Floccus Dillinger Kaneo Buku Athens Research org-roam Taskwarrior Markor Sync Livebook QOwnNotes SilverBullet TagSpaces DokuWiki Mindforger Web CherryTree Shaarli Pinry Flatnotes Dnote Trilium Notes Next NoteDiscovery MindForger WizNote BatNoter Notea AppFlowy Cloud Jotty Atomic Server Knowledge RocketNotes QuillPad Beavers Notes Outline Desktop Writing Many Notes Notabase Notesnook Sync Server mdSilo Note Mark Turtl RedNotebook Tangent Notes DailyTxT TeamMapper Standard Notes WiseMapping MyTetra Mindwendel LibreKB Digimindmap memEx QST
Feature Focalboard TriliumNext Notes Category Project Management & Tasks Notes & Knowledge Base License MIT AGPL-3.0 Language TypeScript TypeScript Setup difficulty Easy Medium Min. RAM 512 MB 512 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal docker, kubernetes GitHub stars ★ 26,376 ★ 37,298 First released 2021 2026 Replaces Trello, Asana, Notion —
Why pick each one
Choose Focalboard if… Clean Trello-like UI Lightweight Mattermost integration Focalboard details Choose TriliumNext Notes if… Released under the AGPL-3.0 license First-class Docker support for quick deployment Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available Mature project with 37.3k GitHub stars TriliumNext Notes details
Frequently asked questions Is Focalboard or TriliumNext Notes better? Neither is universally better. TriliumNext Notes has the larger community, while Focalboard is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Focalboard and TriliumNext Notes free and open-source? Yes. Focalboard is licensed under MIT and TriliumNext Notes under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Focalboard and TriliumNext Notes with Docker? Focalboard: yes. TriliumNext Notes: yes.