If you want to know tools that will make your business more efficient and improve collaboration Kanban is the answer.

What is kanban?

Kanban is a simple but powerful tool that can help business owners and project managers stay organized maybe in a conference room and I'll explain it.

Kanban is a Japanese term meaning something like billboard it was developed by Toyota in the 1950s for manufacturing however it has since been applied to a number of industries including construction architecture, software development,  and even personal time management.

Kanban board keeps all of your team members collaborating and informed.

In many cases, the digital Kanban system along with thoughtful participation can eliminate the need for the dreaded weekly status report

in its most basic form, a Kanban board has just a few columns such as to do, in progress, and completed with digital systems like stars any number of columns can be created to reflect how workflows through your organization.

Top 11 open-source Kanban tools

1- Kanboard

Kanboard

Kanboard is our top pick here because it is free and open source. Kanboard evolved to be the first choice for companies in the healthcare, legal, finance, and industrial sectors.

It is a full-featured enterprise project management solution for large projects.

Kanboard focuses on software development, Kanboard is used heavily in the industrial sector especially because with it you can visualize your work, limit your work in progress to focus on your goal, drag and drop tasks to manage your project, self-hosted, and it has super simple installation.

Kanboard is written in PHP and distributed under MIT license, also you can use it with docker.


GitHub: https://github.com/kanboard/kanboard

2- Wekan

Wekan

Wekan is a free open-source and free software collaborative kanban board application with an MIT license. It aims for a minimal configuration multi-tool system for software companies.

With Wekan you can maintain a personal to-do list, planning your holidays with some friends, or working in a team on your next revolutionary idea. It features a star, watches boards, gives you a visual overview and has a real-time user interface.

Wekan supports many platforms and it is currently being integrated too and written in JavaScript and HTML.

GitHub: https://github.com/wekan/wekan

3- Restyaboard

Restyaboard

Restyaboard is an open-source enterprise project management that is free and Kanban frameworks. It is built with JavaScript and PHP.

That is not all, Restyaboard is available in the iOS store, You can easily import the existing boards from Asana to Restya board, Easy transition of work processes from Pipefy to Restya Board, it helps in importing boards from Taiga to its own software, and more.

Restyaboard released under Dual License (OSL 3.0 & Commercial License). You can install the Restyaboard on your own internal server.


GitHub: https://github.com/RestyaPlatform/board

4- Taiga

Taiga

Taiga is an open-source enterprise project management for teams. The system features dozens of other different tools as well.

Taiga features customization to fit your workflow, multiple workflows with swim lanes, extensive filter options and searches function, WIP limits, view options like zoom level and user story archive function, the possibility to switch over to scrum, and vice versa.

Taiga comes with a rich and complete set of boards to plan and show individual sprints from backlog like the possibility to switch over to Kanban and vice versa, the estimation tool (Taiga Seed), the backlog, and sprint planning including EPICS and sub-tasks, and more.

Taiga Built on top of Django and AngularJS and licensed under AGPL-3.0 license.


GitHub: https://github.com/taigaio/

5- TaskBoard

TaskBoard

TaskBoard is a visual way to keep track of what needs to get done. This software package for building complex software solutions that require multiple teams. It built-in TypeScript.

TaskBoard is aimed to provide a simple and clean interface to a functional and minimal application for keeping track of tasks.

TaskBoard features open-source, self-hosted, easy install, has unlimited boards, multiple languages, easy customization, it supports RESTful API, and more.

TaskBoard works on almost any web host (only needs PHP w/SQLite pdo) and released under MIT license.

GitHub: https://github.com/kiswa/TaskBoard

6- Jira clone

Jira clone

Jira clone is a simple yet efficient project management tool that works for small and large teams.

Jira clone features a proven, scalable, and easy-to-understand project structure, A variety of custom lightweight UI components, a Custom webpack setup, without create-react-app or similar, API written in TypeScript and using TypeORM, and more.

Jira clone is a self-hosted web-based system built with React/Babel (Client), and Node/TypeScript (API). Auto formatted with Prettier tested with Cypress.

GitHub: https://github.com/oldboyxx/jira_clone

7- GitLab Kanban Board

GitLab Kanban Board

GitLab Kanban Board is a free and open-source self-hosted Kanban board for GitLab issues. It is easy to set up, you will get rid of synchronization problems.

GitLab Kanban Board helps you manage every aspect of your projects from a single place, manage every aspect of your projects from a single place, and more.

GitLab Kanban Board is written in JavaScript and Go language and licensed under MIT license.

GitHub: https://github.com/leanlabsio/kanban

8- KADOS

KADOS

KADOS  is a web-based tool for managing SCRUM projects and other Agile projects this software for teams to manage their projects through multiple dashboards.

It comes with the main feature is to provide many screens.  It allows teams to manage their projects through multiple dashboards on which they can pine-post it for User Stories, Tasks, Risks, Problems, Notes, Actions, and more.

KADOS has written in PHP.


source code: https://sourceforge.net/projects/kados/


9- Planka

Planka

Planka is a real-time kanban board for workgroups built with React and Redux. Planka released under MIT licensed.

Planka features create projects, boards, lists, cards, labels, tasks, add cardmembers, track time, set a due date, add attachments, write comments, filter by members and labels, it has real-time updates, user notifications, internationalization.


GitHub: https://github.com/plankanban/planka

10- Vue Kanban

Vue Kanban

Vue Kanban is a free open-source vue based drag and drops kanban board teams that use Scrum.

Vue-kanban is compatible with xstate state machines, it helps you to create projects, boards, lists, set task priority, Assign tasks to users, Drag from one list to another, and more.

Vue Kanban is written in Vue.js, and JavaScript and released under MIT license.

GitHub: https://github.com/ayazsayyed/vue-kanban

11- React-kanban

react-kanban

You probably have heard or used Trello. So if you are a fan of it and looking for an open-source similar to it then react-kanban is your answer.

React-kanban yet another Kanban/Trello board lib for React. It was released under MIT license and written in JavaScript language.

React-kanban is reliable, tested on CI, coverage, SemVer, accessible with keyboard,  and mobile-friendly, Pluggable; For use in projects. It also allows the user to add a new column directly by the board, and more.

Conclusion

If you have any other open-source Kanban tools that we didn't mention here, we would love to hear about them in the comments below.