Self-hosted project management, honestly reviewed. No marketing spin, just what you get when you run it yourself.

TL;DR

What it is: Open-source (AGPL-3.0) Kanban board — a direct Trello replacement with self-hosting as a first-class option [README][homepage].
Who it’s for: Solo founders, small teams, and Trello users who want the same drag-and-drop simplicity without paying Atlassian prices or surrendering their data to a SaaS platform [homepage].
Cost savings: Trello Premium runs $10/user/month. A 5-person team pays $50/month. Kan self-hosted runs on a $5–10 VPS with no per-user fees at all [pricing][homepage].
Key strength: Clean, fast, minimal — multiple users explicitly compare it to “Trello before Atlassian ruined it.” The testimonials read like people who have been waiting for this specific tool [homepage testimonials].
Key weakness: Still early. Integrations are listed as “coming soon.” AGPL-3.0 license creates friction for anyone embedding it commercially. Feature depth doesn’t yet match Trello’s mature ecosystem [README].

What is Kan

Kan is a self-hosted Kanban board. You get boards, lists, cards, labels, comments, activity logs, and board visibility controls. The pitch is explicit: “The open source alternative to Trello” [homepage][README].

That’s not false modesty or aspirational marketing — it’s an accurate description of what it currently does. Kan is not trying to be Linear, Jira, or a hybrid project management suite. It is trying to be Trello: visual, drag-and-drop, minimal friction, works the way most people’s brains work for task tracking.

The project is built on a modern stack: Next.js, tRPC, Better Auth, Tailwind CSS, Drizzle ORM, and React Email [README]. That’s a cohesive TypeScript-first setup that anyone familiar with the modern JS ecosystem will recognize. Docker Compose is the primary self-hosting path, with a one-click Railway deploy for people who want managed infrastructure without Atlassian’s pricing [README].

As of this review, Kan sits at 4,545 GitHub stars under AGPL-3.0 [merged profile]. It’s not a massive project yet, but the testimonials on the homepage suggest real users with real opinions, not manufactured enthusiasm.

Why people choose it

The testimonials on the homepage tell the story better than any feature matrix. A few worth quoting directly:

JR Raphael, a tech journalist, spent a paragraph on it: “The interesting thing about signing into Kan for the first time is that it feels new and electrifying — and yet simultaneously quite familiar, especially if you’ve spent any time in Trello over the years. As someone who connected more with Trello’s original vision and mostly just tolerated the more recent pivots and additions, it’s a bit of a revelation to use” [homepage].

Fox, another user: “I’ve been looking at alternatives for months, but everything came up short. Some were direct clones, but lacked features I was dependent on. Others were rich in features, but strayed too far away from the simplicity of Trello. This seems like the best alternative to Trello for me” [homepage].

Bobby Compüters went shortest and most useful: “Holy crap I love this app. It’s brutally minimal but somehow has everything I need” [homepage].

The consistent thread is Trello nostalgia. Specifically, nostalgia for Trello circa 2016 — before Butler automation, before Atlassian acquisition overhead, before the dashboard clutter. Atlassian has pushed Trello toward enterprise feature parity with Jira, and in doing so has made it feel bloated to people who just want cards on a board. Kan is betting that audience is large enough to matter.

On the self-hosting angle: the appeal is straightforward. You run it on your own server, your project data stays in your own PostgreSQL instance, and you don’t depend on any external vendor staying solvent or keeping their pricing sane [README][homepage]. For founders managing competitive information, client projects, or anything sensitive, that’s a real argument — not just a theoretical one.

Third-party review coverage of Kan specifically is thin — the project is young enough that independent deep-dives haven’t proliferated yet. The honest assessment here is built from primary sources: the GitHub README, the official website, pricing page, and user testimonials.

Features

Based on the README and website [README][homepage]:

Core Kanban:

Drag-and-drop boards, lists, and cards
Board visibility controls (who can view/edit)
Labels and filters for card organization
Checklists on cards

Collaboration:

Workspace members and team invites
Comments on cards
Activity log tracking all card changes
Email notifications for mentions (Teams plan)

Onboarding:

Trello import — export your Trello boards as JSON, bring them into Kan directly [homepage][README]
Reusable board templates

Coming soon:

Integrations with external tools — listed on the homepage as “New / Coming soon” with no release date [homepage]

What’s not in the current build: no calendar view, no timeline/Gantt, no automations, no native time tracking, no public boards, no API documentation mentioned in the README. For people coming from Trello’s full feature set (including Butler), some of this will be felt immediately.

The Trello import is the most practically important feature for the target audience. If you have years of Trello boards, “can I bring my history with me” is the first question. Kan answers yes [homepage][README].

Pricing: SaaS vs self-hosted math

Kan Cloud (their managed SaaS):

Free: $0 — 1 user, unlimited boards, unlimited lists, unlimited cards, templates, checklists [pricing]
Teams: $8/user/month — adds workspace members, invite links, unlimited file uploads, email notifications, priority support [pricing]
Pro: $24/month (launch offer; normally listed at $79/month) — unlimited members, all Teams features [pricing]

The Free plan’s 1-user cap is meaningful. It’s a genuine solo-use tier, not a “free trial with artificial limits.” But it means any team collaboration requires upgrading immediately.

The Pro plan at $24/month unlimited is the interesting pricing decision. For a growing team, $24/month flat beats per-seat math quickly.

Trello for comparison:

Free: 10 boards, unlimited cards, 10MB file limit
Standard: $5/user/month — unlimited boards, custom fields, advanced checklists
Premium: $10/user/month — calendar, timeline, dashboard views, unlimited automation
Enterprise: custom

For a 5-person team:

Trello Premium: 5 × $10 = $50/month
Kan Teams: 5 × $8 = $40/month — modest saving, more significant if the team grows
Kan Pro: $24/month flat — less than half Trello Premium for any team above 3 people
Kan self-hosted: $6–10/month VPS — no per-user fees, full data ownership

Over a year for that 5-person team: Trello ≈ $600. Kan Pro ≈ $288. Kan self-hosted ≈ $100. The gap widens as headcount grows, because Trello scales per seat while Kan Pro and self-hosted don’t.

One caveat on the Pro pricing: the $24/month is flagged as a “launch offer” against a $79/month list price [pricing]. It’s worth checking current pricing before planning your budget around it.

Deployment reality check

The Docker Compose path in the README is straightforward and complete [README]. The provided docker-compose.yml covers three services: a migration runner, the Next.js web app, and PostgreSQL. Migrations run automatically before the web service starts, which eliminates one common self-hosting failure mode.

What you actually need:

A Linux VPS — 1GB RAM is probably sufficient for a small team; 2GB recommended
Docker and docker-compose
A domain and reverse proxy (Caddy or nginx) for HTTPS
PostgreSQL (bundled in the compose file)
Environment variables: POSTGRES_URL, POSTGRES_PASSWORD, BETTER_AUTH_SECRET, NEXT_PUBLIC_BASE_URL

The Railway path: Kan maintains an official Railway template with a one-click deploy button in the README [README]. If you don’t want to manage a VPS, Railway gives you managed infrastructure with a free tier. This is a sensible middle ground for non-technical founders — you get data portability without running a Linux server.

What can go sideways:

The docker-compose.yml in the README doesn’t include Redis, despite redis appearing in the merged feature profile. Whether Redis is required or optional for production isn’t clearly documented — worth checking the full repo’s compose file before deploying.
AGPL-3.0 has a specific implication for self-hosters who modify the code: you must publish your modifications under AGPL. If you’re running it internally without distributing it, this typically doesn’t matter. If you’re building a product on top of Kan and distributing that product, you’ll need to release your modifications or negotiate a commercial license. This is a real consideration that MIT-licensed alternatives don’t have.
No documented REST API means external integrations require building against the tRPC layer, which is not designed as a public API surface.

Realistic setup time for someone who has deployed a Docker app before: 20–45 minutes to a working instance. For a non-technical founder following a guide: 2–3 hours including domain and HTTPS setup. Railway drops that to closer to 10 minutes if you skip the VPS entirely.

Pros and cons

Pros

Cleanest Trello replacement available. Multiple independent users say the same thing: it captures what Trello felt like before Atlassian layered complexity onto it [homepage testimonials].
Trello import works. If you’re leaving Trello, your history can come with you [homepage][README].
Modern tech stack. Next.js, tRPC, Drizzle — not some legacy PHP project that’ll be painful to maintain. Forks and contributions are realistic for JS developers [README].
Flat-rate Pro pricing. $24/month unlimited members is a straightforward value proposition for any team above 3 people [pricing].
Railway one-click deploy. Legitimate path for non-technical founders who want self-hosted data ownership without managing Linux [README].
Active development. Integrations, roadmap visibility, and Discord community suggest this isn’t abandonware [homepage][README].

Cons

AGPL-3.0, not MIT. The copyleft license is more restrictive than it appears at first glance. Anyone building a commercial product on Kan needs to read the license carefully or negotiate separately. [README][merged profile]
No integrations yet. Listed as “coming soon” with no date. If you need Slack notifications, GitHub cards, or Zapier hooks, you’re waiting or building it yourself [homepage][README].
One user on Free tier. The free plan is genuinely solo-only. Any collaboration means paying immediately — no 2–3 person team trial [pricing].
Thin feature set compared to Trello Premium. No calendar view, no timeline, no automation rules, no power-ups. For teams that rely on Butler or Trello’s integration ecosystem, the feature gap is real today [README][homepage].
Limited third-party validation. The project is young enough that independent, critical reviews are scarce. The homepage testimonials are positive but they’re curated by the team. You’re making a bet on a project without deep independent coverage.
No documented public API. External tooling, scripts, or custom dashboards require working against tRPC internals, not a stable REST surface [README].
Pro pricing is “launch offer.” The $24/month may not hold — the listed regular price is $79/month, which changes the economics significantly [pricing].

Who should use this / who shouldn’t

Use Kan if:

You’re a solo founder or small team who used Trello before Atlassian made it complicated and want exactly that experience back.
You want your project data in your own PostgreSQL instance, on your own server, under your own control.
You’re comfortable with Docker Compose or willing to use Railway’s one-click deploy.
A team larger than 3 people makes the $24/month Pro flat rate compelling compared to per-seat alternatives.
You’re migrating from Trello and the import feature matters to you.

Skip it (stay on Trello) if:

Your team relies on Butler automations, Trello Power-Ups, or the broader integration ecosystem.
You need calendar or timeline views — they’re not in Kan yet.
You want mature third-party reviews and community before trusting a tool with real work.

Skip it (pick Plane instead) if:

You want an open-source Jira-style PM tool with sprints, cycles, modules, and a fuller feature set. Plane is further along the feature curve than Kan.
You need a documented REST API for external tooling.

Skip it (pick WeKan or Planka) if:

You want a Kanban board with a more permissive open-source license (MIT/AGPL comparison aside, WeKan is MIT).
You need something battle-tested with years of self-hosting documentation behind it.

Think carefully (AGPL consideration):

If you’re a developer planning to modify Kan and build a product on top of it, the AGPL-3.0 license means your modifications must also be AGPL. This may or may not matter depending on your use case, but it’s worth understanding before you start building.

Alternatives worth considering

Trello — the direct comparison. Bigger integration ecosystem, mature, fully hosted, per-seat pricing that compounds as teams grow. Atlassian’s focus has shifted toward enterprise, which is exactly why Kan exists.
Plane — open-source (AGPL) GitHub-hosted alternative that targets the Jira use case more than the Trello one. More features (sprints, cycles, analytics), more complexity, more mature codebase.
WeKan — one of the older open-source Kanban boards, MIT licensed, built on Meteor. Less polished UI than Kan but more feature-complete for self-hosters with experience.
Planka — another MIT-licensed Trello alternative, Elixir-based, minimal, fast. Narrower feature set than Kan currently but more established in the r/selfhosted community.
Focalboard (Mattermost) — open-source project management from Mattermost, integrates with the Mattermost messaging platform. Apache 2.0 licensed, good if you’re already in the Mattermost ecosystem.
Linear — not open source, not self-hostable, but the best-designed project management tool currently available for software teams. If data sovereignty isn’t a requirement and you can stomach the SaaS cost, it’s the honest recommendation for developer teams.
Notion — worth mentioning because Trello refugees often land here. Databases-as-boards is a different mental model. More powerful for documentation alongside task tracking, significantly more complex.

For a non-technical founder leaving Trello and wanting something simple: the realistic shortlist is Kan vs WeKan vs Planka. Kan wins on UI and modern stack; WeKan and Planka win on license and maturity.

Bottom line

Kan is a young project that knows exactly what it is: the Trello people remember, before the enterprise feature bloat, running on your own server. The testimonials are unusually consistent — not “this is a good tool” generic praise, but “this is specifically what I’ve been waiting for” specificity. That’s a real signal.

The trade-offs are equally clear: integrations aren’t here yet, the AGPL license complicates commercial use cases, the Pro launch pricing may not hold, and the third-party review coverage is thin. For a team that just needs boards, cards, and comments — and wants out of Atlassian’s per-seat pricing without a complex setup — Kan is worth serious consideration now. For anyone who needs integrations, automations, or a public API, it’s worth bookmarking and revisiting in 12 months.

If the self-hosting setup is the blocker, that’s exactly what upready.dev deploys for clients — one-time setup, your infrastructure, done.