Here is the question you are actually trying to answer when you go looking for a self-hosted project management tool:
What happens to this board when the vendor makes a different decision next year?
One of the options this guide weighs answers that question by changing who owns the software: Taskline is a self-hosted team task manager — board, list and calendar views over one task set — sold once as source code you own and run. The rest of the field is rented or open-source, and each model answers the vendor-decision question differently; this guide covers all of them honestly.
Not a hypothetical. Atlassian relaunched Trello in May 2025 around individual to-dos — their own announcement blog led with "be your most productive self" and personal capture, not team project management. Trello still sells team plans; the repositioning is a fact on record (source: atlassian.com/blog/announcements/new-trello-is-here, May 22 2025). Asana's free Personal plan now caps collaboration at two users — that is Asana's own pricing page today, asana.com/pricing. Both products exist; both still work for teams. But both moved, and both moved in a direction that reminded teams they did not own the decision.
If you are reading a buyer's guide for self-hosted project management, you already have your answer to that question. The rest of what you need is which option is honest about what it costs and what it cannot do.
This guide covers every live option in 2026: rented tools (including the cases where staying rented is right), the open-source self-hosted cohort (five distinct products), and one commercial own-the-code option. Each gets an honest-limit line. A guide where every option points you at one product is an advertisement, not a guide.
How this market is shaped — before you look at names
The real question before "which tool" is "which model." The model determines your exposure to the vendor's next decision.
Rented per-seat SaaS. You access the service; the vendor owns the data and the pricing decision. Free tiers are a customer-acquisition cost and will be repriced when the math changes. You pay per seat, per month, for as long as you use the tool.
Open-source self-hosted. You run the code on your own infrastructure. Zero license cost in most cases. You own the data, the uptime decision, and the maintenance obligation. The license type — AGPL, GPL, MIT, MPL — determines what you can do with modifications.
Commercial own-the-code. You purchase the software under a commercial license you own. You host it, you can modify it, you keep changes private. One-time purchase; no seat fees after that. You carry hosting and maintenance costs in place of a recurring subscription.
Your decision is not "which tool has the best Kanban." It is "which model matches the exposure you want to carry."
Open-source self-hosted: the live cohort
These are the products actively maintained and available for self-hosting as of August 2026, evaluated from most capable to most narrow. Read past the name to the license — for a buyer who plans to modify the code, the license is the decision.
Plane Community Edition
License: AGPL v3.0 · Self-host cost: $0, no stated user limit (per Plane's editions documentation at developers.plane.so/self-hosting/editions-and-versions) · Cloud Pro if you'd rather not self-host: $6/seat/month, as of 2026-08-07, plane.so/pricing
Plane is the most direct functional match to what this category is searching for: boards, list, and calendar over one task set, self-hostable, rich work items, comments, mentions. A funded company (Plane) stands behind it, which means a funded roadmap, a Cloud tier, and Enterprise tiers — and also means the Community Edition's feature set is a deliberate line, not the whole product.
Honest limit: Plane CE is AGPL v3.0. If your organization modifies Plane's source code and exposes the modified version over a network — which is what an agency or internal platform team does when it builds something their users access via a browser — AGPL requires you to make those source modifications available to the users of that modified service. That is not a theoretical concern; it is the license and it reads plainly. If you will not modify the code, or you can accept the copyleft terms, Plane CE is free, capable, and has the largest community of this cohort. If you need modifications to stay private, AGPL is a substantive reason to look elsewhere.
When Plane CE wins: Your team can self-host, you will not modify the codebase (or can accept AGPL copyleft if you do), you want zero license cost and the widest community.
OpenProject Community Edition
License: GPLv3 · Self-host cost: $0 · Enterprise on-prem or cloud: €5.95–€15.95/user/month, minimum 25 users, as of 2026-08-07, openproject.org/pricing
OpenProject is enterprise-grade, mature, and maintained by OpenProject GmbH. Its feature depth goes beyond board-first team PM: Gantt charts, critical path analysis, work packages, time tracking, budget tracking, agile sprints. It is the classical project management tool in this cohort.
Honest limit: OpenProject is almost certainly more tool than a team that wants a board where they move tasks around. Its interface reflects its depth. A team managing projects with dependencies, resource allocation, and formal scheduling will find it well-matched. A team wanting a fast board view of who is doing what this week will be fighting the structure.
When OpenProject wins: Your team needs Gantt, critical path, time tracking, or formal work-package management — not board-first team PM.
Vikunja
License: AGPLv3 · Self-host cost: $0 — "Vikunja is and always will be Open-Source and freely available" (vikunja.io) · Hosted tiers: €4/month (Personal) to €5/user/month (Organization), as of 2026-08-07, vikunja.io/pricing
Vikunja (v2.x, releases active through 2026) is clean, lightweight, and well-maintained. Tasks, projects, teams, due dates, labels, assignees — a complete personal-to-small-team task manager with Kanban, list, and Gantt views per project.
Honest limit: Vikunja is calibrated for solo use and small teams, and its roadmap reflects that. Workspace-level search across all projects, cross-project dashboards, and the guest-collaborator model (scoping an outside collaborator to one project) are not its shape. Also AGPLv3, so the same copyleft consideration applies if you plan to modify and host. If you are evaluating this for a 20+ person team, Plane CE is a better fit.
When Vikunja wins: A solo developer or a 2–4 person team that wants the lightest possible self-hosted task manager with no overhead.
Wekan
License: MIT · Self-host cost: $0 · Commercial support: pricing not verified in this research pass
Wekan is the oldest actively maintained kanban-board-focused self-hosted option in this space, with releases into 2026. MIT license — the most permissive of this cohort; modifications are yours to keep private, no conditions.
Honest limit: Wekan is a Kanban board. It does not have a "same tasks as a board, a list, and a calendar" story. If your team needs to switch between views over the same task set, Wekan is not that product. It is a well-maintained pure Kanban board, and that is its lane.
When Wekan wins: Your team wants exactly one thing — a Kanban board, self-hosted, MIT license, no subscription, no restrictions on modifications. Wekan delivers that and nothing else.
Taiga
License: MPL 2.0 · Self-host cost: $0 · Hosted tier: pricing not verified in this research pass
Taiga is a mature self-hosted project management platform oriented around agile methodology: sprints, backlogs, user stories, velocity, burndown charts. MPL 2.0 is file-level copyleft — less restrictive than AGPL/GPL; modifications to MPL files must be shared, but proprietary code can be combined with MPL code.
Honest limit: Taiga is a Scrum ceremony tool, not a general team task manager. If your team does not run sprints — if you are not doing backlog grooming and reviewing velocity — Taiga is the wrong shape. A team wanting to move cards around a board will fight Taiga's structure from day one.
When Taiga wins: Your team runs Scrum. You want sprints, backlogs, user stories, and burndown built in, all self-hosted.
Focalboard — status: not maintained
As of this writing, Focalboard is not an active project.
Effective 2023-09-15, Mattermost stopped bundling the Focalboard plugin and transferred it to fully community-supported status. Mattermost staff stopped reviewing or merging pull requests for Focalboard and Mattermost Boards on that date. The standalone repository carries an open "Call for Maintainers" issue (github.com/mattermost-community/focalboard, issue #5038, as of this writing). It is not currently maintained.
Focalboard still appears in listicles and forum recommendations written before that date. It still runs for teams who installed it years ago. But if you are evaluating it as a new install in 2026, you are choosing an unmaintained project — no security patches, no active development.
If a forum thread or a search result sent you here looking for a Focalboard replacement, the active alternatives depending on your use case are Plane CE (fullest team PM, AGPL), Wekan (Kanban-only, MIT), or Vikunja (lightweight, AGPLv3).
Rented tools: when staying rented is right
A self-hosted buyer's guide that never honestly names the cases where rented tools are the better call is an advertisement. Here is the honest case for each.
Asana ($10.99–$24.99/user/month annual, as of 2026-08-07, asana.com/pricing) does things no self-hosted option in this list matches: timeline/Gantt views with dependency management, portfolio and workload management, goals and reporting across projects. Its free Personal plan covers up to two users. A two-person team that genuinely needs Asana's depth pays nothing. If your team needs Gantt and portfolio views and cannot accept per-seat fees at scale, OpenProject is the closest self-hosted match — but it is a different product, not a drop-in substitute.
Trello ($5–$17.50/user/month annual, as of 2026-08-07, trello.com/pricing) remains a capable Kanban tool. Its May 2025 relaunch repositioned it around individual to-dos — Atlassian's own announcement led with personal productivity — but team boards exist and the free tier covers up to 10 collaborators per Workspace. A 10-person team on Trello Free that genuinely needs nothing more should stay there. What Trello does that no self-hosted option matches: a mature Power-Up/integration ecosystem and polished native mobile apps.
ClickUp ($7–$12/user/month annual, as of 2026-08-07, clickup.com/pricing) is the broadest tool in this space — docs, goals, time tracking, automations, whiteboards, AI features. Its Free Forever tier allows unlimited members with storage and automation limits. If your team genuinely uses that breadth, ClickUp's case is its depth of adjacent features. Taskline is not that product; it does one job completely rather than many jobs adequately.
Jira Cloud (estimated $7.53–$13.53/user/month average at standard tiers, annual billing, as of 2026-08-07, atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing — Atlassian publishes these as estimated averages that tier down as seat count rises; the true bill comes from their pricing calculator) has a free tier for up to 10 users. At exactly 10 people, Jira Free is $0 for your team. That is a real fact and this guide will not obscure it. Jira is built for software development teams with process weight — issue types, workflows, sprints, Git integration. It is not general team PM.
Linear (annual rates $10–$16/user/month, as of 2026-08-07, linear.app/pricing) is included here as a boundary marker, not a competitor. Linear is purpose-built for software issue tracking — cycles, triage queues, and deep Git integration. Taskline is general team project management. If your team is a software engineering org that wants issue tracking with GitHub/GitLab wired in, Linear is what you want. Taskline is not that tool.
When to stay rented: your team is at or under 10 people and genuinely covered by a free tier (Jira Free, Trello Free) with no ceiling problems; you need Asana's Gantt and portfolio depth that the self-hosted cohort does not match; you want Atlassian's or ClickUp's integration ecosystem; you have no one available to own a self-hosted stack.
When the math changes: at 11 seats and above, every paid tier is a recurring line item that compounds. A 25-person team on Asana Starter pays $10.99 × 25 × 12 — $3,297 every year, from Asana's own pricing page. That number is the honest context for evaluating a one-time purchase or a self-hosted FOSS option.
Commercial own-the-code: Taskline
Taskline belongs on this list because there is a buyer it serves — not because it wrote the list. Its cons appear below alongside its case.
What it is: board, list, and calendar views over the same task set — switch the view, not the data. Rich tasks with assignees, labels, due dates, comments, and mentions. Workspace search, a dashboard, project setup templates, and guest collaborators scoped to a single project. The core is not gated — every plan including free carries the full task management layer.
What it is not: not a Gantt tool, not a Scrum tool, not a single-binary drop-in. Taskline runs on Next.js and Supabase — it requires a Postgres/Supabase instance and a Node host. A buyer who wants a single docker run and no ongoing stack awareness should look at Wekan (kanban-only) or Vikunja (lightweight). A buyer comfortable with a Next.js web application — or who has a developer who is — has a stack they can read, modify, and extend.
Plan-gated, not absent: board automations, CSV task import, and Connect API access are available on paid plans. They are deliberate plan boundaries in the shipped product, not missing features. The free tier is a complete task management tool; those three capabilities unlock with a plan upgrade.
License: commercial. You purchase it once under a license you own. No AGPL copyleft obligation on modifications. No per-seat fees after purchase. Modifications stay private. Price: $199 once, plus your own hosting costs.
Try it before deciding: https://taskline.saascode.ai
Purchase and own it: https://saascode.ai/products/taskline
How to choose: by what you actually need
| You need | Right fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Solo or 2–3 person team, lightest option | Vikunja | AGPLv3, free self-host, minimal setup |
| Up to 10 people, cost is $0, no ceiling problems | Jira Free or Trello Free | They are literally free at your size — no argument |
| Pure Kanban board, MIT license, no other requirements | Wekan | The best maintained MIT kanban board available |
| Scrum: sprints, backlogs, burndown baked in | Taiga | Built for exactly this |
| Gantt, critical path, time tracking, work packages | OpenProject | The self-hosted classical PM option; or Asana/Jira if you prefer managed |
| Board + list + calendar, AGPL acceptable, zero license cost | Plane CE | Most capable free self-hosted PM tool; read the AGPL terms before you modify |
| Board + list + calendar, commercial license, modifications stay private | Taskline | $199 once; no AGPL; Next.js + Supabase stack |
| 11–50+ person team paying Asana per seat | Compare Plane CE vs Taskline | Both eliminate seat fees; difference is AGPL vs commercial license |
| Software engineering team, issue tracking, Git integration | Linear | Not Taskline — different tool, different buyer |
| Integration ecosystem (Atlassian, Zapier, 200+ apps) | Jira / Trello / ClickUp paid tiers | No self-hosted option replicates that ecosystem |
| Team found Focalboard recommended somewhere | Plane CE or Wekan | Focalboard is unmaintained since 2023-09-15 |
The honest verdict
Each option earns a lane. None earns all of them.
Plane CE is the right call for teams that can accept AGPL, want zero license cost, and want the largest self-hosted PM community. If you are choosing between Plane CE and Taskline, the decision is a single question: can your use case live with AGPL? If you will not modify the code, or your lawyer is comfortable with the copyleft terms, Plane CE is a sound, free, capable choice. Say so to the person asking — honest copy does not pretend otherwise.
OpenProject is the right call for classical project management: Gantt, critical path, time tracking. If you need those and want self-hosted, this is your answer.
Vikunja is the right call for solo use and small teams. Light, maintained, free.
Wekan is the right call if you want exactly a Kanban board under MIT license — no more, no less.
Taiga is the right call for teams that run Scrum and want the ceremony built in.
Rented tools are the right call at 10 seats and under when a free tier genuinely covers you, or when you need depth (Gantt, portfolio, integrations) that the self-hosted cohort does not match.
Taskline is the right call for a team that wants board+list+calendar in one view, a commercial license with no copyleft exposure, a stack a web developer can extend, and a flat price that stops compounding at the moment of purchase. It is not the right call if you need Gantt, Scrum ceremony, a single-binary deploy, or a team under 10 where Jira Free or Trello Free covers you at $0.
Try it at https://taskline.saascode.ai. Own it at https://saascode.ai/products/taskline for $199.
FAQ
Is Focalboard still maintained? No. Mattermost stopped supporting Focalboard effective 2023-09-15, transferring it to fully community-supported status. Mattermost staff stopped reviewing or merging pull requests for Focalboard and Mattermost Boards on that date. As of this writing the standalone repository is not actively maintained and carries an open call for maintainers (github.com/mattermost-community/focalboard, issue #5038). Focalboard still appears in older forum threads and listicles, but it is not a live choice for a new install in 2026.
What should I use instead of Focalboard? It depends on what you used Focalboard for. If you want a Kanban board under the most permissive license (MIT), use Wekan — actively maintained with releases into 2026. If you want a fuller self-hosted team PM tool (board, list, calendar, rich tasks), Plane CE is the most capable free option (AGPL v3.0 — read the license if you plan to modify it). If your team is small and you want the lightest option, Vikunja (AGPLv3) is well-maintained and clean.
Which open-source project management tools are actually still active in 2026? As of 2026-08-07: Plane (active, funded company), OpenProject (active, maintained by OpenProject GmbH), Vikunja (v2.x, releases through 2026), Wekan (releases through 2026, MIT license), and Taiga (MPL 2.0, self-hosted maintained). Focalboard is not maintained — Mattermost transferred it to community support on 2023-09-15 and the repository carries an open call for maintainers.
Is Plane free for commercial use — and what is the catch? Plane Community Edition is free to self-host with no stated user limit, per Plane's own editions documentation at developers.plane.so. The catch is the license: AGPL v3.0. If your organization modifies Plane's source code and exposes the modified version over a network — for example, building an internal platform that your team accesses via a browser — AGPL requires you to make those source modifications available to the users of that modified service. If you will not modify the code, or your legal team is comfortable with the copyleft terms, Plane CE is a legitimate, capable, free option. If you need modifications to remain private, you would need Plane's Commercial self-hosted edition (which includes 12 seats at no charge, then a license key for additional users) or a product under a different license.
Plane vs OpenProject vs Vikunja — which one for a 20-person team? For a 20-person team doing general team project management — boards, task assignments, due dates, tracking: Plane CE is the closest match. Board, list, and calendar over one task set, no stated user limit on the Community Edition, free, and the most actively developed community. OpenProject is the right choice only if your team needs Gantt charts, critical path, time tracking, or formal work-package management — it is a classical PM tool, not board-first. Vikunja is calibrated for solo to small-team use and is not designed for a 20-person team's coordination layer. All three carry AGPL or GPL licenses; read the terms before you modify and self-host.
What does AGPL mean if my company modifies a self-hosted tool? AGPL v3 (Affero GPL) extends GPL copyleft to network use. Under standard GPL, you must share source code if you distribute the software. AGPL closes the so-called ASP loophole: if you modify AGPL software and allow users to interact with it over a network (a browser-based tool your team accesses, for example), you must make the modified source code available to those users on request. For an internal tool used only within your own organization, some legal readings argue the obligation may not trigger — but this depends on jurisdiction and the specifics of your deployment, and it is a question for a lawyer, not a vendor blog. For a team building a client-facing or resale product on modified AGPL code, the obligation is clear and substantive. When in doubt: choose a more permissive license (MIT for Wekan, MPL for Taiga) or a commercial license that explicitly permits private modifications.
How many people can use Asana for free? Asana's free Personal plan allows up to two users to collaborate, as stated on Asana's own pricing page (asana.com/pricing) and plan page (asana.com/plan/personal) as of 2026-08-07. A new workspace on Asana's free tier is effectively a two-person tool.
Is Jira free for a team of 10? Yes. Jira Cloud's Free plan covers up to 10 users at $0, per Atlassian's own plan documentation (atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing and the Explore Jira Cloud plans support page, as of 2026-08-07). At exactly 10 people, Jira Free is a legitimate, free option — this guide is not going to pretend otherwise. The argument for a self-hosted or own-the-code alternative becomes real at 11+ seats, when per-seat fees begin and compound annually.
Which self-hosted project management tools are not copyleft? Among the actively maintained self-hosted options in 2026: Wekan is MIT licensed (most permissive — no conditions on modifications); Taiga is MPL 2.0 (file-level copyleft, less restrictive than AGPL); Taskline is a commercial license (modifications stay private, one-time purchase). Plane, Vikunja, and OpenProject carry AGPL or GPL licenses, which impose copyleft conditions on distribution and network use of modifications.