Focalboard is an open source, self-hosted project management and Kanban tool originally built by Mattermost as a standalone alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana. It supports multiple views — board, table, calendar, gallery, and goals — so you can organize work the way that suits each project. Important caveat: the project was discontinued by Mattermost in early 2024 and is now seeking community maintainers, so treat it as mature but not actively developed.

Key Features

• Multiple views — Kanban board, table, calendar, gallery, and goal views for flexible project tracking.
• Self-hosted — Runs on your own server; available as a standalone app or desktop client.
• Alternative to Trello / Notion / Asana — Give work structure without paying a subscription or handing over data.
• Multilingual — Localized interface for teams worldwide.
• Rich cards — Checklists, properties, dates, and comments keep context together.
• Integrations — Webhooks and API support for automation.

Why Use Focalboard?

If you like the look and flow of Trello or Notion but want full control over where your data lives, Focalboard is a solid choice. The multi-view model is genuinely useful for larger projects. Just be aware that development has effectively paused — for teams that need active support and new features, WeKan or Kanboard may be safer long-term bets.

Use Cases

• Solo getting-things-done boards with calendar view
• Small-team sprint planning on a self-hosted server
• Replacing a paid Trello workspace without recurring cost

Platform

Web-based · Desktop (Linux, macOS, Windows) · Docker

Licence

Open source. AGPLv3 (with MIT for compiled builds and Apache 2.0 for admin tools). Note: repository unmaintained since 2024 and seeking community maintainers.

Open source alternatives

• WeKan — actively maintained open source Kanban
• Kanboard — lightweight, actively maintained Kanban

Website

focalboard.com