Trello

Trello popularized Kanban-style project management with its drag-and-drop boards, but Atlassian's acquisition brought pricing changes — the free plan now limits boards and automation runs, while the Standard plan costs $6/user/month. For teams that just need visual task boards without enterprise features, open source alternatives deliver the same experience at zero per-seat cost.

WeKan is a direct Trello replacement — it provides boards, lists, cards, labels, due dates, checklists, and swimlanes with a familiar interface. It supports multiple boards per team, card comments, attachments, and activity tracking. Planka offers a cleaner, more modern UI inspired by Trello with real-time updates, card cover images, and a streamlined workflow. Focalboard (by Mattermost) adds multiple view types — board, table, gallery, and calendar — making it more flexible than Trello's board-only approach.

Self-hosting means unlimited boards, unlimited members, and no feature gates. Trello's free tier restricts workspace automation to 250 runs per month and limits Power-Up integrations. Self-hosted WeKan or Planka have no artificial limits — your only constraint is server resources.

The migration path is straightforward. Trello supports JSON export of boards, and most open source alternatives can import that data. WeKan has a built-in Trello importer. For teams already using Trello's basic features (boards, lists, cards), the switch involves minimal learning curve since the core interaction model is identical.