Kanera questions
Answered

Kanera is a board-led work management tool. Each project gets a familiar board, and Home, Global Work, Up next, and Work Done show what is happening across all of them, so nobody has to open six boards to find out what is due.

Free covers up to 4 organisation members, 3 active boards, and 3 active automations. Pro is $5 per user per month, or $49 per user per year with annual billing, and removes those limits.

Every new workspace starts with a 30-day Pro trial, and no card is required.

Yes. Kanera does not run AI agents or ship a chatbot of its own. Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Copilot, Cursor, and other MCP clients connect with scoped OAuth, and the CLI and TypeScript SDK cover agents that live in a terminal or your own code.

Every change an agent makes through an OAuth connection is labelled with its name, and the card shows a live chip while it works. Agent access works on every plan, Free included, with no AI add-on or per-agent fee.

Both. The official Kanera CLI is published on npm as @kanera/cli: install it with npm install --global @kanera/cli, or try it with npx @kanera/cli commands. It exposes every MCP tool as a shell command, so any terminal or coding agent can use Kanera without MCP configuration.

Kanera also runs a native MCP server at https://mcp.kanera.app/mcp, publishes a TypeScript SDK as @kanera/sdk, ships a Kanera plugin for ChatGPT and supported Codex surfaces, and publishes a Kanera Agent Skill for Claude Code, Codex, and other agents. Running kanera setup claude installs the skill for Claude Code.

Yes. Kanera runs from one Docker Compose file on your own server, with the same features as hosted Pro and no Kanera licence fee. The source is available under Elastic License 2.0.

You take on updates, backups, mail, and monitoring. If nobody on the team can own that, hosted Pro is the better fit.

Trello boards import directly, and you review every list, label, member, and field mapping before anything is created. Other tools can come in through CSV import.

For a larger move, tell us what you use today and we will help plan the migration.

Yes. Use Blocked by, Blocks, or Relates to between cards in the same workspace, including across boards. Blocked chips and filters show waiting work, and assignees and watchers hear when the last active blocker clears. The Dependencies view adds Map, Timeline, and Steps, critical-path highlighting, and direct link editing with undo/redo. Agents can read whole chains through MCP, the CLI, SDK, and API.

Yes. Time in progress automatically counts the working hours a card spends in lists marked In progress. Admins can correct the total, and Table can sum, average, and export it.

This tracks card workflow time, not individual work sessions. Use numeric custom fields when you need separate estimates or billable-hour records; personal stopwatches and timesheets are not included.

Kanera automatically tracks the working hours a card spends in In progress lists, and admins can correct the total. If you need capacity planning, per-person timers and timesheets, or SAML or OIDC single sign-on, Kanera does not offer those today. The Who it is for page lists every case where another tool will serve you better.

Kanera offers 11 language options: English (US), English (UK), Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian Bokmål, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese. All are included in Free, Pro, and self-hosted Kanera.

Choose a language on the sign-in page or under Profile settings → Language. Your choice follows your account across devices and applies to the interface, emails, notifications, dates, and numbers. Each teammate can use their own language.

Yes. Timeline draws Gantt bars from planned start to due date on boards, My Cards, and Team Cards. On desktop, drag or resize bars and draw blocking links; on touch devices, open a card to change its dates. Inspect working-day slack, critical paths, and scheduling conflicts across accessible boards. The separate Timeline layout in Dependencies compares chains in due-week columns.

Timeline is included on Free, Pro, and self-hosted Kanera. It supports delivery planning without a separate charting tool. It does not balance staff capacity or automatically reschedule dependent cards.

No. Every new workspace starts with a 30-day Pro trial without requiring a card.

When your 30-day Pro trial ends, you can upgrade to Pro or continue on the Free plan.

If your workspace is within the Free plan limits, you can keep using it for free. If you are over the Free plan limits, the newest boards, automations, and members beyond them are archived or paused until you upgrade. Your work is never deleted.

Free includes unlimited workspaces, up to 4 organisation members, 3 active boards across the organisation, 3 active automations, and 100 automation executions per month.

Free also includes all views, custom fields, colours, 250 MiB shared attachment storage, in-app notifications, email, browser push, per-workspace notification rules, documentation, and self-serve guides.

Free also lets everyone connect their own AI agents (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other MCP clients), use the CLI, and create personal API keys, with fair-use limits. It does not include board guests, webhooks, workspace API keys, or unattended agents.

Pro includes unlimited workspaces and boards, as many paid member seats as your team needs, and full use of automations with no monthly execution cap.

Single-board guests are free. A guest who collaborates across multiple boards counts as one paid seat.

Pro also includes 200 GiB shared attachment storage, higher AI agent and API limits, workspace API keys, unattended agents, custom webhooks, chat destinations, priority email support typically within one business day, and guided rollout and setup planning on request.

Pro costs $5 per user per month, billed monthly.

On annual billing, Pro is $49 per user per year, an 18% saving versus paying monthly.

Free, Pro, and Self-hosted all allow unlimited workspaces. Free includes 3 active automations and 100 executions per month. Pro and Self-hosted include full use of automations with no monthly execution cap.

Yes. Pro includes board guests, so you can invite external collaborators to specific boards without giving them access to your organisation or an entire workspace.

Single-board guests are free. A guest who collaborates across multiple boards counts as one paid seat.

There is no Kanera licence or per-seat fee for self-hosting. You still pay for hosting, storage, maintenance, backups, email delivery, and the time needed to operate the deployment.

Kanera is source-available under Elastic License 2.0. You can inspect, modify, and self-host it for your own use, but cannot provide it to third parties as a hosted or managed service.

Yes. Every plan can use the REST API with a personal API key, which acts as you. Workspace API keys for unattended integrations, and higher rate limits, come with Pro and Self-hosted.

Yes, on every plan. Anyone can connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or another MCP client to Kanera's MCP server and let it read and update their boards. Pro adds higher limits and unattended service agents.

An active organisation member counts as one paid seat. Single-board guests are free. A guest who collaborates across multiple boards counts as one paid seat.

Your workspace can continue on the Free plan if it fits within the Free limits.

If your workspace exceeds those limits, boards beyond the newest three are archived, extra automations are turned off, and the newest members over the cap are suspended. Your work is not deleted, and upgrading restores it.

Pro-only integrations stop rather than disappear: workspace API keys are revoked, and webhooks and chat destinations are paused. Their configuration, event choices, and delivery history stay in place, and upgrading again restores what the downgrade switched off.

Workspace API keys, unattended AI agents, custom webhooks, chat destinations for Slack, Discord, Telegram, and Zulip, and personal notification delivery to ntfy, Gotify, or your own webhook need Pro, a Pro trial, or self-hosted Kanera.

Free keeps AI agent connections, MCP, the CLI, personal API keys, the in-app notification drawer, email, browser push, per-workspace notification rules, and watching.

Yes. You can pay $5 per user per month, or choose annual billing at $49 per user per year.

No. There are no setup fees.

Choose Free if you are getting started, working with a small team, or only need a few boards.

Choose Pro if Kanera is becoming part of your team's daily workflow and you want Kanera to operate it. Choose Self-hosted when deployment control justifies the infrastructure and operations work.

Install the Kanera plugin in ChatGPT or supported Codex surfaces, then connect through OAuth. Other MCP-compatible clients can use the hosted server directly. Kanera publishes setup guides for Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, OpenCode, and Gemini CLI, and the hosted MCP endpoint works with anything else that speaks the protocol.

Agents that can only run shell commands do not need MCP at all. They can use the Kanera CLI, which exposes every MCP tool as a command.

Yes. The official kanera command-line interface is published on npm as @kanera/cli and needs Node 22 or newer. Install it with npm install --global @kanera/cli, or run npx @kanera/cli commands without installing.

It exposes the same tool layer as the MCP server, prints a machine-readable command catalog, and uses exit codes that tell an agent whether a write was refused or failed. Running kanera setup claude installs the Kanera Agent Skill for Claude Code.

No. In ChatGPT, install the Kanera plugin and connect your account through a browser consent screen. Claude and Copilot also connect through OAuth.

The CLI and SDK are there for the cases where you do want to build something, and the API reference documents every endpoint if you would rather work directly against HTTP.

No. Kanera is built to be reached by the assistant you already use instead: an MCP server, a CLI, a TypeScript SDK, a REST API, and a published Agent Skill.

So you use the assistant you are already fluent in, your colleague uses theirs, and when a better one arrives you point it at the same address and carry on.

Use browser-based OAuth for a personal assistant when the client supports it. Use device authorization for a CLI or SSH session that cannot open a browser redirect. Use an unattended service connection for CI, cron, or server-side automation, and an API key for local clients or those that only accept a static credential.

Exactly what the credential can see, and nothing more. A personal connection follows your current board access across workspaces, standalone boards, and guest boards, including your private personal notes.

An unattended service connection stays scoped to the single workspace or standalone board where it was created.

Yes. Create the personal API key as Read-only. That credential can list, read, search, and report, and Kanera refuses every write with a 403 at the API.

This matters because the refusal does not depend on the AI client honouring its own tool permissions. A confused or prompt-injected agent still cannot change a card, because the server will not let it.

Changes made through the API, MCP, or the CLI are recorded in card history like any other change, so you can see what happened and when.

For anything broad or sensitive, ask the agent to show a plan first, and give it a read-only credential until you trust it.

Yes. Connecting your own AI agent over MCP or the CLI, and personal API keys, work on every plan. Free boards have fair-use limits on how fast agents can work; Pro boards allow more.

Unattended service agents and workspace API keys need Pro, the 30-day Pro trial, or self-hosted Kanera, which has no plan checks at all. If a hosted organisation moves to Free, Kanera revokes its workspace API keys rather than deleting them; personal keys and interactive agent connections keep working. Upgrading again restores what was switched off.

Not by Kanera. Kanera never sends your work to a model provider, because Kanera does not call one.

When you connect an agent, your data goes wherever that agent sends it, under that vendor's terms. That is your choice to make and your relationship to manage, which is the point of keeping AI out of the product.

Yes. Self-hosted Kanera exposes its own MCP address, its own API, and works with the same CLI and SDK. Point them at your deployment and no request leaves your network except the ones your agent makes to its own model provider.

Any client that speaks MCP over HTTP: Claude (web, desktop, and Claude Code), ChatGPT and Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot in VS Code, Gemini CLI, OpenCode, and others. This generator covers the ones Kanera documents step by step.

Not for the hosted server. The client opens Kanera in your browser and you approve the agent, the same way you would connect any other app. Use an API key for headless environments or the local stdio server.

Yes. Use a read-only personal API key or a Read service connection. Interactive OAuth is write-capable within your Kanera roles; restrict write actions through your AI client’s approvals. A read-only credential cannot call any tool that writes.

Yes. Free includes the MCP server, the CLI, and personal API keys, with fair-use limits. Pro raises those limits and adds workspace API keys and unattended agents. Self-hosting includes everything.

No. Developers can use the API docs when they need endpoint-level details.

You can build custom workflows, reporting tools, sync jobs, internal apps, migration scripts, and integrations that create or update Kanera boards, cards, comments, checklists, notes, attachments, custom fields, labels, and assignments, and that read card activity.

Webhooks let external systems react when work changes in Kanera. You can use them to sync data, send notifications, update dashboards, trigger automations, or keep another tool aligned with Kanera.

Yes, and it is built in. A workspace admin adds a chat destination for Slack, Discord, Telegram, or Zulip, pastes the connection that tool generates, and chooses which card events to post: card created, status changed, priority changed, title changed, description changed, or comment created.

Each destination can be tested, paused, reconnected, and reviewed through its delivery history, and Kanera formats every message natively for that platform. Chat destinations are included in Pro, a Pro trial, and self-hosted Kanera.

Workspace API keys, custom webhooks, chat destinations, and personal ntfy, Gotify, and webhook notification delivery are included in Pro, in the 30-day Pro trial, and in self-hosted Kanera, which has no plan checks at all.

On hosted Free they cannot be set up, and a downgrade revokes workspace API keys, pauses existing webhooks and chat destinations, and switches personal destinations off rather than deleting any of them. Upgrading again restores what was switched off.

AI agent connections, MCP, the CLI, personal API keys, the in-app notification drawer, email, browser push, and per-workspace notification rules are available on every plan.

Yes, through integrations you build against the API and webhooks. You control how objects map, which events sync, and how conflicts and updates are handled.

Yes. Each person can send their own Kanera notifications to an ntfy topic, a self-hosted Gotify server, or their own HTTPS endpoint as signed JSON, with separate notification type preferences per destination.

These personal channels are included in Pro, a Pro trial, and self-hosted Kanera, and self-hosted operators can allow receivers on their internal network.

Yes. Changes made by integrations are attributed in Kanera's activity history, so teams can see what changed and where the update came from.

Yes. Kanera lets you choose which events each webhook destination receives, review delivery history, retry failures, pause destinations, and rotate secrets.

No. The API, webhooks, and MCP server are designed for custom workflows that connect Kanera to your team's own tools, systems, and processes.

Three import routes ship in the product: Trello board JSON, general CSV, and Kanera board JSON. Each runs a reviewable mapping flow from Workspace settings, under Import.

Trello has the richest source-specific path, including attachment links and optional file copying. CSV works with Jira, Asana, spreadsheets, and other exports when the data fits rows and columns.

Yes, in either direction. Export the board to JSON from its toolbar, then import that archive from Workspace settings on the destination install.

The archive carries lists, labels, custom fields and their options, cards, assignees, checklists and their items, comments, reactions, watchers, and attachments.

No. Kanera reads an export file you supply. It never writes back to the source, and the original board is left exactly as it was.

An import is a one-time copy rather than a live sync, so changes made in the source system afterwards are not reflected in Kanera.

A standard Trello board can usually be prepared and reviewed in under 30 minutes. The import itself depends on card volume, history, and whether attachments are being copied.

For a wider move, plan around one representative board first. Confirm the structure, the field mapping, and permissions before the rest follows.

Yes, and for a first evaluation it is the safest order. Import one representative project, run it in parallel, and keep the current tool in place until the team has judged the result on real work.

From any board, use Export in the board toolbar. JSON produces the complete board archive; Excel produces a workbook for reporting and finance. Table view exports a filtered, grouped report to Excel or JSON.

The REST API covers workspaces, boards, lists, cards, labels, custom fields, comments, attachments, and notes, and Kanera is source-available under Elastic License 2.0 if you would rather run it yourself.

For suitable company evaluations, yes. We help choose the pilot board, decide which boards should become workspaces, plan list, status, and custom-field mapping, plan member and guest access, and agree how the result gets verified before the rollout continues.

Export the board from Trello itself. The menu location varies by workspace plan and interface, but the export produces a single JSON file for one board.

Kanera accepts that JSON file up to 50 MB. An export with no lists in it cannot be imported.

Yes. Importing into a standalone board adds the Trello cards to that board and maps the structure onto settings that belong only to it. Its existing cards and permissions are unchanged.

Importing into a workspace instead creates a new board and maps Trello lists, labels, custom fields, and members onto the workspace’s shared setup.

Text becomes Text, Number becomes Number, Checkbox becomes Checkbox, Date becomes Date, and a Trello List field becomes a Kanera Select field.

A field mapped onto an existing Kanera field has to use a compatible type before the import can finish — Kanera will not guess. For Select fields it reuses options that match by label and creates the ones that are missing.

Leave them unassigned. Kanera suggests matches first by comparing Trello member details against Kanera names and email addresses, including the local part of an address, because Trello exports often carry only usernames.

Card and checklist assignments for an unmapped member are skipped. A comment by an unmapped author is created by the importing user, with the original Trello member name added to the comment body so attribution is not lost.

Archived Trello lists are skipped by default, and you can still choose to map or create them.

Archived cards are off by default and turned on with Include archived cards, which also brings in cards from archived lists. Imported archived cards then follow Kanera’s normal archived-card retention.

Common reasons are an unsupported file type, a file over your organisation’s size limit, a copy that would exceed the storage quota, Trello not being connected during review, or a Trello authorisation or download error.

The import summary groups the skipped files by reason and shows sample warnings. Attachment links back to Trello are preserved on the cards either way.

The workspace admin who ran the import gets inherited access to the new board. Add other workspace members as Editors or Observers from Workspace settings, under Boards, then Manage access.

A standalone board import changes nothing about who can already see that board.

A server with Docker and Docker Compose, a domain pointing at it, and HTTPS in front through Caddy, Traefik, nginx, or a cloud load balancer. Kanera brings its own PostgreSQL and Valkey, so there is no managed database to provision first.

SMTP credentials are optional but recommended, since invites, verification, and notification email need them. Plan how the database volume and the uploads volume get backed up before you invite anyone.

The deployment guide starts from 1 vCPU and 1 GiB of RAM for personal use, 1 to 2 vCPU and 2 GiB for up to 25 active users, 2 to 4 vCPU and 4 GiB up to 100, and 4 or more vCPU with 8 GiB or more beyond that.

Those are planning baselines rather than measured limits. Concurrent activity matters more than the number of registered accounts, file retention usually drives disk before Kanera does, and the optional Prometheus and Grafana profile adds roughly 0.7 to 1.5 GiB of memory.

None. The self-hosted deployment builds from the same codebase as hosted Kanera Pro, including Table reporting, Global Work views, nested notes, automations, board guests, notifications through email, push, ntfy, Gotify, and personal webhooks, Slack, Discord, Telegram, and Zulip chat destinations, the REST API, managed webhooks, and the MCP server.

A self-hosted organisation also has no seat count, board limit, automation limit, or plan check, and attachment storage is your own disk or S3-compatible bucket rather than a plan quota.

No. The self-hosted server does not call us for update checks or licensing, and hosted billing checks are not active in normal self-hosted mode.

Outbound traffic is what an administrator configures: SMTP, S3-compatible storage, webhooks, chat destinations, the notification receivers users choose, browser push, OAuth or MCP clients, Trello attachment copying, and monitoring alerts.

Back up, download the new release's docker-compose.yml, then run docker compose pull and docker compose up -d. There is nothing to build, and you can skip straight from an older release to the newest one: the one-shot migration service applies every pending schema change in order before the API, worker, and public API start serving traffic.

Read the changelog for each release in between first, since configuration changes are noted in the release that introduced them.

Two things need backing up: the PostgreSQL data volume and the uploads volume, unless you have moved files to S3-compatible storage. A manual dump is a single pg_dump through Docker Compose.

Kanera also ships an optional backup service that dumps PostgreSQL on a schedule, encrypts it with GPG symmetric AES-256, uploads it to S3-compatible storage, and prunes old copies. Keep the encryption passphrase somewhere durable outside the deployment, and test a restore before you rely on it.

Yes. The Trello JSON importer is part of the product, so it runs the same reviewable mapping flow on your server as it does on hosted Kanera.

To copy uploaded Trello attachments as well as their links, set a Trello API key in the environment file. Users then connect Trello during the import so Kanera can fetch the files.

Yes. Expose the MCP service on its own domain and point compatible clients at its /mcp address. Clients authenticate with a personal or workspace API key, or through browser-based OAuth once the public OAuth URLs are configured.

Self-hosted deployments have no plan restriction on agent connections.

Not today. Kanera authenticates with email and password, and has no SAML, OIDC, LDAP, or SCIM support. Some IT teams treat that as a gate, so confirm it before planning a wide rollout.

The OAuth support in Kanera is for AI agents and API clients connecting to Kanera, not for signing users in from an identity provider.

No. Elastic License 2.0 lets you run and modify Kanera for your own organisation, but not provide it to third parties as a hosted or managed service. Talk to us if you need different terms.

Yes. Connect cards with Blocks or Blocked by, including across boards in the same workspace. Timeline plans start-to-finish Gantt bars with blocking links, working-day slack, critical paths, and scheduling conflicts. Use it on a client board or across boards in Team Cards. Dependencies adds Map, due-week Timeline, and Steps layouts.

Filter Blocked or At risk work, inspect board-overview counts, and notify assignees and watchers when prerequisites clear. Dependencies do not automatically reschedule due dates or balance staff capacity.

Yes. Work Done has List and Report layouts on boards, in My Cards, and in Team Cards. Report includes a written period summary, previous-period comparisons when available, daily flow, people and workload, and relevant breakdowns.

Copy the report as text for an update, or use List to inspect dated activity up to 60 days back. Activity covers the selected period; open work and cards needing attention describe right now.

Yes. Give the client board-scoped guest access as an Editor or an Observer. Guests are not added to your organisation or workspace roster, so they see only the boards you grant.

For contractors and reviewers you can also enable Assigned items only, which limits them to cards they are assigned to, or own a checklist item on.

Each active member of your organisation occupies one purchased seat. Pro is $5 per user per month, or $49 per user per year.

External guests are counted differently. A guest’s first board across your organisation is free. Giving that guest a second board uses one purchased seat, and every further board reuses the same seat. Returning them to a single board releases it.

Yes, using custom fields and Table reporting. Put hours in a numeric field on the card, add a Client field, then group a Table by Client and sum the hours. Break each total down by assignee, work type, or billing month.

Filter completed cards by a date range for a month-end view, then export the result to Excel or JSON.

Kanera includes automatic time in progress: working hours accumulated while a card is in an In progress list. Admins can correct the total, and Table totals and exports it. For separate billable hours, use a numeric custom field. Kanera does not provide per-person time entries, a billable-time stopwatch, or invoicing.

Agencies that need a running timer or a billing engine keep those tools and use the Kanera export as the input.

Yes. Each workspace has its own lists, labels, custom fields, checklist templates, and automations, so the creative team and the development team can work differently while both remain visible in Team Cards.

A board that should answer to nothing else can stay a standalone board with a setup of its own.

Yes. Board syncing mirrors selected lists from one board into another. A client can report requests or bugs on their own board while each new card appears in your internal queue.

The sync is one-way. Source content stays aligned, and your team keeps control of assignees, due dates, and scheduling on the internal copy.

Yes. A workspace admin adds a chat destination for Slack, Discord, Telegram, or Zulip, pastes the connection that tool generates, and chooses which card events post: card created, status changed, priority changed, title changed, description changed, or comment created.

Destinations are scoped to one workspace or standalone board, so a shared client channel only ever carries that client’s work. Card links still respect board permissions, so a link does not grant access.

Notification rules are set per workspace and standalone board. Pause the accounts you are not delivering this week, or keep only mentions so you stay reachable without the traffic.

Rules only ever narrow delivery, and the in-app inbox stays complete, so pausing an account hides the interruptions without losing the history. Each person can also send their own alerts to ntfy, Gotify, or a personal webhook instead of email.

There is no seat ceiling on Pro. Agencies commonly run one workspace per department with a board per client or open role, and add seats as teams come on.

Before a large rollout, confirm file volume, attachment storage, and identity requirements. Kanera has no SAML or SCIM today, which some IT teams treat as a gate.

Yes. The prompt library has copy-paste templates for weekly client status, blockers, retainer reviews, kickoffs, change requests, late delivery updates, quarterly reviews, and wrap-ups.

ChatGPT prompts work from pasted notes. Claude prompts can read live Kanera boards when Claude is connected.

They are written for agency project managers, account managers, and delivery leads who need client-ready updates from project notes or live Kanera boards.

Choose the version written for your assistant. Both accept pasted notes; ChatGPT with the Kanera plugin and Claude with the Kanera connector can also read live boards. Specify whether the task should only draft a report or publish changes.

No. Every prompt can be copied into ChatGPT or Claude with your own notes. Connecting the Kanera plugin in ChatGPT, or the Kanera connector in Claude, lets the assistant read current cards, owners, dates, and comments instead of relying on a paste.

Yes. The library is free to browse and copy. Kanera itself has a 30-day Pro trial with no card required.

Yes. Both tools use boards, cards, checklists, dates, comments, attachments, automation, and multiple views. Kanera also lets related boards share lists, labels, fields, templates, automations, and reporting through a workspace.

Yes. A standalone Kanera board has its own lists, labels, custom fields, checklist templates, automations, permissions, imports, and settings.

Kanera follows the same access-breadth idea as Trello multi-board guests: an external collaborator is free on one board, then becomes seat-consuming when they need a second board in the same host organisation.

The person remains a board-scoped guest, additional boards reuse that one seat, and Kanera uses capacity you have already purchased. If that pool is full, Kanera blocks the second-board grant instead of changing your subscription automatically.

Yes. Kanera imports lists, labels, cards, members, comments, and custom fields from a Trello JSON export. Supported uploaded files can also be copied when attachment import is configured.

The guided import lets you review mappings and a summary before data is created. It is a one-time copy, not a live sync.

Trello offers a larger Power-Up ecosystem and Premium Timeline, Dashboard, Map, and Workspace Table views. Kanera goes further natively with shared workspace structure, cross-board execution, reporting, nested notes, broad bulk editing, managed webhooks, and MCP.

Trello has native iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows apps, Map views on Premium, hundreds of Power-Ups, and Enterprise single sign-on through Atlassian Guard.

Kanera installs as a PWA rather than an app-store build, offers 11 language options, and automatically tracks editable time in progress on cards. It does not offer personal timers or timesheets, forms, or SAML sign-in today.

Kanera maps selected source lists into another board and creates linked destination cards. Titles, descriptions, matching labels, mapped custom fields, comments, attachments, checklists, movement, completion, and source archive state sync one way.

Trello Mirror cards are available in paid Workspaces and provide a live view and edit surface for the original card, which requires access to its board. Kanera instead gives the destination team a working copy with local control of later assignees, due dates, covers, and checklist completion.

Both manage tasks, views, assignments, comments, fields, automation, and integrations. Kanera brings board-led planning, cross-board execution, reporting, nested notes, API access, managed webhooks, and MCP into one coherent team workspace.

No. Standalone boards keep their lists, labels, fields, templates, automations, and access independent. Workspaces are optional.

Kanera includes Board, Table, Calendar, My Cards, Team Cards, Timeline, and Work Done. Home opens on your ranked Up next queue, and Team Cards adds grid and table views for coordinating work order across people.

ClickUp adds personal timers and timesheets, workload management, Form view intake, docs, whiteboards and chat, built-in AI, native desktop and mobile apps, and SAML SSO with SCIM provisioning on Enterprise.

Kanera includes automatic time in progress with admin corrections alongside boards, Table, Calendar, Global Work, Work Done, notes, automations, and integrations, with much less to configure and administer.

Yes, when the work is available as CSV. Map task rows, statuses, people, dates, labels, comments, checklists, and custom fields in Kanera before confirming the import.

Folders, history, dependencies, attachments, and other platform-specific data may need a scoped API migration.

Yes, for teams that want board-led project management across product, operations, marketing, client delivery, and other functions. Kanera uses workspaces, boards, custom fields, automations, and connected views rather than Linear cycles, initiatives, and release workflows.

Kanera can model recurring work with boards, lists, dates, fields, templates, and automations, but it does not have Linear cycles or velocity-based cycle capacity.

Yes. Both products document MCP access. Kanera also provides scoped workspace API keys and managed webhooks.

Linear provides issue triage, cycles, initiatives, releases, roadmaps, cycle analytics, Linear Asks intake, an agent platform, native desktop and mobile apps, and SAML with SCIM on Enterprise.

Kanera supports card dependencies and blocking, with Map, Timeline, and Steps, but has no cycles, SAML, or SCIM today. It covers non-engineering project work with boards, custom fields, Calendar, Table reporting, notes, and cross-board views.

Kanera can import issue rows from CSV and map titles, workflow states, people, dates, labels, comments, and custom fields.

Projects, cycles, releases, history, and attachments need separate mapping decisions when they are not represented in the CSV.

Yes, for teams that want modern board-based project management, shared workflow structure, cross-project reporting, notes, automation, and integrations. Kanera includes Gantt timelines, dependency links, and critical paths. It does not reproduce Jira issue schemes, backlogs, release workflows, capacity planning, or approvals.

Kanera uses boards, lists, cards, custom fields, templates, and automations rather than Jira issue types, schemes, and software-development workflows.

Yes. Kanera is source-available and self-hostable without a per-seat licence fee, with the same feature set as hosted Kanera. Jira Data Center is Atlassian's self-managed offering, but new Data Center sales ended on March 30, 2026, existing customers can keep purchasing until March 30, 2028, and Atlassian lists end of life as March 28, 2029.

Jira covers configurable issue types and schemes, backlogs and releases, Advanced Roadmaps with dependencies and capacity, native work logs, request forms and service portals, a large marketplace, native mobile apps, and SAML SSO with SCIM through Atlassian Guard.

Kanera automatically tracks editable time in progress per card, rather than per-person work logs. It has no personal timesheets, forms, or enterprise identity integration today.

Yes. Export issues as CSV, then map Summary, Issue key, Status, Labels, Assignee, dates, comments, and custom fields. Kanera supports repeated Jira columns and can group repeated rows by issue key.

Issue history, attachments, and Jira-specific project structure need separate treatment when they are not present in the CSV.

Yes, for teams whose work runs through boards, shared workflows, cross-project ownership, reporting, notes, automation, and integrations.

Kanera automatically tracks time in progress per card, and admins can correct it. It does not currently include portfolio goals or capacity planning, personal timers or timesheets, forms, approvals, or proofing.

Asana adds detailed time entries, Forms intake, Workload from Advanced, goals and portfolios, approvals and proofing, native apps, and SAML SSO with SCIM on Enterprise.

Kanera combines Gantt scheduling and critical paths with shared board structure, Table reporting with Excel export, Global Work, Work Done history, notes, automations, webhooks, and MCP.

Yes. Kanera Pro includes board guests with access limited to selected boards. A guest's first board is free; access to a second or later board uses one purchased seat in total.

Yes. Import an Asana CSV and map task names, sections, assignees, dates, comments, and custom fields before creating the Kanera board.

Attachments and source structure outside the CSV may need a separate migration plan.

Kanera can replace Notion project databases for teams that want a more opinionated work system. It is not a replacement for a company wiki, flexible page builder, publishing system, or AI knowledge workspace.

Kanera has a private autosaving Scratchpad for work in progress, plus personal, workspace, and board Notes with a nested tree, attachments, search, and card backlinks. Scratchpad keeps rough material private; Notes keep durable context beside the work.

Yes. Kanera cards support Blocked by, Blocks, and Relates to across boards in the same workspace, with live Blocked chips, blocked-work filters, and notifications when the last blocker clears. The Dependencies view includes Map, a due-week Timeline, and Steps, with critical-path highlighting and in-place editing with undo/redo.

Notion adds free-form pages and wikis, publishing, formulas and rollups, charts, native forms with conditional logic, Notion AI, native apps, and SAML SSO on Business with SCIM on Enterprise.

Kanera is the opposite trade: less assembly, a fixed project model, and native execution views, reporting, and automation from day one. It automatically tracks editable time in progress on cards, but has no personal timers or timesheets, forms, or SAML today.

Kanera can import CSV rows from a Notion database when they map cleanly to cards and fields.

Pages, nested content, files, relationships, and database structure outside that CSV need a planned migration.

Yes, for teams that want powerful board-based project management, cross-project execution, reporting, notes, automation, and integrations.

Kanera automatically tracks time in progress per card, with admin corrections and Table totals. It does not currently include personal timers or timesheets, capacity planning, forms, or widget-based dashboards, and it has no SAML single sign-on yet.

Kanera has board overview counts and card drill-downs. Work Done Report adds period summaries, daily flow, current risks, and activity and workload per person. Table reporting and Excel export support further analysis; Kanera does not provide a configurable widget-dashboard builder like monday.com.

Yes. Kanera automatically tracks working hours while a card is in an In progress list. Admins can edit the total, and Table can sum or average it and export it. This is card-level workflow time rather than fine-grained personal time tracking. Use numeric custom fields for estimates or separately recorded billable hours; Kanera has no personal stopwatch or timesheets.

Kanera can import board rows from CSV and map groups or statuses, people, dates, labels, comments, and supported custom fields.

Updates, files, dependencies, and platform-specific structure outside the CSV may need an API-assisted migration.

For teams mainly using Wrike for boards, tables, assignments, custom fields, comments, automation, reporting, and cross-project visibility, Kanera can be a simpler replacement.

It is not feature-equivalent for teams that rely on request forms, per-person time entries and timesheets, workload and capacity planning, proofing and approvals, advanced BI, SAML or SCIM, or Wrike's larger integration ecosystem.

Wrike includes per-person time entries and timesheets, workload and resource planning, public request forms, proofing and approvals, configurable dashboards, advanced reporting and BI on higher plans, built-in AI, native desktop and mobile apps, eight interface languages, and enterprise identity controls.

Kanera automatically tracks editable time in progress per card. It has no personal timer or timesheets, capacity planner, form builder, proofing workflow, widget dashboard builder, SAML, or SCIM today.

Kanera is a smaller board-led system with optional shared workspace structure, a manager-curated ranked queue for each teammate, one-way working copies between boards, nested personal and shared Notes, granular notification delivery, and full-featured self-hosting with no Kanera per-seat fee.

Wrike is broader and more configurable, which is an advantage when those controls are needed and more system to buy, configure, and administer when they are not.

For new purchases, Wrike lists Free, Team at $10 per user per month, Business at $25 per user per month, and quote-based Pinnacle and Apex plans. Displayed paid prices are billed annually, Business and above are annual-only, and some capabilities are separate add-ons below Apex.

Kanera Pro is $5 per user per month or $49 per user per year. Kanera also has a Free plan and a self-hosted edition with no Kanera licence or per-seat fee.

Yes. Wrike lists an MCP server and built-in AI features across its current plans. Kanera provides MCP for external compatible assistants on every plan, plus a CLI, TypeScript SDK, scoped API keys, and read-only credentials.

Kanera does not include an in-app AI assistant or send project data to a model on its own.

Start with CSV when the task data can be represented as rows, then map workflows, fields, people, dates, comments, and checklists in Kanera.

Spaces, folders, time entries, dependencies, history, and attachments need a planned migration when they are not represented in that file.

Yes, for teams that use Basecamp to organise projects, to-dos, card tables, schedules, files, comments, clients, and cross-project status.

It is not a like-for-like replacement for teams that depend on Basecamp's Message Boards, Campfire chat, Automatic Check-ins, Hill Charts, personal time entries and timesheets, or fixed account pricing. Kanera also has no built-in team chat today.

Basecamp brings threaded Message Boards, project chat and direct Pings, Automatic Check-ins, Hill Charts, client visibility controls, per-person time entries and timesheets, native desktop and mobile apps, and fixed-price packages into one deliberately straightforward product.

Kanera automatically tracks time in progress on cards, with admin corrections. It has no native chat, automatic recurring questions, Hill Chart, personal timer or timesheets, or app-store builds. Basecamp is the stronger fit when that communication model is the centre of the work.

Kanera adds typed custom fields, broad bulk editing, optional workspace-wide lists and fields, ranked personal and team priority queues, an editable reporting table, Work Done reports, Work Done history, one-way board syncing, trigger-and-action automation, granular outbound notifications, and full-featured self-hosting.

Basecamp keeps projects more independent. Project templates repeat a setup, but they do not create Kanera-style live shared structure across boards.

Basecamp charges a fixed account price instead of per-user fees. Its current packages are Free for one active project and five users, Freelancer at $25 per month for three active projects and 20 users, Studio at $59 per month for ten active projects and unlimited users, Pro at $99 per month for 25 active projects and unlimited users, and Unlimited at $299 per month billed annually.

Kanera Pro is $5 per user per month or $49 per user per year. Kanera also has a Free plan and a self-hosted edition with no Kanera licence or per-seat fee, so the cheaper option depends heavily on team size and active-project count.

Yes, but differently. Basecamp currently provides a CLI and Agent Skill for shell-capable agents; its pricing page describes official ChatGPT and Claude MCP connectors as coming soon.

Kanera provides a native MCP server now on every plan, plus a CLI, TypeScript SDK, scoped API keys, and read-only credentials. Neither product requires an in-app AI assistant to manage the underlying work.

Use CSV when the source data can be shaped into card rows with lists, people, dates, comments, checklists, and fields.

Projects, tools, documents, chat, check-ins, Hill Charts, time entries, and attachments need an explicit retention or conversion plan.

Both offer collaborative kanban boards, real-time updates, self-hosting, custom fields, APIs, and Trello import.

Both are source-available rather than permissively open source: PLANKA Community uses its Fair Use License and Kanera uses Elastic License 2.0. Neither can be resold to third parties as a hosted service.

PLANKA documents OpenID Connect single sign-on with role mapping and 35+ interface languages. Kanera has no single sign-on today and offers 11 language options. PLANKA also reaches a much longer list of notification providers through Apprise.

Kanera covers the common destinations directly instead: email, browser push, ntfy, Gotify, and personal signed webhooks per person, plus built-in Slack, Discord, Telegram, and Zulip chat destinations per workspace.

PLANKA also splits capability across editions: calendar and map views, guest and worker roles, recurring cards, custom branding, and cross-company use require a paid Pro licence.

PLANKA lists calendar and map views, recurring cards, guest and worker roles for external collaborators, custom branding, and cross-company use as Pro-edition features, with Pro sold per month for self-hosted or hosted deployments.

Kanera self-hosting has full feature parity with hosted Kanera and no Kanera per-seat fee, so calendar, guests, and everything else are included.

Kanera adds standalone or shared board structure, Table reporting with Excel export, ranked Up next queues across My Cards and Team Cards, Home, Work Done, nested notes, a trigger-and-action automation builder, managed webhooks, MCP, and more complete Trello attachment migration.

Use CSV when the available data can be shaped into card rows, or use the documented APIs for a richer migration.

Its official GitHub repository says it is currently not maintained and is looking for maintainers. The latest listed standalone release is from June 2024. Check the repository before choosing it for a new deployment.

Focalboard remains open source and offers single-user desktop apps plus a personal multi-user server. Its official repository says the standalone project is currently not maintained and is looking for maintainers.

Kanera is an actively developed team product with realtime collaboration, reporting, notes, automation, notifications, API, webhooks, MCP, and a supported Docker Compose deployment shape.

Focalboard offered free single-user desktop apps, board, table, gallery, and calendar views, configurable board properties, and a self-hostable personal server under an open-source licence.

If those are your requirements and the maintenance risk is acceptable, it remains an option. Kanera is a commercial source-available product with active development and support.

Use CSV when board properties can be represented as card rows. Plan a custom migration for users, files, and source structure outside the CSV.

Both are self-hostable, collaborative kanban systems with real-time updates, custom fields, checklists, and card-level collaboration. Wekan is MIT-licensed open source; Kanera is source-available under Elastic License 2.0.

Wekan is MIT licensed, states in its README that it has been translated into 154 languages, documents LDAP, OAuth2, SAML, and Keycloak sign-in, and has a long-running self-hosted community. Kanera offers 11 language options and has no single sign-on today.

Kanera adds shared cross-board structure, Table reporting with Excel export, Home, Global Work, Work Done, nested notes, managed webhooks, and MCP.

Wekan warns operators to update frequently, keep daily database backups, monitor disk space, and notes that there is no undo. Its README recommends at least 4 GB total RAM for production.

Use CSV when the export covers the card data you need. Use a planned API migration for board history, files, and structures outside the CSV.

Both provide collaborative boards, cross-project work views, calendars, custom fields, bulk editing, automation, reporting, project notes, API access, and MCP connections for AI assistants.

Breeze includes personal timers, manual time entries, timesheets, estimates, team workload, request forms, team chat, built-in AI queries, and native iOS and Android apps.

Kanera automatically tracks editable time in progress per card. It has no personal timer or timesheets, capacity planner, form builder, built-in chat, or in-app generative AI today.

Kanera lets boards stay independent or share lists, labels, fields, checklist templates, automations, and reporting through a workspace. It also adds Work Done reports, Work Done history, one-way board syncing, managed webhooks, per-workspace notification rules, and a self-hosted edition with full feature parity.

Breeze lists one all-inclusive plan at $9 per user per month, a 10% annual discount, a $14 monthly Solo plan, and unlimited free client users.

Kanera has a Free plan for up to 4 members, Pro at $5 per user per month or $49 per user per year, and self-hosting with no Kanera per-seat fee.

Yes. Both products document MCP connections that let compatible AI assistants work with project data under the connected user’s permissions. Breeze also includes an in-app AI question interface, while Kanera keeps AI in external compatible clients.

Use CSV when projects, lists, tasks, fields, users, notes, and comments can be represented as rows.

Files and richer source structure may need a planned migration through the available export or API data.

No. Trello’s CSV export is part of the paid Premium plan. The JSON export is available on every plan, including Free, and contains more than the CSV does.

This tool reads that JSON export in your browser and writes Excel, CSV, or Markdown from it.

No. The file is read by JavaScript running in your browser tab and never leaves your device. There is no server behind this page; you can disconnect from the internet after it loads and it still works.

Nothing is stored either. Reload the page and the board is gone.

Attachment names and links are included. The files themselves are not in a Trello JSON export: uploaded files appear as URLs that need a Trello login to open.

Kanera’s Trello importer can copy the uploaded files across when you connect your Trello account during the import.

Trello exports at most 1,000 recent actions per board, and comments are stored as actions. On a busy board the older comments are not in the file. The Inspect view shows the raw action count so you can tell when this has happened.

One board per file, because Trello exports one board per file. Drop the next file when the first download finishes; the tool resets in a click.

Sheets for Cards, Checklists, Comments, Attachments, Lists, Labels, Members, and Custom fields. The Cards sheet has one column per Trello custom field, and dates are real Excel dates so they sort and filter.

For any stable process, average work in progress equals throughput multiplied by average cycle time. It holds regardless of what the work is, as long as the measurements cover the same period and use the same units.

The WIP limit and cycle time calculators are rearrangements of that identity.

Yes. Anything that has been started and is not yet done is in progress from the customer’s point of view, and it is the waiting time that inflates cycle time. Counting only cards someone is actively typing on gives a flattering but wrong answer.

Six to eight weeks is a reasonable minimum for an average. Fewer and a single good or bad week dominates. If the team or the way work is sliced changed recently, start counting from the change.

The Work Done view lists completed cards by date for a board or a whole workspace. Table view can group by completion week and export the counts to Excel.

In 85% of the ten thousand simulated futures, built by resampling your own past weeks, the backlog was finished within that many weeks. It is not a promise; it is a statement about how often a team with your history hits that date.

Dividing by the average gives roughly the 50% date, the one you are as likely to miss as hit. The gap to 85% is the cost of your variability. Teams that limit WIP and slice work evenly see the gap shrink.

Counting cards works when work is sliced to roughly similar sizes, and it removes an estimation meeting. If your cards vary by an order of magnitude, slice them smaller before forecasting rather than adding points.

The random draws are seeded from your inputs, so the same history and backlog always give the same forecast. Change either and the forecast changes with it.

A header row plus created, started, and completed columns. Title is optional. Blank started dates are backlog; blank completed dates are active work.

Use ISO dates such as 2026-08-31 where possible. Common header variants such as Name, Start date, and Done date are also recognised.

Cycle time is the elapsed time from started to completed for finished work. Work item age is how long an unfinished item has been in progress.

The 85th-percentile cycle time provides a useful comparison line for aging work, but it is not a deadline or service-level promise by itself.

A widening in-progress band means more items are entering the workflow than leaving it during that period. A widening backlog band means arrivals are outpacing starts.

The chart shows where to investigate; it does not identify the cause. Look for blocked work, oversized items, scarce review capacity, or a change in demand.

No. Parsing, calculations, charts, and the output CSV all run in the browser. Reloading the page clears the data.

Likelihood from 1 to 5 is multiplied by impact from 1 to 5. Scores below 6 are low, 6 to 14 are medium, and 15 to 25 are high.

These bands are a practical default. If your organisation has an agreed scoring policy, use its thresholds when reviewing the exported register.

Risks are uncertain events that may happen. Assumptions are beliefs that still need validation. Issues are problems happening now. Dependencies are things delivery relies on.

Every material entry should have one owner and a response or next action.

At a cadence that matches how quickly the project changes: weekly is a useful default for active delivery. Review high risks more frequently when their trigger is approaching.

Close obsolete items instead of letting the register grow forever.

No. The register stays in the current browser tab and exports directly to CSV or Markdown. There is no account and no server processing.

Each vendor’s public pricing page, using the per-user price for annual billing in US dollars. The date the prices were last checked is shown under the table, with a link to every source.

Vendors change prices and plan contents. Check the source before signing anything.

The lowest paid plan on each vendor that includes the basics a team needs (unlimited boards or projects, custom fields where they exist, and integrations), and the next plan up where the basics need it. Kanera is shown at its single Pro price.

Every vendor has one, with limits on members, boards, or features. Kanera Free covers up to four organisation members and three active boards. The calculator is about the point where a team outgrows the free tier.

A guest on a single board is free. A guest who needs a second board counts as one paid seat in total, however many boards they join after that.

Yes. A template only decides the starting lists, fields, labels, checklists, and automations. All of them are edited in workspace settings afterwards, and nothing is locked.

So that Table view and Global Work can compare boards directly. Two boards with the same stages and fields roll up into one report; two boards shaped differently do not. Boards that genuinely need their own structure can be standalone boards instead.

Most do, a handful per list, so the board is not empty on the first visit. Archive or delete them once real work is on the board.