Choose Wekan for MIT-licensed self-hosted kanban. Choose Kanera for connected workspaces, execution reporting, notes, webhooks, and MCP.
Already looking to move? Read the case for Kanera as a Wekan alternative
Wekan provides MIT licensing, custom fields, subtasks, swimlanes, operator-configured single sign-on, and translation coverage no commercial tool matches.
Kanera adds Home, Table reporting, Global Work, Portfolio rollups, shared fields, nested notes, automation, managed webhooks, and MCP.
Try the complete Pro product for 30 days, then choose Free or one full-featured hosted plan.
Wekan covers a lot of kanban ground for a self-hosted project. Kanera adds the connected project layer around the boards: shared structure, execution reporting, nested notes, automation, webhooks, and MCP.
| Feature | Wekan Open-source kanban |  Kanera |
|---|---|---|
| Views & Planning | ||
| Board view | Included. Realtime kanban boards, lists, cards, swimlanes, WIP limits, drag and drop, and access controls are the core. | Included. Kanban boards with drag-and-drop cards, collapsible lists, per-list sorting, list icons and colours, and card covers. |
| Table view | Not available. Wekan is board-led and does not document a Kanera-style cross-card reporting table. | Included. An editable table on boards and across Global Work, with filtering, grouping, custom columns, Sum and Avg calculations, second-dimension breakdowns, saved setup, and Excel or JSON export. |
| Calendar view | Partial or plan-gated. Calendar capabilities are available through Wekan's board and card date features, with exact behavior depending on release. | Included. A calendar for dated cards with month and week ranges, Today navigation, filtering, due-time slots, and card actions in place, on boards and across Global Work. |
| Overview, health, and cross-project visibility | Not available. The official repository does not present Home, Global Work, Portfolio, and 60-day Work Done surfaces comparable to Kanera. | Included. Home covers daily focus. Every board adds automatic overdue, unassigned, inactive, due-soon, and per-list signals with card drill-downs. Global Work adds My Cards, Team Cards, Portfolio, and Work Done across accessible boards. |
| Personal and team priority queues | Not available. Boards can order cards and use priority-related fields or labels, but official docs do not present a separate personal cross-board queue or team queue-management surface. | Included. Up next keeps one ranked order across boards. Open your drawer anywhere, add, reorder, complete, or remove assigned cards in My Cards, filter to queued work, and manage permitted teammate queues from a focused dock or Team Cards grid and table views. |
| Cards & Work | ||
| Work item detail | Included. Cards support members, labels, dates, descriptions, attachments, checklists, comments, voting, and activity. | Included. Cards hold markdown descriptions with change diffs, due dates and time slots, assignees, labels, custom fields, attachments, covers, comments, checklists, watchers, and attributed activity. |
| Custom fields | Included. Custom fields support text, number, date, checkbox, dropdown, and user values. | Included. Text, number, checkbox, date, URL, select, and user fields, with multi-value select and user fields, owned by one board or shared across a workspace. |
| Checklists | Included. Cards support checklists, checklist templates, and subtasks. | Included. Reusable checklist templates with item assignees, due dates, descriptions, and one level of sub-checklists. Assigned items surface in Home, My Cards, and focused Team Cards. |
| Bulk editing | Not available. The official README does not document a broad multi-card bulk editor comparable to Kanera. | Included. Selected cards can change dates, labels, assignees, custom fields, completion, location, copies, or archive state together. |
| Structure & Workflow | ||
| Independent projects | Included. Boards keep their own lists, members, labels, rules, and access. | Included. Standalone boards keep their own lists, labels, fields, templates, automations, permissions, and settings. |
| Shared structure | Not available. Wekan organises independent boards rather than documenting a shared cross-board schema like Kanera workspaces. | Included. Workspace boards can reuse lists, labels, fields, checklist templates, automations, and reporting. |
| Automation | Included. Wekan includes rules and integrations, with capabilities tied to the current release. | Included. Six card triggers drive ordered actions across labels, assignees, checklist templates, due dates, custom field writes, moves, and completion, at board or workspace level. |
| Reporting | Not available. The repository centres on kanban operations rather than Kanera-style Table calculations, Portfolio rollups, and completion reporting. | Included. Table calculations and breakdowns, Portfolio rollups and drill-downs, Work Done history, saved Global Work views, and Excel or JSON export cover operational reporting. |
| One-way board syncing | Not available. The official repository does not document native one-way card or list syncing between boards. | Included. Selected source lists can feed linked copies on another board, keeping shared card content and mapped workflow context current one way. |
| Collaboration & Access | ||
| Collaboration | Included. Realtime board collaboration, comments, attachments, members, and activity are mature parts of the project. | Included. Comments with mentions, quote replies, and thumbs-up acknowledgement, plus attachments, realtime updates, presence, and an attributed activity history beside the work. |
| External access | Partial or plan-gated. Board visibility, users, and permissions are controlled by the self-hosted operator. | Partial or plan-gated. Pro keeps guests board-scoped: the first board is free, while a second or later board uses one purchased seat in total. Hosted Free has no guests, and self-hosted has no seat gate. |
| Notes and context | Not available. Descriptions and comments hold card context; no separate nested personal and shared notes tree is documented. | Included. Scratchpad keeps autosaved work in progress private to one person. Personal and shared Notes add nested trees, attachments, search, and card backlinks for durable context. |
| Notifications | Partial or plan-gated. Email and integration notifications depend on operator configuration and the current release. | Included. An in-app drawer plus per-type delivery to email, browser push, ntfy, Gotify, or your own signed webhook, with per-workspace pause and scoping rules, card and board watching, mentions, assignments, and due dates. The drawer, email, push, and rules are on every plan; ntfy, Gotify, and personal webhooks need Pro or self-hosted. |
| Data & Migration | ||
| API and webhooks | Included. Wekan provides APIs and integration hooks for self-hosted extensions. | Included. Scoped API keys, a REST API, event-selective webhooks, and built-in Slack, Discord, Telegram, and Zulip chat destinations, all with delivery history, retries, pausing, and secret rotation. Included in Pro and self-hosted; hosted Free has none of them. |
| AI integration | Not available. The official repository does not document a native MCP server or built-in AI integration. | Partial or plan-gated. A native MCP server with OAuth gives compatible AI clients scoped access to live Kanera context and documentation search; AI is not built into the app. |
| Deployment | Included. Self-hosting is central and the code is MIT licensed. The README recommends at least 4 GB total RAM for production, daily database backups, and frequent updates. | Included. Hosted plans, or a source-available Docker Compose deployment under Elastic License 2.0 with full feature parity and no Kanera per-seat self-hosting fee. |
| Import and export | Partial or plan-gated. Wekan has import and export paths, but Kanera has no native Wekan importer. | Partial or plan-gated. Reviewable Trello JSON, CSV, and Kanera archive import; Excel and JSON export; plus APIs for custom migrations. |
| Where each tool draws the line | ||
| Timeline, Gantt, and dependencies | Partial or plan-gated. A Gantt view exists in a separate build that uses a GPL-licensed chart component and needs start and end dates on cards; the MIT build does not include it. | Not available. Not included. Kanera plans with due dates, Calendar, and Table. There are no Gantt bars, baselines, or dependency links between cards. |
| Time tracking and workload | Partial or plan-gated. Cards can record time-tracking values, but the README does not document a workload or capacity planning surface. | Not available. No timer and no capacity planning. Numeric custom fields hold estimates or hours, and Table can sum or average them by group. |
| Request forms | Not available. The README does not document a form builder. | Not available. No form builder. Intake arrives through cards, one-way board syncing, or the REST API. |
| Sign-in and provisioning | Included. Wekan documents LDAP, OAuth2, SAML, Keycloak, and other operator-configured sign-in options. | Partial or plan-gated. Email and password sign-in with organisation, workspace, and board roles. No SAML, OIDC, or SCIM for user accounts yet; AI clients authenticate to MCP with OAuth. |
| Apps and offline use | Not available. A self-hosted browser app; there are no official app-store builds. | Partial or plan-gated. Installable PWA on desktop, iOS, and Android with offline board browsing, push notifications, and share-to-card. No native app-store builds. |
| Interface languages | Included. The README states Wekan has been translated into 154 languages. | Not available. English only today. |
Competitor details checked August 11, 2026. Wekan repository and operations guidance, Wekan features list. Features and packaging can change.
Work Done shows a 60-day daily history of created, moved, and completed cards plus finished checklist items.
Use Home for today, per-board health for local risk, My Cards and Team Cards for execution, and Portfolio for cross-board drill-downs.
Open one keyboard palette to create a card, navigate, change theme, or search cards, notes, comments, and attachment names.
Use Scratchpad for private work in progress, then move durable material into personal or team Notes.
Keep boards fully independent, or reuse lists, labels, fields, checklist templates, and automations across a workspace.
Map source lists into another board so an internal team gets working copies, with local assignees and dates and no custom API bridge.
Use scoped API keys, managed webhooks, and MCP, and export reports to Excel or JSON. Self-host the same product when deployment control matters.
Start with CSV when the export covers the card data you need. Use a planned migration for board history, files, and structures outside that export.
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 is English only and has no single sign-on today.
Kanera adds shared cross-board structure, Table reporting with Excel export, Home, Global Work, Portfolio, 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.
Try the full product for 30 days. No card required.
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