Best Trello Alternatives in 2027: Free, Paid and Open Source

Trello alternatives fall into three groups: larger hosted suites, tools built for a specific kind of work, and self-hosted boards you run on your own server. This guide compares the main options in each group, with free-plan limits and paid prices checked on each vendor’s own page in October 2026. KanbanWP, one of the options, is our own plugin.

Why teams look for a Trello alternative

Trello’s plans have these limits, according to Trello’s pricing page as checked on October 20, 2026:

• The Free plan allows up to 10 collaborators and 10 boards per Workspace.
• Calendar, Timeline, Table, Dashboard and Map views need Premium, at $10 per user per month billed annually.
• AI features and custom fields start on Standard, at $5 per user per month billed annually.
• Trello’s plan list has no built-in work-in-progress limits, so kanban teams add them with Power-Ups.

The collaborator cap covers the whole Workspace. Trello’s guide to Workspace collaborator limits says a free Workspace over the limit becomes view-only, and its automations stop.

Trello alternatives compared

Prices are in US dollars and were checked on each vendor’s pricing page on October 20, 2026.

Hosted project management tools

Asana

Asana is a work management tool with list, board, calendar and timeline views. Its pricing page lists a free Personal plan for one or two people, with unlimited tasks and projects, list, board and calendar views, and files up to 100MB each.

The Starter plan costs $10.99 per user per month billed annually. It removes the seat limit and adds timeline and Gantt views, reporting dashboards, unlimited automations, forms, custom fields and unlimited free guests. Asana AI is included in Starter and above, and extra AI requests cost $0.50 each.

Fits: teams that need projects with dependencies, deadlines and reports. Limits: the free plan stops at two users, so any team of three pays from the start.

ClickUp

ClickUp combines tasks, docs, whiteboards and chat in one workspace. Its pricing page lists a Free Forever plan with unlimited tasks, unlimited free members, kanban boards, calendar view, sprint management and 60MB of file storage. The free plan allows 5 Spaces, offers Gantt and timeline views as trials only, and includes 500 AI credits per workspace.

The Core plan costs $9 per user per month billed yearly and adds custom fields, unlimited storage, unlimited Gantt charts and 1,000 automations a month. Business costs $17 per user per month billed yearly.

Fits: teams that want tasks, docs and whiteboards in one tool. Limits: the free plan’s 60MB of storage covers the whole workspace, attachments included.

ClickUp vs Trello

ClickUp’s free plan has no member cap, while Trello Free stops at 10 collaborators per Workspace. Trello’s free plan has unlimited Power-Ups and files up to 10MB each, while ClickUp Free has 60MB of storage in total. ClickUp Free includes calendar view and sprint management, while Trello Free has the board and a view-only Planner.

monday.com

monday.com organizes work on boards, where each item is a row and each detail is a column. Its pricing page lists a Free plan for up to 2 seats, with up to 3 boards, up to 3 docs, 8 column types and iOS and Android apps.

The Basic plan costs $9 per seat per month billed annually, and Standard costs $12. AI features start on Basic, which includes 1,000 AI credits a month.

Fits: teams that track many kinds of records, such as clients, orders or requests, in one place. Limits: the free plan stops at 3 boards and 2 seats.

Notion

Notion is a document and database tool. A database can be shown as a board, and Notion’s help article on board view says it “groups your database pages by a specific property”, such as status.

According to Notion’s pricing page, the Free plan is unlimited for individuals but has a limited block count once two or more members share a workspace. Free also limits file uploads to 5MB each and allows 10 guests. Plus costs $10 per seat per month billed yearly, or $12 monthly. Business costs $20 billed yearly and adds Notion Agent and AI meeting notes.

Fits: teams that want specs, notes and task boards in one place. Limits: you build the board yourself from a database, so it takes more setup than Trello.

Notion vs Trello

Notion stores tasks as database pages, so one task can hold a full document with headings, tables and embedded files. Trello cards hold a description, checklists and attachments. Notion Free suits one person, while Trello Free supports a team of up to 10.

Jira

Jira is Atlassian’s work tracker for software teams, and Atlassian also owns Trello. Jira’s pricing page lists a Free plan for up to 10 users with backlog, list, board, timeline, calendar and summary views, 2GB of storage and 150 automation steps a month.

Standard costs $8.48 per user per month on monthly billing and adds Rovo AI, user roles and permissions, and 250GB of storage. Jira boards also support column constraints that act as WIP limits.

Fits: software teams with sprints, releases and bug tracking. Limits: setup takes time, because someone has to define work types and workflows. For a full comparison, read Trello vs Jira.

Open source Trello alternatives

Self-hosted boards remove per-user fees, but you run the server, the backups and the updates. Each project’s status below was checked on GitHub on October 20, 2026.

WeKan

WeKan is a kanban board released under the MIT license. Its GitHub repository is active, with release v12.55 published in October 2026. The README lists importers for Trello, Jira, Asana, ClickUp, monday.com and other tools, and installation through Docker, Snap and other bundles.

Fits: teams that have someone to run a server and want a Trello-style board with swimlanes. Limits: there is no hosted plan on the WeKan site, only paid support.

Kanboard

Kanboard is an MIT-licensed kanban tool written in PHP. The Kanboard site lists WIP limits, drag and drop, subtasks, comments and automatic actions. The GitHub README says the project is in maintenance mode: the author adds no major features, but community releases continue, and v1.2.54 came out in August 2026.

Fits: a small team that wants a light board with real WIP limits. Limits: new features depend on community contributions and plugins.

PLANKA

PLANKA is a self-hosted kanban board with a free Community edition and a paid Pro edition. Its GitHub repository describes the license as “fair-code” under a Fair Use License, so the source is available, but the license is not an OSI open-source license. The README lists phone and tablet support, a dashboard, and calendar and timeline views as Pro features.

Fits: teams that want a Trello-style board on their own server. Limits: read the license before you build a commercial service on it.

Kan

Kan describes itself as “the open source Trello alternative” and is licensed under AGPL-3.0. The GitHub README covers self-hosting with Docker Compose and a Trello importer. The hosted service’s pricing page lists a free plan for one user and a Teams plan at $8 per user per month.

Fits: teams that want a Trello-like board and the option to move between hosted and self-hosted. Limits: its GitHub repository has no tagged release yet.

What about Focalboard?

Focalboard often appears in lists of open-source Trello alternatives, but the standalone project is no longer maintained. Its GitHub repository carries a warning that “this repository is currently not maintained”, and the last release, v8.0.0, came out in June 2024.

KanbanWP: a free Trello alternative inside WordPress

KanbanWP is a free GPLv2 plugin that adds kanban boards to the WordPress admin. People sign in with their WordPress accounts, and boards, tasks and comments are stored in your WordPress database.

KanbanWP has:

• Unlimited boards, with stages, drag and drop and WIP limits per stage.
• Kanban, List, Table, Calendar, Timeline and My Tasks views, plus swimlanes and saved views.
• Board roles (admin, member, viewer and client) and a client portal that hides internal tasks and comments.
• Cards that link to WordPress posts and pages, and tasks created from new WooCommerce orders.
• AI features that run on your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini or OpenAI-compatible key, and an MCP server for AI agents. See AI project management.

Limits: it needs a WordPress site, and you handle hosting, backups and updates. It has no native mobile app, though the board works in a mobile browser. In version 1.0.1, the AI features are reached through the REST API, and the board has no AI buttons yet. For a side-by-side table, read KanbanWP vs Trello.

Moving your Trello boards

Any board member can export a Trello board as JSON on any plan, according to Atlassian’s guide to exporting data from Trello. CSV export needs a Premium Workspace.

KanbanWP’s importer reads that JSON file. Lists become stages, and cards keep their descriptions, due dates, labels and comments. Checklist items are added to the task description, and Trello members are matched to WordPress users by username. The steps are in importing from Trello.

Which Trello alternative fits which team

For free plans only, see best free kanban board software in 2027. To set up a board quickly, start from the kanban board templates.