Focalboard vs Plane
| Tagline | Self-hosted project management boards (Trello/Notion alternative) | Open-source issue tracking, sprints, and roadmaps - a Jira and Linear alternative |
| Category | Project Management & Kanban | Project Management & Kanban |
| Replaces | Trello, Asana, Notion | Jira, Linear, Asana |
| GitHub stars | 26k | 59k |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 4 months ago | 2 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Focalboard
- The standalone project is archived; active development moved into Mattermost Boards.
- Fewer power-ups/automations than Trello.
- No relational databases like Notion.
- Limited integrations.
Plane
- Some advanced features (e.g. certain enterprise workflows, intake, advanced analytics) are gated behind the paid Pro/Enterprise tiers
- Self-hosted community edition lags behind the cloud version on newer features
- Automation rules are far less mature than Jira's
- Mobile apps are less polished than Linear's
Bottom line
Choose Focalboard if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Plane for the larger community and ecosystem. Plane has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Plane
Open-source issue tracking, sprints, and roadmaps - a Jira and Linear alternative