# Alternatives to Focalboard

Open source Notion-boards from Mattermost.

Focalboard ranks #23 of 24 in Project management, with an Alt Score of 16. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0, free and available on Windows, macOS, Linux and Web. 1 of 14 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/focalboard/
Category: Project management

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Individuals and teams who want a self-hosted, open-source alternative to Trello, Notion, or Asana for organizing and tracking work, including Mattermost users who want project management alongside their team chat.
- **What you get**: Boards with cards that can be viewed as kanban, table, gallery, or calendar layouts, with drag-and-drop and real-time sync across views. Cards support unlimited custom properties (text, number, date, select, multi-select, person), plus comments and @mentions for collaboration. Boards can be filtered and shared with specific people or the whole team via permissions. It ships as a single-user desktop app, a multi-user personal server, or as the Boards plugin inside Mattermost.
- **How it works**: Create a board, add cards to it, and attach custom properties to track status, owner, dates, and other fields. Switch between kanban, table, gallery, or calendar views to work with the same cards in different layouts, and use filters or saved views to focus on specific subsets.

## Profile

- **License**: AGPL-3.0 (verified 2026-07-12)
- **Pricing model**: Free (verified 2026-07-12)
- **Starts at**: ?
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux, Web
- **Status**: maintenance (verified 2026-07-30)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [ClickUp](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/clickup.md) | 96 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS |
| 2 | [Monday.com](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/mondaycom.md) | 96 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| 3 | [Plane](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/plane.md) | 96 | AGPL-3.0 | Web, iOS, Android, macOS |
| 4 | [YouTrack](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/youtrack.md) | 96 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS |
| 5 | [Teamwork](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/teamwork.md) | 94 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| 6 | [Zoho Projects](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/zoho-projects.md) | 94 | Proprietary | Web, iOS, Android |
| 7 | [Jira](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/jira.md) | 87 | Proprietary | Web, iOS, Android |
| 8 | [OpenProject](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/openproject.md) | 87 | GPL-3.0 | Web |
| 9 | [Asana](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/asana.md) | 84 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| 10 | [Wrike](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/wrike.md) | 84 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| 11 | [Smartsheet](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/smartsheet.md) | 81 | Proprietary | Web, iOS, Android |
| 12 | [Leantime](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/leantime.md) | 68 | AGPL-3.0 | Web |
| 13 | [Linear](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/linear.md) | 68 | Proprietary | Web, macOS, Windows, iOS |
| 14 | [Shortcut](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/shortcut.md) | 68 | Proprietary | ? |
| 15 | [Kanboard](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/kanboard.md) | 65 | MIT | Web |
| 16 | [Trello](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/trello.md) | 65 | Proprietary | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android |
| 17 | [Basecamp](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/basecamp.md) | 55 | Proprietary | Web, macOS, Windows, iOS |
| 18 | [Taiga](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/taiga.md) | 51 | MPL-2.0 | Web |
| 19 | [Redmine](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/redmine.md) | 49 | GPL-2.0 | Web |
| 20 | [Huly](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/huly.md) | 45 | EPL-2.0 | Web, Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 21 | [WeKan](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/wekan.md) | 45 | MIT | Web |
| 22 | [GanttProject](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/ganttproject.md) | 29 | GPL-3.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 23 | [Height](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/height.md) | building | ? | ? |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| Project management checklist | Focalboard | ClickUp | Monday.com | Plane | YouTrack | Teamwork |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free | Freemium | Freemium | OSS + paid hosting | Freemium | Freemium |
| Starts at | ? | $7/user/month | $9/seat/month | $6/user/month | $4.50/user/month (annual billing; $5.40/user/month monthly) | $9.99/user/month |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary | Proprietary | AGPL-3.0 | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux, Web | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Web | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web | Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Web | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web |
| Kanban boards | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Gantt / timeline | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Calendar view | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom fields | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dependencies | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Time tracking built in | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Automations / rules | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Forms intake | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Workload view | ? | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Guest access | ? | Partial | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| Free tier user limit | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Agile features (sprints, story points) | ? | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | ? |
| Docs / wiki built in | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reporting dashboards | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |

## Sources

Sources for Focalboard. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **Pricing model**: Free — <https://github.com/mattermost-community/focalboard/blob/main/README.md> (verified 2026-07-12)
  - Quote: “Focalboard is an open source, multilingual, self-hosted project management tool that's an alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana.”
- **License**: AGPL-3.0 — <https://github.com/mattermost-community/focalboard/blob/main/LICENSE.txt> (verified 2026-07-12)
  - Quote: “You may be licensed to use source code to create compiled versions not produced by Mattermost, Inc. in one of two ways: 1. Under the Free Software Foundation’s GNU AGPL v.3.0, subject to the exception”
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux, Web — <https://github.com/mattermost-community/focalboard/blob/main/README.md> (verified 2026-07-12)
  - Quote: “**Personal Desktop**: A standalone, single-user macOS, Windows, or Linux desktop app for your own todos and personal projects. * **Personal Server**: A standalone, multi-user server for development an”
- **Status**: maintenance — <https://github.com/mattermost-community/focalboard/blob/main/README.md> (verified 2026-07-30)
  - Quote: “This repository is currently not maintained. If you're interested in becoming a maintainer please let us know here.”
- **Kanban boards**: Yes — <https://github.com/mattermost-community/focalboard> (verified 2026-07-12)
  - Quote: “kanban-board”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/