Project and task management decision
Trello
A single developer can build a useful self-hosted kanban with realtime sync and attachments in about a week, but matching Trello’s integrations, automation, mobile apps, enterprise security and multi-million-user scale is not practical.
Visit website↗Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need — the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship.
What a replacement has to do
- Create workspaces, boards, lists, and cards; move cards between lists (drag & drop); assign members, due dates and comments; attach files to cards; basic search and realtime sync between clients.
What it still won’t have
- Large catalog of 150+ Power-Ups and partner-paid integrations
- Built-in advanced automation and workspace-level command run quotas
- Mobile and desktop apps maintained by Trello
- Enterprise features: Atlassian Guard, SSO and 24/7 enterprise admin support
- Scale, reliability and performance optimizations for millions of users
What remains hard
- Brand trust
Trusted by millions.
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 1 seat.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a self-hosted minimal Trello-like kanban app using React (frontend), Node.js + Express (API), Postgres (data), Redis (optional for presence/locks), WebSockets (realtime updates), and S3-compatible storage for attachments; deploy with Docker Compose. In scope: user signup/login (email + password), workspace and board CRUD, lists and cards with drag-and-drop, card detail view (comments, assignee, due date), realtime board sync, file upload to S3, basic full-text search, server-side input validation, error handling, and unit/integration tests for API endpoints. Out of scope: Power-Ups marketplace, advanced automation engine, enterprise SSO/Guard, mobile native apps, paid billing, and large-scale multi-region ops.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 5 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- Evidence score63
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time — so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 5
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productTrello home
- official pricingTrello pricing
- official docsTrello for product teams
- open sourcemakeplane/plane
- open sourceopf/openproject
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
