Kan Review (2026): Pricing, Features & Honest Verdict

TLDR

Kan is an open-source Trello alternative with drag-and-drop kanban boards, Trello imports, and unlimited boards and cards on its free plan. It is young and light on integrations, but the core experience is excellent and self-hosting is free. Best for: makers and small teams replacing Trello. Price: free, Teams $8/user/mo. Rating: 7.8/10.

What is Kan?

Kan is a kanban board app that pitches itself as the open source alternative to Trello, and for once the pitch is accurate. You get drag-and-drop boards with lists and cards, labels and filters, comments, activity logs that track every change, board visibility controls, and reusable board templates. There is a hosted version at kan.bn, and the full codebase sits on GitHub under an AGPL-3.0 license, ready to self-host with Docker.

The project is indie-built, led by a founder named Henry, and gained traction through Product Hunt (4.8 stars) and a fast-growing GitHub repository. The timing is right: Atlassian has steadily squeezed Trello’s free tier, and teams burned by per-seat pricing have been hunting for an exit. Kan answers with a one-click Trello import, a free plan with unlimited boards and cards, and even an MCP server that lets AI clients like Claude Desktop read and control your boards. We dug into it expecting a rough clone and found something more considered.

What Are Kan’s Key Features?

Kanban boards that feel like Trello, minus the limits

Boards, lists, and cards work exactly the way a decade of Trello muscle memory expects: drag, drop, label, filter, comment. The difference is the ceiling. Kan’s free plan allows unlimited boards and unlimited cards for one user, where Trello’s free tier caps you at 10 boards per workspace. Visibility controls let you make boards public or restrict them to workspace members.

Performance is part of the feature too. Kan is built lean, without two decades of accumulated enterprise features, and it shows in how quickly boards load and cards move. Trello has grown heavier as Atlassian bolts on views, AI features, and cross-product hooks; Kan still feels like a tool that does one thing. If your team’s whole process is moving cards left to right, that focus is a benefit rather than a limitation.

Trello import

Switching costs kill most migrations, so Kan ships a Trello importer that pulls your existing boards across. In our look at the workflow, it is the single smartest feature choice in the product: you can test-drive Kan with your real boards in minutes instead of rebuilding them by hand. If you are evaluating a Trello exit, this removes the main excuse not to. The import covers boards, lists, and cards; expect to redo automations and power-up data by hand, because Kan has nowhere to put them yet. Run both tools in parallel for a week before you commit, since the import makes that comparison nearly free.

Templates, activity logs, and collaboration

Reusable board templates cover the usual setups (sprints, content calendars, pipelines) and you can save your own. Every change lands in an activity log, which matters once more than one person touches a board. Paid plans add workspace members, invite links, unlimited file uploads, and email notifications for mentions. Checklists are included on every plan, free included.

Templates deserve a specific mention for solo users. Because the free plan has no board limit, you can keep a template board per recurring workflow (weekly review, client onboarding, launch checklist) and spin up a fresh copy each time, a pattern Trello’s free tier actively punishes once you hit its cap.

Self-hosting and the MCP server

The AGPL-3.0 codebase means you can run Kan on your own server with Docker and pay nothing, with your data fully under your control. Kan also ships a Model Context Protocol server, so AI tools like GitHub Copilot or Claude can read and manipulate your boards through natural language. That is a forward-looking feature most kanban incumbents do not have yet.

How Much Does Kan Cost?

Kan’s hosted pricing starts at $0: the Free plan covers one user with unlimited boards, cards, templates, and checklists, no credit card required. Teams costs $8 per user per month and adds workspace members, invite links, unlimited file uploads, and email notifications. Pro is $24 per month flat as a launch offer (regularly $79/month) and covers unlimited members, custom roles and permissions, and custom branding. Enterprise is custom-priced with SAML SSO and an on-premise option. Every plan carries a 14-day free trial.

Against the market, the Free tier is more generous than Trello’s, but the Teams tier at $8/user/mo is pricier than Trello Standard at $5/user/mo and matches Trello Premium territory once you factor Atlassian’s frequent discounts. The flat-rate Pro plan is where the math flips: a 10-person team pays $24/mo on Kan Pro versus $100/mo on Trello Premium. For teams above five or six people, flat pricing beats per-seat fast.

And then there is the price most companies will actually pay: zero. Self-hosting is free with no licensing seat limits, which makes Kan one of the cheapest ways to run kanban for a whole team, full stop. The AGPL-3.0 license obliges you to share modifications if you offer the software to others, which matters to almost nobody running an internal board server, but check with legal if you plan to embed it in a product. Factor in a $5-10/mo VPS and basic Docker comfort, and a self-hosted Kan instance for a 15-person team costs less per month than a single Trello Premium seat.

Who is Kan Best For?

Use Kan if:

• You are a solo maker or small team that lives in kanban boards and resents Trello’s 10-board free cap and per-seat pricing.
• You want to self-host your project management on your own server and actually own your data.
• You are experimenting with AI agents and want a board tool with a native MCP server that Claude or Copilot can drive.
• Your team is six people or more, where the flat $24/mo Pro plan starts beating per-seat rivals decisively.

The Trello import means trying it costs you an afternoon, not a migration project.

Skip Kan if:

• Your workflow depends on integrations. Slack pings, GitHub links, calendar sync, and power-up equivalents are all still listed as coming soon.
• You rely on Trello’s Butler automation to move cards, assign people, and fire rules automatically.
• You need timeline, calendar, or dashboard views on top of plain boards.
• You need a vendor with a decade of enterprise track record and a compliance team. Kan is young, and it shows in breadth, not polish.

Best Kan Alternatives

Trello

The incumbent Kan is gunning for. Trello’s free tier allows 10 boards per workspace, Standard is $5/user/mo billed annually, and Premium at $10/user/mo adds timeline, calendar, and dashboard views plus Butler automation at scale. Trello still wins on integrations and automation maturity. It loses on free-tier generosity and on cost for larger teams. If you need power-ups today, stay; if you mostly drag cards, Kan does that cheaper.

Planka

Planka is the other notable open-source Trello-style board, free to self-host. It has been around longer than Kan and is a solid pick for homelab and internal-tools crowds. But it is self-host only in practice, with no polished managed cloud option to onboard non-technical teammates. Kan offering both a hosted product and open code makes it the easier recommendation for mixed teams.

Linear

If your team is shipping software, Linear is the graduate option: issues, cycles, roadmaps, and a famously fast interface, with a free tier and paid plans from $8/user/mo. It is not really a Trello replacement, it is an opinionated product development system. Choose Linear when kanban is no longer enough structure; choose Kan when kanban is exactly the right amount.

Final Verdict: Is Kan Worth It?

Kan earns its 7.8/10 by doing the unglamorous thing well: a clean, fast kanban board with no artificial limits, a Trello importer that actually lowers the switching cost, and an open-source license that lets you walk away from SaaS pricing entirely. The flat $24/mo Pro plan is quietly disruptive for teams of six or more, and the MCP server shows the project is thinking ahead.

The gaps are real. No integrations yet, no automation engine, and the usual risks of a young indie project. Our recommendation: if you need Trello’s ecosystem, wait a few release cycles and watch the integrations roadmap. If you need boards, lists, and cards done right, import your Trello workspace into Kan this week. It is free to find out, and the worst outcome is a confirmed reason to stay put.