Focalboard vs Plane

Focalboard

Open-source Trello/Notion/Asana alternative

Plane

Modern open-source project management

Feature Focalboard Plane
Category Project Mgmt Project Mgmt
Sub-category Kanban Project Tracker
Maturity stable stable
Complexity beginner beginner
Performance tier medium medium
License AGPL-3.0 AGPL-3.0
License type copyleft copyleft
Pricing fully free fully free
GitHub stars 22.0K 32.0K
Contributors 0 0
Commit frequency weekly weekly
Plugin ecosystem none none
Docs quality good good
Backing org Mattermost Makeplane
Funding model open_core vc_backed
Min RAM 256 MB 1 GB
Min CPU cores 1 1
Scaling pattern single_node single_node
Self-hostable Yes Yes
K8s native No No
Offline capable No No
Vendor lock-in none none
Languages Go, TypeScript TypeScript, Python
API type REST REST
Protocols HTTP HTTP
Deployment docker, binary docker
SDK languages
Team size fit solo, small, medium small, medium, enterprise
First release 2020 2020
Latest version

When to use Focalboard

  • Team task management with Kanban boards
  • Personal project tracking
  • Mattermost-integrated project management

When to use Plane

  • Primary: agile-project-management
  • Primary: issue-tracking
  • Primary: sprint-planning

Focalboard anti-patterns

  • Development has slowed (Mattermost focus shifted)
  • Less feature-rich than dedicated PM tools

Plane anti-patterns

Full Focalboard profile → Full Plane profile → All comparisons