What is Wekan used for?

Wekan is listed as a Productivity tool on TiloBox. Review the overview, features, and official documentation on this page to decide whether it solves your specific workflow.

How do I get started with Wekan?

Start with the project's GitHub repository and official website for supported installation and deployment instructions. Test the setup with representative data or a small project before rolling it out more widely.

What license does Wekan use?

Wekan is listed under the MIT license. Read the complete license text and the project's notices before using, modifying, or distributing the software.

Is Wekan ready for production use?

Production readiness depends on your requirements. Review maintenance activity, security practices, documentation, backup and upgrade procedures, and compatibility with your stack; then validate it in a non-production environment.

Is Wekan an alternative to Trello?

Wekan is listed as an alternative to Trello. Compare the core workflow, deployment model, integrations, and licensing against your must-have requirements before switching.

Productivity Alternative to Trello Alternative to Jira

Wekan

The open-source Kanban board with complete data privacy and enterprise integrations.

View on GitHub Visit website

LicenseMIT

GitHub stars21.1k

Last commit1 weeks ago

Tags6 topics

JavascriptProductivitySelf HostedTrello AlternativeMeteorKanban

Overview

Why consider Wekan?

Wekan is an open-source Kanban board built with Meteor and Node.js. It features swimlanes, custom fields, rule automations, LDAP/OIDC sync, and Trello board import.

Guided learning

Learn Wekan by building

Practical setup notes, real use cases, and copy-ready examples in one focused guide.

3 min read 10 sections

In this guide10 sections

What is Wekan?

Wekan is an established open-source Kanban board application built with Meteor.js, Node.js, and MongoDB. Known as one of the earliest and most feature-complete open-source alternatives to Trello and Jira, Wekan provides a privacy-first workflow management platform used by thousands of companies, non-profits, and educational institutions globally.

Wekan delivers advanced workflow features beyond basic boards: horizontal Swimlanes, custom card fields, automated conditional rules and triggers, Gantt and calendar views, subtasks, complete Trello board import tools, and enterprise authentication (LDAP, SAML, OIDC).

Who Is It For?

Enterprise IT & Operations Teams: Hosting private Kanban boards with Active Directory / LDAP authentication and role-based permissions.
Project Managers: Coordinating complex multi-tier projects using horizontal swimlanes and automated card routing rules.
Privacy Advocates: Migrating away from proprietary cloud platforms with one-click Trello JSON board imports.

Key Features

Comprehensive Kanban organization: Horizontal swimlanes, lists, cards, subtasks, checklists, and color labels.
One-click Trello import: Migrate full Trello boards including cards, attachments, comments, and members seamlessly.
Visual Rule Automations: Configure triggers and actions (e.g. "When a card is moved to Done, unassign all members and send email").
Advanced view modes: Switch between traditional Kanban, Calendar, List, and Gantt timeline perspectives.
Enterprise directory integration supporting LDAP, Active Directory, SAML 2.0, and OpenID Connect (OIDC).

Deploying Wekan with Docker Compose

yaml

1version: '3.7'

3services:

4 wekan:

5 image: ghcr.io/wekan/wekan:latest

6 container_name: wekan_app

7 restart: unless-stopped

8 ports:

9 - "8080:8080"

10 environment:

11 - MONGO_URL=mongodb://wekan-db:27017/wekan

12 - ROOT_URL=http://localhost:8080

13 - WITH_API=true

14 depends_on:

15 - wekan-db

17 wekan-db:

18 image: mongo:6-jammy

19 container_name: wekan_db

20 restart: unless-stopped

21 volumes:

22 - ./db_data:/data/db

Start the instance:

bash

1docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser to register your initial administrator account.

Practical Use Cases

1. Multi-Team Horizontal Swimlane Board

A software department structures a single Kanban board with horizontal swimlanes for "Backend", "Frontend", and "QA", managing cross-team sprint dependencies in one unified view.

2. Automated Card Routing & Status Updates

An operations team configures Wekan rules so that whenever a card receives the "Urgent" label, it is automatically moved to the top of the priority list and assigned to the team lead.

3. Full Trello Migration

A company exports JSON board archives from Trello, importing them directly into Wekan with complete fidelity of task checklists and card histories.

Troubleshooting and Limitations

ROOT_URL Configuration: The ROOT_URL environment variable must match your exact browser access URL (including protocol and port) to ensure WebSockets and asset links function properly.
MongoDB Compatibility: Wekan requires standard replica-set or standalone MongoDB instances; ensure compatible MongoDB versioning (v5 or v6) as specified in official release notes.

Official Resources

Official Website: https://wekan.github.io
GitHub Repository: https://github.com/wekan/wekan
Documentation & Wiki: https://github.com/wekan/wekan/wiki

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