Desktop Kanban, honestly reviewed. No marketing fluff, just what you get when your data stays on your machine.

TL;DR

What it is: Free, open-source (GPL-3.0) desktop Kanban board app for Windows, macOS, and Linux — built with Tauri and Nuxt, stores everything in a local .json file [README][website].
Who it’s for: Solo founders, indie developers, and personal users who want a clean Kanban board without an account, a server, or a monthly bill. Not for teams [website].
Cost savings: Trello Premium runs $5/user/month, Notion Plus is $10/user/month, Linear starts at $8/user/month. Kanri is $0, forever, with no usage limits [README].
Key strength: Completely offline and private. Your tasks never leave your machine. Clean UI with unlimited boards, columns, and cards — no tier gating [README][1].
Key weakness: No cloud sync, no mobile app, no collaboration. This is explicitly a personal productivity tool still in pre-1.0 development. The README itself tells you to make regular backups [README].

What is Kanri

Kanri is a desktop Kanban board application — not a web service, not a self-hosted server, not a SaaS. You download an installer (or use Homebrew on macOS), open it, and your boards live in a .json file on your local disk. Nothing goes anywhere. No account, no telemetry, no internet required [README][website].

The name comes from 管理 (kanri), the Japanese word for “management” or “administration” — a nod to Kanban’s Toyota origins [website about page].

It’s built on Tauri (a Rust-based framework for building native desktop apps with web frontends) and Nuxt (Vue-based web framework), with TypeScript throughout. The stack choice matters because Tauri apps are significantly lighter than Electron alternatives — you don’t get 200MB of bundled Chromium just to move sticky notes around [README].

The project is maintained by trobonox (trobo@kanriapp.com), a solo developer who started it in 2022. It has 1,814 GitHub stars as of this writing, which is modest but reflects the niche: personal desktop productivity tools don’t go viral on Hacker News the way infrastructure software does.

What it is not: a team tool, a project management platform, or a Jira replacement. The website is direct about this — “designed for personal users and solo/indie developers” [website about page]. If you’re managing a team or need someone else to see your boards, Kanri is not the answer.

Why people choose it

The release announcement coverage [1][2][3][4] is largely repetitive — the same paragraph describing the same features across four version releases — but the consistent framing tells you something about how people find it: they’re searching for an offline Trello alternative.

The pitch that appears across every mention: “a solid offline substitute for Trello, aiming to provide a user-friendly and simplified Kanban experience” [1][2][3][4]. That framing is accurate. The people choosing Kanri are not migrating from Linear or Notion. They’re people who:

Used Trello’s free tier and now find it too limited or don’t want to create yet another cloud account
Want task management that works on a plane, in a café without wifi, or in a corporate environment where browser-based SaaS is blocked
Have privacy concerns about which tasks and project names they expose to third-party servers
Just want something fast that opens immediately and doesn’t sync anything anywhere

One release note [1] describes the use case plainly: “a color-coded system where specific colors denote additional tasks that require further investigation and potential questions that you may wish to address with your team.” That’s personal work coordination, not team collaboration.

The Trello comparison is the right anchor. Trello’s free plan limits you to 10 boards, adds Workspace-level restrictions, and is unavoidably a cloud service that requires authentication. Kanri’s free plan is: unlimited everything, no account, no server [README][website]. The trade is cloud sync and collaboration for total data ownership and zero cost.

Features

Based on the README, website, and release notes:

Core Kanban:

Unlimited boards, columns, and cards [README][website]
Drag-and-drop card movement between columns [website]
Rich text card descriptions with Markdown-style formatting [website]
Sub-tasks that can be hidden from the main board view [1][2][3]
Due dates on cards [README]
Tags for categorization [README]
Color coding per card [1][2][3][4]

Customization:

Custom background images per board [README][website]
Custom card colors [README]
Multiple built-in themes: dark mode, light mode, Catppuccin [website]
Board-level rename, export, and delete [1][3]

Power user features:

Keyboard shortcuts for board navigation [README][website]
Data export to back up or transfer boards [website]
Portable version available (no install required) [1][2]

Installation:

Native installers for Windows, macOS, Linux from kanriapp.com
Homebrew cask for macOS: brew install --no-quarantine kanriapp/cask/kanri [README]

What’s not there (yet):

No cloud sync — this is on the roadmap but not shipped [README]
No mobile app
No collaboration or shared boards
No REST API for integrations
No reminders or notifications — also on the roadmap [1][2][3]
No internationalization yet (listed as a 1.0 target) [README]

The README is candid about the roadmap: the current focus is refactoring and adding “small/mid-sized features with high impact,” with cloud sync and collaboration being assessed only after a 1.0 release [README]. The implication is clear: don’t buy into Kanri expecting Trello-with-sync to land next quarter. That’s a post-1.0 decision.

Pricing: SaaS vs self-hosted math

There’s no pricing to calculate here. Kanri is free. It has no tiers, no usage limits, and no commercial license gating features [README][website].

For context, here’s what you’d pay for the closest alternatives:

Personal Kanban SaaS:

Trello Free: 10 boards max, unlimited cards, basic features — functional but limited
Trello Premium: $5/user/month — unlimited boards, advanced views, integrations
Notion Free: limited page history, limited integrations, requires account
Notion Plus: $10/user/month — full history, unlimited uploads

Team-oriented tools (different category, included for context):

Linear: $8/user/month for the Starter plan
Jira: $8.15/user/month for Standard

Kanri’s honest comparison is against Trello Free and Notion Free. If you’re a solo user on Trello Free and hitting the 10-board limit, the Kanri math is: $5/month saved, all your data stays local, works offline. The annual savings are $60 — not a life-changing number, but it compounds with the privacy and offline benefits.

If you’re on Trello Premium as a solo user paying $5/month just for yourself, the math is $60/year saved. More relevant is the principle: you stop paying for a service that could change pricing, shut down, or read your task data.

One caveat: data availability. Kanri stores everything in a .json file on your disk. If you don’t back it up and your drive fails, the data is gone. The README explicitly warns about this: “Please make regular backups/exports to prevent any data loss” [README]. Cloud services have this handled automatically. With Kanri, that’s your job.

Deployment reality check

“Deployment” here means downloading an installer and double-clicking it. There’s no server, no Docker, no nginx, no database configuration.

macOS:

brew install --no-quarantine kanriapp/cask/kanri

Or download the .dmg from kanriapp.com. Apple Silicon users running the direct download (not Homebrew) need to run:

xattr -cr /Applications/kanri.app

…to bypass the “app is damaged” gatekeeper error that appears with unsigned third-party apps [README]. This is a macOS security feature, not a Kanri bug, but it will confuse non-technical users.

Windows: Download the .msi installer from the website. Standard Windows installer flow.

Linux: Installers available from the website. A portable version requires no installation [1][2].

Realistic time from zero to first board: 3–5 minutes for anyone who has installed software before. Under 10 minutes including the Apple Silicon gatekeeper workaround.

What can go wrong:

The Apple Silicon gatekeeper error is real and undocumented on the homepage — it catches first-time users [README]
Your data file is a single .json on disk, so file path matters. If you move the app or change users, you need to know where the file lives
No automatic backup. If the .json gets corrupted during a crash, data is at risk [README]
The app is pre-1.0 and explicitly provided “AS IS” — the README doesn’t hide this [README]

For technical users, none of this is problematic. For a non-technical founder who just wants tasks to work: the install is trivial, but the backup discipline is on you.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Zero cost, no limits. Unlimited boards, columns, and cards. No tier that forces you to upgrade [README][website].
Completely offline. Your task data never leaves your machine. No account required, no telemetry, no vendor who can read your project names [website][1].
Lightweight native app. Built on Tauri, not Electron — meaningfully lighter on memory and startup time than most cross-platform desktop apps.
Clean, modern UI. The release coverage consistently calls it “sleek and intuitive” and contrasts it positively with older tools [1][2][3][4]. The Catppuccin theme support signals attention to the kind of user who cares about their desktop environment.
GPL-3.0 licensed. Source code is public, you can audit it, fork it, or verify what it does with your data [README].
Homebrew install on macOS. One-liner setup for technical users, no manual file downloads [README].
Sub-tasks, due dates, tags, rich text — the card feature set is competitive for a personal tool [README][website].
Data export — you can get your boards out in a portable format [website].

Cons

No cloud sync. If you work across multiple machines, you’re copying the .json manually or not syncing at all. This is a hard limit, not a configuration issue [README].
No mobile app. Phone-based capture of tasks doesn’t exist. You need your laptop/desktop to interact with your boards.
Pre-1.0, provided “AS IS.” The README is honest about this, which is good — but it means feature stability and data format aren’t yet frozen [README].
Single .json file is a backup liability. No redundancy, no version history. One bad crash or accidental overwrite and your boards are gone unless you’ve been exporting manually [README].
No collaboration. This is by design, but worth stating: no shared boards, no comments, no assignments to other people.
No reminders or notifications. Due dates are visible on cards but don’t trigger alerts [1][README roadmap].
Apple Silicon install friction. The gatekeeper workaround required for non-Homebrew installs is a speed bump that will confuse some users [README].
Solo maintainer. One developer managing a cross-platform desktop app across three operating systems. Responses to issues “might take a few days” per the README [README].

Who should use this / who shouldn’t

Use Kanri if:

You’re a solo founder or indie developer who wants a personal task board that works offline, requires no account, and costs nothing.
You already have Trello Free and you’re hitting the 10-board limit or you’re annoyed by the mandatory login.
You work in environments without reliable internet (flights, remote locations, corporate networks with SaaS restrictions).
Privacy of your task and project names matters to you — you don’t want them indexed on a third-party server.
You’re on macOS and want a clean Homebrew-installable option.

Skip it (use Trello or Notion instead) if:

You need to share boards with a team or even one other person.
You work across multiple devices and need sync without manual file management.
You need mobile capture — adding tasks on your phone while away from your desk.
You want reminders and notifications from your task tool.

Skip it (use Linear or Jira) if:

You’re managing a software engineering team with sprints, issue tracking, and code integration.
You need GitHub/GitLab integration, SLAs, or any kind of workflow automation.

Skip it (use WeKan or Planka) if:

You want a self-hosted server that your whole team accesses via a browser, with user accounts and shared boards.

Alternatives worth considering

Trello — the obvious comparison. Cloud-based, free tier limited to 10 boards, large ecosystem of integrations. Pick Trello over Kanri if you need mobile access or team sharing [1][2][3][4].
Notion — far more feature-rich (databases, wikis, docs) but significantly more complex, cloud-only free tier with limits, requires account. Pick Notion if you want a full workspace tool, not just Kanban.
Obsidian (with Kanban plugin) — another offline-first option if you’re already in the Obsidian ecosystem. More setup complexity but deeper integration with notes.
WeKan — self-hosted server Kanban that you run on a VPS. Pick WeKan if you need a team-accessible board that lives on your own infrastructure rather than a desktop app.
Planka — another self-hosted server Kanban, cleaner UI than WeKan, MIT-licensed. Same trade-off: server overhead, but team-accessible.
Focalboard — the open-source Kanban/database tool that Mattermost acquired. More powerful, more complex, available as both desktop app and self-hosted server.
AppFlowy — Notion alternative, open source, offline-capable desktop app. Better pick than Kanri if you want docs + databases alongside Kanban.

The realistic shortlist for a solo founder wanting zero-cost offline Kanban: Kanri vs. Obsidian Kanban plugin. Kanri wins on simplicity and dedicated UX. Obsidian wins if you already live there and want task-notes integration.

Bottom line

Kanri does one thing well: it gives you a clean, fast, offline Kanban board that costs nothing and keeps your data on your machine. For a solo founder who wants to organize their own work without another SaaS account, another monthly bill, or another service that could change pricing next year, Kanri is the honest answer. The trade-offs are real — no sync, no mobile, no collaboration, pre-1.0 stability caveats — and the project is candid about all of them. If the feature set matches your workflow, there’s nothing to evaluate here except whether you back up your .json file. That’s a good position for a productivity tool to be in.

If you need team features or cross-device sync, Kanri isn’t ready for that yet. The roadmap suggests it’s coming, but post-1.0 timelines are undefined. For now, it’s a personal tool, and within that scope, it’s a well-built one.