Host Kanboard without installing anything
The one kanban board that really stops you starting everything at once: each column has a limit, and the limit holds.
Starting at €4.99/month
Introduction
Kanboard installed, updated and backed up by us, on a machine in France. Visual project management on a kanban board, lean and French. Work-in-progress limits, automations, subtasks and time tracking, without the weight of the big suites. You install nothing and configure no server: the application is online a few minutes after you order, under your own name.
The plan that suits it is App Essentiel at €4.99/month incl. VAT — 2 GB of memory. Kanboard is deliberately minimal: PHP, a light database, and pages rendered on the server with no cascade of requests. It is one of the most frugal applications in the catalogue, and it stays fluid where a chattier tool struggles. The headroom goes to files attached to tasks, to the analytics — cumulative flow diagram, cycle time, burndown chart — and to the system underneath.
What gets replaced here is a board at an online vendor, or sticky notes on a wall. What sets Kanboard apart is the work-in-progress limit: a column declared at three cards refuses the fourth, and that constraint is precisely what makes tasks finish instead of pile up. Automatic actions per project handle the rest — move a card to reassign it, close a task when it reaches the last column, create a task from an email. Tasks import from CSV, export the same way, and a JSON-RPC API lets other tools plug in. A board can finally be published read-only through a link.
What managed hosting changes
A per-column limit that is actually enforced
You set the maximum number of cards "In progress" will accept, and the tool refuses the next one. It is uncomfortable for a few days, then tasks get finished before new ones are opened — where most online boards merely show a warning.
Swimlanes instead of extra boards
One lane per client, site or team crosses the same columns. You keep a single view of work in progress while still separating the flows, rather than creating six boards nobody looks at together.
Automatic actions per project
When a card enters a column, it changes assignee, takes a colour, or closes. An email sent to the project address creates a task. These rules are declared from a drop-down list, with no code and no flow engine to configure.
Estimated, spent, and what that tells you
Every task carries an estimate and a time spent, and the analytics derive cycle time, average lead time and a cumulative flow diagram. That tells you whether the board is emptying or swelling, which a glance does not.
Why hand it over rather than install it
A tradesperson tracking jobs
One card per job, columns running from quote to invoice, and photographs attached. From a phone on site you drag the card, and the office sees it straight away.
An IT team receiving requests
An email to the project address becomes a task in the inbox column, an automatic action assigns it by category, and the requester is notified when it is done.
A club organising an event
One lane per area — logistics, communications, catering — and the same stages for all. On the day, the "to do" column is empty because the work-in-progress limit forced things to be finished as they came.
A freelancer billing for time spent
Time is logged on the subtask, the task adds it up, the project totals it. The invoice is built from real hours rather than an end-of-month recollection.
A team with too much started at once
Fifteen subjects begun, none finished: that is the situation the column limit fixes. Kanboard is probably the only tool on this list that makes it a real constraint rather than advice.
Hosted in France
The software is written in France, and here the machine is too: our own datacentre in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which we operate ourselves. Your projects and your clients do not leave the country.
Frequently asked questions
Kanboard imports tasks from CSV, and that is the safest route: export your board from the old tool, put one card per row with its column, assignee and due date, and import. A community plugin exists to read a Trello export directly, but we recommend CSV, which lets you review and correct before anything is written. Attachments and comments do not follow: this is the moment to prune rather than copy everything.
Coming in: a CSV of tasks, a CSV of users, an email that creates a task, and the JSON-RPC API for everything else. Going out: CSV export of tasks, subtasks and the history of moves, an iCal feed to see due dates in your calendar, and the complete database, which reinstalls elsewhere as it is. A board can also be published read-only through a link, for a client who wants to follow along without an account.
The interface is deliberately austere: if you expect card covers and animations, this is not the tool. There is no real-time board update — you reload the page to see a colleague's move. The Gantt chart and several refinements come from plugins. There is no official mobile app; the web interface adapts to a phone. And email notifications depend on the sending relay you configure.
App Essentiel, at €4.99/month incl. VAT. It provides 2 GB of memory where the application asks for 512 MB at minimum: the headroom serves the system, not the decor. You can change plan later without reinstalling.
Nothing. You choose the application, fill in the fields it asks for — often an email address and a name — and it goes online. Access arrives by email with the address and the credentials.