The 8 best Kanban tools in 2025

If you're managing a project that's a bit too complex for a to-do list app but not complex enough that it requires a full-on project management app, you're looking for a Kanban app.

I've used Kanban apps a lot over the years to manage totally different kinds of projects: as a blog manager to run a content calendar, as the head of a marketing department to manage projects with my team, and I still use it today as a freelancer to juggle projects and clients. I even recently made a Kanban board for a bachelorette party I was organizing. Kanban works for everything.

Because Kanban is such an effective way to manage projects, there are a lot of great Kanban apps out there to choose from. So I spent a few weeks testing all the best Kanban tools I could get my hands on to find the best Kanban apps to suit a variety of different needs. Based on my experiences testing them, here are my top picks.

The 8 best Kanban tools 

• Trello for the best Kanban software overall

• KanbanFlow for simplicity

• Zapier Interfaces for automation

• Kanban Tool for built-in time-tracking and managing client projects

• workstreams.ai for AI-powered Kanban

• Kanbanchi for Kanban within Google Workspace

• Microsoft Planner for Kanban within Microsoft Teams

• Taskworld for larger projects and teams

What is Kanban board software?

If you're new to Kanban, head over to this article on the Kanban method or this one about how Kanban is different from Scrum and Agile. Those articles will give you a good understanding of how Kanban works and why it's so popular. But if you just need a quick refresher, I'll give you that here.

Every Kanban board app is built around three main core features: boards, lists, and cards. 

• Kanban boards are like digital workspaces. They contain the big picture of your project that you want to visualize, whether you're building a car (Kanban was invented in the 1940s by Toyota!), managing a content plan, or organizing a bachelorette party. 

• Kanban lists are workflows within your Kanban board. In their most basic form, Kanban lists appear on your board as "To do," "Doing," and "Done," but lists are most effective when they reflect the actual stages of your production line. So, for example, a Kanban board for an editorial calendar might include lists for "With editor," "Scheduled," and "Published."

• Kanban cards are tasks within your Kanban lists. In Kanban apps, cards are dragged from one list to another along the production line—generally from left to right—until they're completed. 

What makes the best Kanban tool?

First, let me clarify something: there are a lot of project management apps around that offer Kanban as part of their package, but they're not specifically Kanban tools. So if you already use a project management tool you like and it has Kanban, it's probably not worth switching to a new, dedicated Kanban tool. On the other hand, if you're looking for just Kanban, most project management apps will be too complex for your needs. As I was researching Kanban apps for this article, I tested a bunch of project management apps, too, and it became clear pretty quickly that this was the case. 

That's why all the apps included in this guide are purpose-built Kanban tools. If you're looking for a broader range of features, take a look at our list of the best free project management apps or the best Trello alternatives.

As I was testing apps, I focused on the following criteria:

• Affordability. I've focused on apps that are accessible to almost anyone. Either they come with a robust free plan, or their paid plans are affordable on a per-user-per-month basis.

• Customization. Every team works differently, and projects come in all shapes and sizes, so I've included apps that are customizable to user needs. 

• Integrations. Like any software, a Kanban app is only going to support your productivity if it can integrate with the other tools you already use. 

• Ease of use. There are a lot of pretty sophisticated Kanban apps out there, but they cater more heavily to software engineering and product development teams. This can make the interface pretty intimidating for everyone else, so I focused on more "lightweight" Kanban apps that are accessible across industries and teams.

• AI automation. While it's still early days where AI for Kanban is concerned, I looked into how some of these apps are starting to use machine learning to optimize the Kanban workflow.

I signed up for each app, created a board for each workspace, and added multiple cards and task lists to each board to see how they compared. I set deadlines for tasks, and over a two-week trial period, kept tabs on notifications that came through by email. After all my testing, I found eight apps I'd consider to be the best Kanban software.

The best Kanban software at a glance

The best Kanban software overall

Trello (Web, Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux)

Trello pros: 

• Very easy to use

• Robust free plan

Trello cons:

• No native time-tracking 

• Limited reporting

If you've only dipped your toes into Kanban before, there's a good chance it was on Trello. Trello is almost synonymous with Kanban, and well over a decade after its inception, it's still one of the best ways to use Kanban to manage your work. The learning curve when starting out with Trello is so minimal that it makes it a great Kanban tool for beginners, too.

That's mostly because it's so easy to set up, intuitive to use, and fast. Really fast. Make a new board, and your cursor automatically appears in the first list, ready for you to name it (e.g., "To do"). Tap Enter to jump to the next list, type in its name (e.g., "Doing"), and tap Enter again to jump to the next. 

You can also add a ton of cards at once. Type your cards in a bullet point list in any app, then paste them into a new Trello card: Trello will ask if you'd like to make a new card for each item.

Trello cards look simple on your boards, but they can contain as many details about your tasks as you need. Add checklists, descriptions, and comments with Markdown formatting, customize labels for extra color-coded tags about your tasks, and drag in attachments to keep files for that task together. If you need more features—like time-tracking or video chat—Trello's Power-Ups let you install apps inside Trello that add their own buttons and features to your cards.

Trello is one of the simplest Kanban apps to use, but it still has options that add extra features to make it fit the way you work. For example, you can create custom fields to reflect your processes and add buttons to cards that will let you automate repetitive board actions (like adding an existing task checklist to a card, for example).

If advanced features like custom fields and unlimited workflow automations aren't essential to how you plan to use Kanban, you'll be more than happy with Trello's free plan. I've been using the software for years, both working alone and collaborating with teams, and never once have I felt restricted by the free version. When testing the other apps in this guide, I noticed some of the best features were only accessible on paid plans. Trello gives a lot away for free. 

Plus, Trello deeply integrates with Zapier (with over 40 triggers and actions). This means you can do things like automatically create new cards when people fill out a form, when you create a calendar event, when you star an email, and more. Learn more about how to automate Trello, or get started with one of these pre-made templates.

Trello pricing: Free for up to 10 boards per workspace with 10 users and unlimited Power-Ups. From $5/month/user (paid monthly) for a Standard Plan that gives you unlimited boards and users.

The best Kanban software for simplicity

KanbanFlow (Web)

Kanban Flow pros:

• Uncluttered user interface

• Native Pomodoro timer

Kanban Flow cons:

• Design is quite dated

KanbanFlow is the most stripped-down Kanban tool I came across while testing. But sometimes, simplicity is exactly what you need. If you're looking for minimal distractions, KanbanFlow is ideal.

Even though it's basic, the tool covers all the necessities of a Kanban app—and does them well. You can add lists and cards as normal and customize your cards so they're color-coded for different types of tasks. You can even add swimlanes to divide your board into sections—perhaps to show multiple people's work on one board, or to set aside tasks that you're waiting to tackle.

The card design is also pretty simple, but it covers all bases in terms of features. You can list subtasks, include Markdown-formatted descriptions, add labels, and set how much time you think the task will take. You can even make recurring cards for the tasks that need to be done every week or month, like in a standard to-do list app.

The time estimate ties into one of KanbanFlow's most interesting features: a built-in Pomodoro timer. Click the timer button in the bottom toolbar, select a card you're working on, and start the timer. KanbanFlow will give you 25 minutes to work on it before reminding you to take a break; then it'll start timing again as you get back to work. 

My favorite thing I discovered while testing KanbanFlow is that you can view and check off subtasks straight from the board—without having to open a card. And when you tick something off a card's checklist, the item grays out rather than disappearing, which helps with visualizing overall progress toward larger tasks. You can also perform mass updates to cards—like adding a new checklist of subtasks to every card in a new list—which is really helpful if you work in sprints and need your Kanban board to reflect a new strategy without updating all the cards individually.

KanbanFlow also includes reports on the time you and your team spend on your work, along with filters to sort through your tasks and see exactly what you want in the boards. It's a great tool to get work done and keep things organized without distractions.

To do even more with KanbanFlow, you can connect it to Zapier to open up a whole load of automation options. Zapier can automatically create a card on your KanbanFlow board when you create a calendar event, send Slack messages when new tasks are created or moved, and more—no matter which apps you use for productivity.

KanbanFlow pricing: Free for unlimited boards and users with core features; $5/month/user Premium plan for attachments, swimlanes, integrations (through Zapier), and more.

The best Kanban app for automation

Zapier Interfaces

Zapier Interfaces pros:

• Sophisticated workflow automation 

• Robust integrations with thousands of apps you already use

• Easily import data from another Kanban app

Zapier interfaces cons:

• Default Kanban view is very minimal

This is the Zapier blog, so I'm a bit biased here, but Zapier Interfaces earns its place on this list because of its automation-first angle. You can use it not only to build custom Kanban views but also to set up automated workflows across thousands of apps.

Your Kanban data will actually live in Zapier Tables (new records create new cards), or you can import tasks from another Kanban app or database tool via CSV. You'll switch from Tables to Interfaces to view your Kanban board. The default Kanban view itself is simple—you won't see checklists or due dates, for example—but you can see all the details when you click into a card.

Then, you can set up actions across thousands of other apps. For example, when a card is dragged to the "Done" list, it might kick off an update in Notion, an email from Outlook, or a notification in Slack, among endless other options. If you want to integrate Kanban into the rest of your workflow, this is the way to go. Here's an example template to show you how it might work.

Applicant Tracker Template

Post a job and get notified for new candidates while keeping applicants, materials, and statuses organized in one place.

Try it

Try it

Zapier Interfaces pricing: Free for 2 Interfaces (boards) or $20/user/month for 5 Interfaces and custom branding.

The best Kanban software for built-in time tracking and managing client projects

Kanban Tool (Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux)

Kanban Tool pros:

• Color-coded cards

• Good analytics

• AI-powered card content suggestions

Kanban Tool cons:

• Free plan is very limited

Kanban Tool is another simplified Kanban app with a clean interface and minimal distractions. I really like how the color-coding pops off the screen, so you know instantly what types of tasks are currently on your plate. It's a small detail that has a big impact and makes standard color-labeling feel a bit insufficient in comparison. 

But the best thing about Kanban Tool is that it includes a handy feature to let you see where time goes: Analytics. A click away from your board, you can see a breakdown of your cards by type and generate a time report on how much work was logged each day on each card.  

You can also view a cumulative flow to see how your work is progressing toward completion and a detailed changelog with everything your team has done on your project. If you're an agency or freelancer who works on multiple projects for different clients at the same time, you can imagine just how useful this could be.  

Kanban Tool comes with a handful of templates to help you get started, with standard columns for planning projects by time, process, and more. You can customize the board, too, adding any sections and swimlanes your Kanban board needs.  

Within cards, you can choose a customizable color tag (those big, bold colors!), add your details, then click Create and add next to add the next task card. When you're working on a task, drag it to the sidebar on the right, and Kanban Tool will start timing how long you work on it; drag in a new task to switch focus. 

As simple as Kanban Tool looks, it has a ton of powerful features. You can add custom fields to your cards, name each card color from its settings, or enable Power-Ups for a calendar view, checklist templates, emoji, and more—with every change to your tasks logged back to the same detailed analytics. 

Kanban Tool also has an integrated AI assistant. The software integrates with Open AI (the folks who brought us ChatGPT), to make the whole process of setting up your Kanban boards super effective from the start. In a nutshell, the AI assistant analyzes your needs based on what you plan to use the board for, and it will suggest layouts and card types, and even automatically generate a whole load of project-specific content on your board. It always takes a bit of time to get to know the best way to use a particular Kanban app, and I like that this feature totally removes that challenge, so you can slip straight into a well-defined Kanban workflow from day one.

Kanban Tool also integrates with Zapier, so you can connect your Kanban to your to-do list, email, team chat app, and more. Here are a few examples to get you started, but it'll work with thousands of different apps. 

Kanban Tool pricing: Free for 2 boards and users; from $6/month/user Team plan for unlimited boards and attachments. Time-tracking and reporting feature is available on the Enterprise plan at $11/month/user.

The best Kanban software for AI-powered productivity

workstreams.ai (Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux)

workstreams.ai pros:

• Generative AI feature for filling out cards and creating tasks fast

• Create and manage tasks from within Slack or Teams

• Decent free plan that includes AI features

workstreams.ai cons:

• Slightly steeper learning curve when setting up

If you already use Slack or Microsoft Teams for communicating with your team, workstreams.ai is worth checking out (though I'd recommend Microsoft Planner for folks deeply embedded in the Microsoft ecosystem).

You can probably tell by the name of this app that AI and automation are at the core of how everything works, and the Slack and Teams integrations are a big part of that. Rather than creating a workstreams.ai login, you can sign up using your Slack or Microsoft account, and the integration between your communication channel and your Kanban boards is incredibly tight. So tight, in fact, that you don't even really need to spend much time on workstreams.ai itself; you can manage your board (called a "taskboard") almost entirely from Slack. 

The taskboards you create in workstreams.ai use a bot to align tasks with your Slack. You can create cards, create and check off actions, and even generate reports directly from within these channels.

I find that messages left on Kanban cards easily get lost. You might receive an email notification whenever someone tags you on a card, but it's not really an efficient way to communicate about your projects. workstreams.ai allows you to have a consistent and accessible chat around your workflows. There's a "Task chat" on every card (most other Kanban tools call them "comments"), and when you tag someone, the notification comes through instantly on Slack. 

The board itself looks slick too. The user interface is actually pretty similar to Slack's, so you'll feel right at home managing projects. Lists are called "Worksteps" and cards are called "Tasks," but they contain all the details and fields you would find in other project management apps. You can also add custom fields to cards, duplicate a card with just one click, and set up recurring tasks. It's everything you'd expect—but it all happens in your team chat app.

But what really stood out to me when testing workstreams.ai was the magic AI button that appears in various places across a card. Click the button, and it will give you options to use generative AI to perform board actions, like generating subtask lists or creating card descriptions. You can choose to give the AI instructions, or let the bot use the info it has on the board already. The longer you use workstreams.ai, the smarter it will get and the quicker you'll be able to get things done.

I was super impressed by how accurate the results were when I tested letting the AI generate subtasks based on a simple "Google ads campaign" card title. It's easy to see how much AI can speed things up when using it with Kanban in this way.

workstreams.ai pricing: Free plan for 3 users that includes most core features; $9.99/month/user for the Pro plan that includes Workstep automation, calendar view, and due dates.

The best Kanban software for using Kanban within Google Workspace

Kanbanchi (Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux) 

Kanbanchi pros:

• Tight Google app integrations

• Easy to import boards from other tools

Kanbanchi cons:

• No free plan

Kanbanchi isn't a Google product, but it's been specifically designed to work with Google Workspace: it integrates really tightly with Google Calendar, Google Meet, Google Drive, Gmail, and other Google apps. 

So it's really confusing that the interface design looks exactly like a Microsoft product. It's uncanny: Kanbanchi looks like it could be a Microsoft Teams feature. But design aside, it feels like a product for Google loyalists. For example, you can click an Add to Google Calendar button on any card to copy task due dates to your Google Calendar, so you get notifications from there. It's also easy to attach files to cards straight from Google Drive, and the other way around: you can add your Kanban board to your Drive. And you can create cards for your Kanban board directly through Gmail by emailing a specific address. 

Some more general non-Google-related things I liked about Kanbanchi were the built-in time tracker (click Start working on it, and it'll begin tracking your time) and the fact that you can add custom properties to all cards on a board in bulk with one action. 

If you're already using Trello or Jira for Kanban and thinking about switching, you can import entire boards directly from these apps (or from a CSV), and they'll appear in full on Kanbanchi.  

Kanbanchi doesn't come with a free plan, but it's recently introduced an affordable Essentials plan for $5.99 that covers most of the basics you'll need (previously, the cheapest plan was $16.99/user/month). But if you're a Google Workplace user and spend most of your time in Gmail (if you work in sales or customer service, for example), it might be worth checking out a Kanban for Gmail app like Sortd, which does have a free plan, if budget is a concern. Or, you can make your own Kanban board in Google Sheets.

Kanbanchi pricing: No free plan; Essential plan $5.99/month/user. Premium plan is $16.99/month/user, but if you want time-tracking and reporting, you'll need a Professional plan at $41.99/month/user. 

The best Kanban software for using Kanban within Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Planner (Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux) 

Microsoft Planner pros:

• Deep integration with Microsoft 365

Microsoft Planner cons: 

• Need a work email to access Planner (personal Microsoft emails can't be used)

• Reporting and AI features only available if you upgrade to a more expensive plan

If you use Microsoft 365 at work, Microsoft's Kanban tool is already available to you for free. It's called Microsoft Planner, and it's a nice, simple tool that functions as a good Kanban app for teams that use other Microsoft tools like Teams every day.  

Microsoft Planner Kanban boards look like most other Kanban apps on the market, and the fields included on cards are also similar, with descriptions, checklists, labels, and due dates. You can easily upload attachments and assign people to tasks—essentially, everything you need in a basic Kanban app.  

What makes it special is that you can add your Planner Kanban board to your Microsoft Teams channel, so it's accessed entirely from Teams. The last company I worked for moved all their process documentation, and the business more generally, over to Teams when they became a remote-first organization. The idea that a team's Kanban board can also be accessed directly from that team's channel and collaborated on in real-time is hugely appealing to these kinds of organizations.

Another stand-out feature of Microsoft Planner is the task analytics (called Charts). You've got a really nice visualization of which tasks are in progress, which ones are overdue, and which haven't been started yet.  

Microsoft Planner does come with some nice AI-powered Kanban features now through Copilot, like suggesting tasks, goals, and next steps based on tasks you've added to similar cards on the board. It can also track your progress and make suggestions to keep you on track toward reaching your goals.

The catch: to access them, you'd need to upgrade to Project Plan 3 ($30/user/month). If you're already paying for a Microsoft 365 account, shelling out an additional $30/user extra each month to use the AI features might not make the most sense. So if AI is a priority, it's probably worth checking if one of the other tools in this list can meet your needs.

Microsoft Planner pricing: Free for all Microsoft 365 users on Business plans; upgrade to Planner Plan 1 ($10/user/month) for full access to reporting or Project Plan 3 ($30/user/month) to use AI in Planner.

The best Kanban software for larger teams and projects

Taskworld (Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux)

Taskworld pros:

• Built-in board chat function

• Good for managing larger projects and teams (without overcomplicating things)

Taskworld cons:

• Steeper learning curve than some Kanban tools

• No free plan

Projects don't happen in a vacuum. If you're working on tasks for one project and there's a bump in the road that causes progress to slow, it's likely it will impact other projects too. Taskworld is built around this kind of scenario. 

It's a straightforward Kanban board with a simple interface that hasn't changed a lot over the years—but it doesn't look dated. I like that you can choose to view subtasks without opening a card, or click to shrink your cards down to a single line of text, so you can see as many cards as possible at once.

The main premise with Taskworld is that you have main tasks that you add subtasks to, and then secondary tasks associated with main tasks, which appear on the board (almost externally to the cards) as little mini-cards below them. You can also convert main cards into subtasks and associate them with the main task they're linked to. 

The way Taskworld works makes it good for managing larger teams and more complex projects. This is reflected in how you pay for it, too: they've removed the lower tier for smaller teams (presumably because it wasn't popular), so the cheapest plan is $19/user/month for unlimited users. There's also no free plan, but you can try out the tool for free for 14 days.

You can see how Taskworld would be a good Kanban app for managing larger projects with lots of smaller tasks that need to be completed before a main task can be moved to the next stage in the production line. When you complete a task, it drops to the bottom of the task list under the Completed subheader. Some apps make tasks disappear when they're checked off, which can be really unsatisfying, so I like this feature.

Each card includes a number of features to track how work's going. There's a start date and due date, as well as time spent—with a built-in timer to track your work. And then there's that all-important Location field. That's where you can add a card to multiple projects at once. When you need something from another team, just make a card and add it to their board, too, and you'll see updates along with the rest of your cards. 

Taskworld can also help you stay in touch with your team. It has a built-in project chat that's kind of like a dedicated chatroom for the entire project Kanban board. You can also create Slack-like channels for different projects to keep conversations organized. Instead of commenting only on specific tasks or cards, you can have more consistent project-wide conversations. And for a quick way to catch up on what you need to do, there's a Tasks view that shows everything that's assigned to you in one place. 

Taskworld integrates with Zapier, so you can connect it to all the other apps you use. Zapier will do things like automatically send Slack DMs when someone's added as a follower of a task, send Teams messages for completed tasks, and more.

Taskworld pricing: $19/month/user Business plan for unlimited users and active projects, plus 1 TB of storage.

Which Kanban tool should you choose?

It's a testament to how well Kanban works that project management tools are all adding Kanban to their packages. That visual trick of having multiple lists and taking your tasks through a workflow instead of only checking them off is enough to make it worth switching from a to-do list app to a Kanban app. 

If you're just starting out with Kanban, Trello is a great place to start—but if you're looking to explore other options that cater to your specific needs, one of the apps on this list will do the trick.

Figure out what it is about Kanban that makes you productive, and then choose the app that leans into that aspect of it most.

Read more:

• RACI: A map for team structure (with template)

• How to streamline project management with automation and AI

• Project management templates to organize any workflow

• Microsoft Planner vs. Trello: Which is best?

• The best Agile project management software

This article was originally published in 2017 by Matthew Guay. The most recent update was in October 2024.