Kaneo

Kaneo is an open-source project management tool built by Andrej Acevski under the MIT license, designed around the principle of "all you need, nothing you don't." It is available as a self-hosted deployment via Docker Compose or the drim CLI, and also as a managed cloud offering. The project has accumulated over 6,900 GitHub stars since its creation in late 2024.

What It Is

Kaneo is a lightweight, self-hosted alternative to tools like Jira, Trello, and Linear. It provides board, list, and Gantt views backed by a single source of truth, with task ownership, due dates, priorities, and labels as its core planning primitives. The tool is written in TypeScript using React on the frontend and Hono on the backend, with PostgreSQL as the database.

Core Workflow

Kaneo organizes work around projects within a workspace. Tasks move through configurable statuses visible in both board and list views, keeping planning and execution aligned without duplicating state. Key workflow features include:

• Board and list views that share the same underlying data
• Labels for grouping initiatives like onboarding, backend, or customer-feedback
• Priority and due date assignment without requiring heavy process overhead
• Native GitHub and Gitea integration to sync issues and align product planning with development
• Outgoing webhooks for Slack, Discord, and custom HTTP notifications

Deployment Model

Self-hosting is the primary deployment path. Kaneo ships as a single container image (ghcr.io/usekaneo/kaneo:latest) that bundles the API and web frontend, paired with PostgreSQL. The drim CLI tool automates setup with automatic HTTPS and database configuration in a single command. For larger infrastructure, a Helm chart is provided for Kubernetes deployments. Advanced users can still run the API and web images separately. The self-hosted path is free forever under the MIT license with no feature restrictions, including SSO.

Open-Source Architecture

The repository (usekaneo/kaneo) is MIT-licensed and actively maintained, with the latest release being v2.12.1 published in July 2026. The project uses a monorepo structure with pnpm and accepts community contributions via GitHub Issues and a Discord server. Kaneo is funded through GitHub Sponsors rather than a venture-backed model, keeping it independent.

Update: v2.12.1

The latest release is v2.12.1, published on July 30, 2026. The repository shows active development with frequent pushes to the main branch and 92 open issues as of early August 2026. The project direction emphasizes keeping the feature set intentionally narrow while improving reliability and self-hosting ergonomics. A managed cloud offering (Kaneo Cloud) was introduced alongside the self-hosted path, with accounts created before paid plans launched receiving at least 12 months of free access and a full export or self-hosting migration path.

Who It Is For

Kaneo targets small-to-medium engineering teams and individual developers who want a fast, privacy-respecting project management tool without the overhead of enterprise platforms. The self-hosted model appeals to teams with data sovereignty requirements. The cloud offering serves users who want managed hosting without running their own infrastructure.