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Ask HN: Alternatives to Trello?

25 points by clarry ↗ HN
I'd like to have a lightweight idea board for some projects at work. Something that leaves less clutter than creating a new gitlag ticket for every little idea that crosses your mind.

Ideally it should be simple, free & open source, and easy to self-host. Ideally it should have nothing to do with Atlassian.

Is there something that you have tried and would recommend? Something else that you tried but found to not work too well? Thanks for sharing your experience!

24 comments

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psv1
Why are you looking for an alternative if Trello fits your use case perfectly?
clarry
A proprietary SAAS backed by a terrible company does not fit my use case at all.
atsaloli
What about GitLab Issue Boards? You can self host and the UI is elegant. I wouldn't call it lightweight though, you get all of GitLab.
clarry
It's already in use for Serious Stuff and Real Issues which go through a particular process, and it works well for that.

I'd like to have a lighter weight idea board for fleeting ideas that we might eventually turn into Real Issues, or not. The kind of stuff that crosses your mind for a few seconds while you're implementing something, or something someone gives a passing mention in chat, or something that is said in a meeting.. little things that can be described in a few words, written on a post-it note or the margin of a notebook.

I really think it's a good idea to have a place to write those down (currently it's just scraps of paper for me, they get lost, and nobody else can really take a look at them), without adding more clutter to the issue board that's already used for real bugs and more developed ideas & features.

atsaloli
I get it. Why not set up another GitLab project just for that? Call it "scrapbook" or whatever, and pop the ideas into its Issues? Free of the serious process? Maybe your own project?
eb0la
Maybe PlantUML might work for your workflow (plantuml.com).

Here's an example with a _simple_ kanban board. Maybe it helps:

- PlantUML source: https://gist.github.com/igponce/0b7372621c8df7d503df80760ec1...

- Generated SVG: https://gist.github.com/igponce/f2c079536391be702f6060cfffa0...

I make PlantUML diagrams in VSCode. There is a plug in for plantuml that helps with the preview and exporting diagrams

Also (Offtopic): Not open source, but if your company already has a Microsoft Project license, you can use it like trello for sprints (and make the "done" tasks fill the gannt chart - which is still usefull for planning and resources and takes into account holidays, etc).

programd
Try Kanboard https://kanboard.org/

Minimalistic UI that gets out of your way, easy to run in Docker, fast, lightweight. I think it hits all your requirements.

sidcool
Asana, Taiga, Jira,
seattle_spring
> I'd like to have a lightweight idea board for some projects

> Something that leaves less clutter

> Ideally it should be simple, free & open source, and easy to self-host.

> Ideally it should have nothing to do with Atlassian.

I don't think JIRA fits into any of those criteria.

jkonline
Though their marketing naturally swings for the fences, I've always been impressed with Asana and it's basic simplicity (but also many [optional] integrations).

They even have a Trello comparison page: https://asana.com/compare/asana-vs-trello

kevinyun
> Ideally it should have nothing to do with Atlassian.

I'm curious, what do you have against Atlassian?

WorldMaker
Microsoft also has Planner in Office 365. It's really barebones compared to Trello, but if you are already using O365 it's an available tool.
kyle_v
I built a todo app that might interest you. It lets you nest todo items to any arbitrary level as I preferred it to the flatter trello structure especially when working with software projects that are very heirarchical in nature. It just stores data in local storage but you could easily mod it to import export json. Also has IDE inspired keyboard shortcuts for traversing the list. If you’re interested you can have the code it’s on my github.

http://recursive-todo.herokuapp.com/

PatSal
For me what works the best is the board I use since several years - http://kanbantool.com . IMHO it's one of the most user-friendly boards I've ever met with.