🩺 Vitals
- 🟢 Last active: 2026-07-18
- 📦 Latest release: v2.3.0 (2026-04-09)
- 🐞 Open issues: 203
- 🌟 Stars: 4.8k
What do these metrics mean?
- Last active: when code was last pushed, as of our last check. The dot is green when that was recent, grey otherwise. A long gap can mean a tool is finished and stable, not only unmaintained.
- Latest release: the most recent tagged, packaged version the maintainers published. Not every healthy project tags releases.
- Open issues: unresolved reports and requests. A high number is normal for a popular project and is not a warning on its own.
- Stars: how many people bookmarked the project on its forge. A rough popularity signal, not a measure of quality.
🏗️ Profile
- Official: vikunja.io
- Source: github.com/go-vikunja/vikunja
- License: AGPL-3.0
- Deployment: Docker · Bare Metal
- Data Model: SQLite / MySQL / PostgreSQL
- Jurisdiction: Germany 🇩🇪 (Individual Maintainer, EU)
- Compliance (SaaS): N/A (Undisclosed)
- Compliance (Self-Hosted): GDPR Ready
- Complexity: Low (2/5) - Docker Compose + reverse proxy
- Maintenance: Low (2/5) - Single binary / image updates
- Enterprise Ready: Medium (2/5) - Admin panel & audit logs are paid Pro features
1. The Executive Summary
What is it? Vikunja is a self-hosted, multi-view task and project manager built as a single Go binary. It presents the same project across List, Kanban, Gantt, and Table views, with labels, filters, saved views, reminders, repeating tasks, teams, and CalDAV sync, plus native import from Todoist, Trello, and Microsoft To-Do. The self-hosted core is free for unlimited users and unlimited projects, which makes it a direct sovereignty play against per-seat SaaS task managers. It is built and maintained by a single German developer studio, with EU-hosted cloud as an alternative to self-hosting.
The Strategic Verdict:
- 🔴 For Teams Needing Built-in Audit & Time Tracking: Caution. Admin panel, audit logs, and time tracking sit behind a paid Pro licence even on your own server, so "free self-hosting" does not cover the governance and billing tooling many enterprises require.
- 🟢 For EU Teams Wanting Sovereign Task Management: Strong Buy. A fast, multi-view task manager running on your own EU infrastructure, free for unlimited users, with native JSON export and no US cloud exposure.
2. The "Hidden" Costs (TCO Analysis)
| Cost Component | Todoist (SaaS) | Vikunja (Self-Hosted) |
|---|---|---|
| Seat Pricing | Per-user Pro / Business | $0 self-hosted (unlimited users) |
| Data Residency | Vendor cloud | Your own EU server |
| Gantt & Table Views | Higher tiers | Included free |
| Admin & Audit Logs | Business tier | Pro add-on (paid) |
3. The "Day 2" Reality Check
🚀 Deployment & Operations
- Installation: An official Docker Compose walkthrough, or a single Go binary; you supply the reverse proxy and a database (SQLite, MySQL, or PostgreSQL). The footprint is light and the install is well documented.
- Scalability: The stateless Go backend scales behind a load balancer with an external PostgreSQL or MySQL database, comfortably covering team-to-company scale. There is no heavyweight cluster to operate.
🛡️ Security & Governance (Risk Assessment)
- Jurisdiction & Bus Factor (Germany 🇩🇪 / EU): A German sole-proprietor entity with EU-hosted cloud means no US CLOUD Act exposure and a strong GDPR posture for EU data residency. The real caveat is governance, not geography: the project rests on a single individual maintainer with no foundation, so continuity risk (bus factor) is concentrated in one person.
- The Compliance Shift: Self-hosting hands you full GDPR data-residency control but also the entire burden — backups, infrastructure security, and the data-controller role. Note that the formal Data Processing Agreement for the managed cloud is itself an Enterprise-tier item; self-hosters act as their own controller and processor.
- License & The Open-Core Line (AGPL-3.0): AGPL-3.0 is strong copyleft: modify the backend and serve it over a network to outside users, and you must publish your changes. Internal use is unrestricted. The commercial line to watch is open-core — the core is genuinely free, but admin panel, audit logs, and time tracking are Pro-licensed even on self-hosted instances, so budget for Pro if your governance needs those.
4. Market Landscape
🏢 Proprietary Incumbents
- Todoist: A popular per-seat task manager; teams choose Vikunja to self-host on EU infrastructure, drop per-user fees, and keep task data off a US cloud.
- Asana: Enterprise work management with the same multi-view model (List, Board, Timeline); organizations weigh Vikunja when they want comparable views without per-seat pricing or vendor data custody.
🤝 Open Source Ecosystem
- Planka: A lighter, Trello-style Kanban board for teams that only need a card wall rather than Vikunja's Gantt and Table views.
- OpenProject: A heavier enterprise PM suite (work packages, Gantt, time tracking) for organizations that need formal project governance beyond fast task tracking.