Kanera

Kanera is a project management application for organising work in workspaces, boards, lists, and cards. Lists, labels, and custom fields are defined at workspace level and shared by the boards in that workspace.

Visit kanera.app | Documentation | Getting Started | Pricing | Features

Data Model

Organisation
  └─ Workspace
       └─ Board
            └─ Card

Workspace members can access public boards in the workspace. Private boards can further restrict access through board membership.

Board configuration is workspace-scoped: every board in a workspace uses the same lists, labels, and custom fields. This differs from tools such as Trello, where those settings are generally configured separately for each board.

Features

• Kanban, List, Calendar, Assigned Work, and Work Done views
• Cards with comments, attachments, activity history, watchers, and assignable checklist items
• Workspace- and board-level notes
• Mentions, notifications, push notifications, and workspace activity
• Trigger-based automations
• Full-text search and filters
• REST API, webhooks, and an MCP server
• Trello and Kanera imports, with Excel and JSON exports
• Responsive web interface and installable progressive web app

Hosted or Self-Hosted

Kanera can be used as a hosted service or deployed on your own infrastructure.

Hosted Kanera starts with a 30-day Pro trial, no card required. After that, teams can stay on Basic, upgrade to Pro, or self-host. See Pricing for the current plan details.

The self-hosted deployment uses the same codebase as Kanera Pro and has no per-seat charge. Operators are responsible for infrastructure, storage, maintenance, and backups.

For self-hosting:

• Standard Docker deployment: DEPLOY.md
• Dokploy deployment: DOKPLOY_DEPLOY.md
• Self-hosting guide: kanera.app/docs/self-host

Source Available

Kanera is source available under the Elastic License 2.0. You may inspect, modify, and self-host the software for your own use. You may not provide Kanera to third parties as a hosted or managed service.

The Kanera name, logo, and brand assets are covered separately by TRADEMARKS.md.

For Developers

This repository contains the Kanera application and supporting services.

Stack: Angular 21, Fastify 5, Socket.IO 4, Postgres 18, Drizzle ORM, Valkey, Docker Compose, and pnpm workspaces.

Local Setup

Prerequisites:

• Node.js 24
• pnpm 11, usually through corepack enable
• Docker, for local Postgres and Valkey

Install dependencies and configure environment:

pnpm install
cp .env.example .env

The example file contains development defaults for Postgres on localhost:5433 and Valkey on localhost:6379. Replace JWT_SECRET and MEDIA_SIGNING_SECRET with unique random values before exposing the application outside your local machine.

Start local infrastructure, run migrations, then start the app:

pnpm dev:db
pnpm db:migrate
pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:4200.

Adminer is available at http://localhost:8080. The public API and MCP server run separately when started with pnpm dev:public-api and pnpm dev:mcp.

To load a realistic demo workspace:

pnpm dev:db:reset:seed

Seed account details live in dev-db-seed-content/README.md.

Useful Commands

pnpm dev                 # api :3000 + worker :3003 + web :4200
pnpm dev:public-api      # public integration API on :3001
pnpm dev:mcp             # MCP server on :3002
pnpm dev:db              # local Postgres + Valkey + Adminer
pnpm dev:db:down         # stop local database services
pnpm db:generate         # generate Drizzle migrations
pnpm db:migrate          # apply pending migrations
pnpm build               # build the web app and type-check the other packages
pnpm lint                # type-check and lint all packages
pnpm test                # run unit and integration test suites
pnpm test:api            # API unit and route tests
pnpm test:api:integration # API integration tests with isolated Postgres

Repository Layout

apps/api/           Fastify API, worker, public API, migrations
apps/web/           Angular web app
apps/mcp/           MCP server for AI clients
packages/shared/    Shared schema, DTOs, events, and workspace defaults
docker/             Local and production support files

Architecture Notes

• Workspace-first model: lists, labels, and custom fields are shared across boards. Workspace membership is the default access model; private boards can further restrict membership.
• Realtime collaboration: REST is the write path, Socket.IO fans out typed events to connected clients.
• Durable events: board- and workspace-scoped events are recorded in an outbox for cross-process realtime delivery and webhooks.
• Public API and webhooks: workspace API keys support integrations without exposing user credentials.
• MCP support: AI clients can connect to Kanera as structured project context through the MCP service.

License

Source available under Elastic License 2.0.