Focalboard

App in the BluixApps catalog

What it is

Focalboard is a self-hosted project management tool — kanban boards, table view, gallery view, card properties, Notion-style nested pages. Built by Mattermost (the open-source Slack alternative) as a fully open Trello/Notion-board replacement.

Lightweight, single-binary in Personal Server mode, scales up to multi-team via Mattermost integration.

What it's for

  • Personal task management — boards for personal projects
  • Small-team kanban — sprints, bug tracking, content calendars
  • Notion-board alternative — without Notion's pricing or cloud-only nature
  • Roadmap visualization — table + timeline views
  • Mattermost-integrated PM — bundle with Mattermost for chat + boards

Who it's for

  • Solo developers / freelancers managing personal projects
  • Small teams (≤10) wanting Trello without paying per seat
  • Open-source projects running public roadmap boards
  • Privacy-conscious users rejecting Atlassian/Asana SaaS
  • Mattermost users extending their stack with boards

Why teams pick Focalboard over alternatives

  • MIT licensed (CE) — fully open Community Edition
  • Lightweight — single binary; minimal ops
  • Multi-view — kanban + table + gallery + calendar (Notion-class)
  • No per-seat pricing — self-hosted, unlimited users
  • Mattermost-backed — well-funded company maintaining it
  • Templates — onboarding, content calendar, bug tracking, sprint planning

Integrations

  • Mattermost — boards available inside Mattermost channels (Mattermost integration mode)
  • Slack — limited via webhooks
  • API — REST API for automation
  • Webhooks — outbound events
  • OIDC / OAuth — via reverse proxy
  • Cards-to-issues — manual export, no native GitHub/Jira sync

Notable users & community

  • 21k+ GitHub stars
  • Backed by Mattermost Inc. (well-funded company)
  • Used by open-source projects for public roadmaps
  • Active community in Mattermost forum
  • Multi-language support

Tips & operations

  • Personal Server mode — single-user oriented; no team RBAC
  • Multi-user = Mattermost mode — deploy alongside Mattermost for full team setup
  • SQLite default — simple ops; backup = single file copy
  • Workspaces — separate "personal" / "work" / "client X" inside same instance
  • Templates first — explore the built-in templates before building from scratch
  • Backup = data/ directory — sqlite + uploads in one place

What we ship in BluixApps

  • Docker: Focalboard Personal Server
  • Pinned mattermost/focalboard:latest
  • Port 8088 (HTTP), reverse-proxy ready
  • Persistent volume for /opt/focalboard/data (SQLite + uploads)
  • Install report with first-user + workspace bootstrap
  • Note on Personal vs Team mode difference
  • Backup hook covers data directory
Read this app's deep dive on bluix.app ↗

Get this app — pick a BluixApps plan

Same catalog. Scaling tenant isolation, white-label and support tier.

TierTenantsCatalogSupportWhite-labelMonthly
Stacks119 curated stacksStandard$19/moDetailDeploy
Starter10Full catalogStandard+$15–25/mo$49/moDetailDeploy
Pro25Full catalogPriority bugfix+$15–25/mo$149/moDetailDeploy
Growth100Full catalogPriority bugfix+$15–25/mo$349/moDetailDeploy
Scale500Full catalog7-day window+$15–25/mo$799/moDetailDeploy
EnterpriseUnlimitedFull catalogPriority 7-dayBundled$1,499/moDetailDeploy

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