# Build Your Own Trello Alternative - Tool: Build Your Own SaaS Alternative - Last updated: May 2026 ## TL;DR Trello is Atlassian's kanban tool with ~76M monthly web visits, charging $10/user/mo Premium just for timeline and calendar views. The free tier caps at 10 boards with 250 automations/month. At complexity 4/10, a Trello clone is the easiest major productivity tool to build — 6–10 weeks at $25K–$60K with breakeven under a year at 25 seats. Plane already provides this for free with more features. ## Frequently asked questions ### How much does it cost to build a Trello alternative? Building a Trello alternative costs $25K–$60K for an MVP with kanban boards, drag-and-drop cards, timeline view, automation rules, and real-time sync. A team of 2 experienced developers takes 6–10 weeks. Using Planka (open-source, AGPL-3.0) as a starting fork reduces cost to $10K–$25K for customization work. ### How long does it take to build a Trello clone? 6–10 weeks for an MVP with a team of 2. The kanban board with drag-and-drop takes 3–4 weeks. Timeline view, automation, and deployment take another 3–4 weeks. This is the fastest build in the productivity category — the data model is shallow and the architecture is well-understood. ### Are there open-source Trello alternatives? Three solid options: Planka (~12K GitHub stars, AGPL-3.0) is the most modern React + PostgreSQL alternative with v2.0 released in December 2025. Wekan (~20.8K stars, MIT) closely mirrors Trello's interface using Meteor.js + MongoDB. Focalboard (~25K stars, AGPL-3.0) is feature-rich but effectively unmaintained since 2023 — avoid for new projects. ### Can RapidDev build a custom Trello alternative? Yes — RapidDev has built 600+ applications including kanban tools, project management platforms, and team collaboration products. Trello is the simplest build in the productivity category. Visit rapidevelopers.com/contact for a free estimate — most Trello alternatives are deliverable in 6–8 weeks. ### Why does Trello charge for timeline view when competitors include it free? Timeline view is Trello's primary Premium upgrade lever — it's the feature most requested by teams outgrowing basic kanban. Atlassian has kept it behind Premium because it's effective at converting free users to paying users. ClickUp, Notion, and Linear all include timeline/Gantt views on their free tiers, which is why Trello's market share has been under sustained pressure. ### Should I use Planka or Wekan instead of building from scratch? If you just need a self-hosted kanban board with Trello's feature set, Planka (AGPL-3.0) is the right choice — it takes an afternoon to deploy on a $5/month VPS and requires no custom development. Build from scratch only if you need features that Planka doesn't support: white-label client portals, custom field formulas, advanced reporting, or deep integrations with internal systems. ### What happens to Trello's roadmap under Atlassian? Atlassian has consistently underinvested in Trello's feature development since the 2017 acquisition. The product serves primarily as a Jira entry point in Atlassian's funnel — teams that outgrow Trello are pushed toward Jira, not given a better Trello. This makes Trello a stable but slowly improving product, and the feature gaps (reporting, dependencies, time tracking) are unlikely to be closed in the near term. ### Can I migrate my Trello boards to a custom build? Yes — Trello provides a full JSON export per board via the Trello API (GET /1/boards/{id}/export). A migration script can parse the JSON and recreate boards, lists, cards, labels, checklists, attachments, and comments in your custom database schema. Card attachment files can be downloaded from Trello's CDN URLs in the export. A typical 50-board migration takes 2–4 hours of scripting. --- Source: https://www.rapidevelopers.com/clone/trello © RapidDev — https://www.rapidevelopers.com/clone/trello