PortBayvsKanboard
KanboardFirst, the thing everyone gets wrong: kanboard.io is not the self-hosted PHP Kanboard. Its own FAQ says so — "an independent product" that is "not affiliated with the self-hosted open source Kanboard project." With that settled, the two products here are close cousins with one structural difference. Kanboard is a hosted board with a remote MCP server at kanboard.io/api/mcp: you plan with Vim-style shortcuts and a command palette, and Claude Code, Codex or Cursor connect over HTTP to read the board, claim a task and move it to Done. Kanboard never launches the agent — you do, from wherever you already work. PortBay dispatches it: move a card to Todo and PortBay starts your agent CLI in a git worktree, inside a macOS Seatbelt profile, against a project it is already running with a pinned runtime, a database, trusted HTTPS and captured mail. One is the ledger your agents write to. The other is the machine they work on.
Which one is right for you
You want the full stack, open source.
The card should start the agent, not just record it. You want a move to Todo to launch Claude Code or Codex in its own git worktree, under a Seatbelt profile with a network policy, against an app that is already running — so the agent can apply a migration, load the page over HTTPS and read the mail it just sent. You want tasks as markdown inside the repo rather than rows in someone else's database, and a free tier that exists.
It already fits your workflow.
Your agents do not all run on one Mac. Kanboard's board lives on the web, so a cron job at 3am, a CI runner, a Linux box and your phone all see the same columns — and because it is a plain remote MCP endpoint, it works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code Copilot, Zed, Gemini CLI, Cline, OpenCode or anything else that speaks MCP over HTTP, with no client to install. If you are on Windows, if you plan by keyboard and want Vim-style H/J/K/L navigation and a ⌘K palette as the primary interface, or if you simply want a board and nothing else, Kanboard is the cleaner fit. PortBay's board is one feature of a much larger desktop app, and that is more machinery than some people want.
Where PortBay and Kanboard actually differ
The table below has the row-by-row detail. These are the three shapes it cannot draw: the job you already use one of them for, the job only one of them does, and what survives the move.
PortBay and Kanboard overlap on the everyday job: a local site on a real domain, over HTTPS, with the services it needs. If that is all you need, either will do it.
Claude Code
Codex
CursorMove a card to To Do and PortBay launches Claude Code, Codex or Cursor against a project that is already running. Kanboard has no board to dispatch from.
Point PortBay at the folders you already have. They stay where they are, .test domains are re-issued on the first run, and databases are imported rather than rebuilt.
Feature by feature
Kanboard rows come from Kanboard’s own site and docs, on the date below. PortBay rows come from the app’s source. We mark partial support honestly — including where the other side wins.
Kanboard facts on this page were last checked against kanboard.io/pricing on . Pricing and limits change — check their site before you decide.
Already using Kanboard?
You do not have to choose, because they sit at different layers. Kanboard is the board your agents reach from anywhere; PortBay is the machine one of those agents runs on. A common arrangement is to leave the shared queue on Kanboard — the cron jobs, the CI-triggered work, the tickets you file from your phone — and use PortBay for the cards that need the application actually running: a migration to apply, a page to load over HTTPS, an email to catch. If you would rather consolidate, moving is a copy job, not a migration: Kanboard's MCP server exposes get_board, list_projects and list_tasks, so an agent can read the whole board out and write the same cards into PortBay as markdown files in .portbay/tasks/. Cancel when you are ready; Kanboard lets you cancel at any time and keeps Pro until the end of the billing period.
Install PortBay and add the repository the board's tasks are actually about.
Press play — PortBay provisions the runtime, a database and trusted HTTPS for that project.
Ask Claude Code, still connected to Kanboard over MCP, to read the open tickets and file them as PortBay cards; then move one to Todo and let PortBay dispatch it.
PortBay vs Kanboard, in plain terms
No, and this trips up almost everyone who searches for it. kanboard.io is a separate, hosted product: a keyboard-first board with a remote MCP server for coding agents and a native macOS app. Its own FAQ states it is "an independent product" and "not affiliated with the self-hosted open source Kanboard project." Everything on this page is about kanboard.io. If you came looking for the self-hosted PHP application, this comparison is not about that software and does not describe it.
No — and it does not claim to. Kanboard is the board; the agent runs wherever you already run it, connects to https://kanboard.io/api/mcp with a Bearer API key, and uses nine tools to read the board, claim a task, comment and move it to Done. That is a deliberate design: because nothing runs locally, any MCP-over-HTTP client works and a cron job on a server can work the same board as your laptop. PortBay does the opposite thing — it dispatches the agent itself. Moving a card to Todo starts the agent in its own git worktree, inside a macOS Seatbelt profile, against a project PortBay is already running. It ships 11 out of the box — Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Cursor, Gemini, Aider, Copilot CLI, OpenCode, Amp, Qwen Code, Antigravity and Ollama — plus any other CLI via a Custom command template.
Checked 2026-09-06: Kanboard has one plan, Pro, at $12/month or $96/year — it advertises the annual rate as $8/month. There is no free plan; its pricing FAQ says so directly. There is a live demo board you can try in the browser with no account, but it is a demo. PortBay is $10/month for Pro, free on the Community plan for up to 6 projects, and free for life with a merged qualifying pull request or a GitHub sponsorship. Neither charges extra for agents: Kanboard includes unlimited agent API keys in Pro.
Three things, honestly. It is reachable from anywhere — a URL, so CI runners, scheduled jobs, a Linux desktop and your phone all see the same columns, while PortBay's board lives in a desktop app on one Mac. It connects to more clients with less setup, because a remote MCP endpoint plus an API key works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Codex, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code Copilot, Zed, Gemini CLI, Cline and OpenCode without installing anything. And it is genuinely keyboard-first: Vim-style H/J/K/L navigation, N to create, E to edit, X to complete and a ⌘K command palette are the primary interface, which PortBay's board is not built around.
With Kanboard, on kanboard.io. It is a hosted service and its MCP server is remote by design — its docs put it as "there's nothing to run locally." With PortBay, in your repository: each card is a markdown file under .portbay/tasks/, so it is diffable, reviewable in a pull request, and readable by an agent with nothing more than filesystem access. That also means PortBay's board works with the network off, and Kanboard's does not.
Yes, and it is a reasonable setup. They occupy different layers and neither takes ownership of your git remote. Keep Kanboard as the shared, always-reachable queue — the place cron jobs and CI file work — and use PortBay for the cards where the agent needs a running application underneath it. An agent connected to both can read a Kanboard ticket and open the matching PortBay card without anything custom in between.
Kanboard, probably. PortBay's board is one part of a desktop application that also provisions runtimes, seven database engines, trusted HTTPS, mail capture and tunnels — that machinery is the point if the agent needs to run something, and overhead if it does not. If your agents write code and open pull requests but never need the app running, and especially if some of them run on Windows or in CI, a hosted board is the lighter answer. Come back to PortBay when a card needs a migration applied or a page loaded.
Give your projects and your agents a real local home.
Download for macOSFree & open source · macOS 11+ on Apple Silicon · Pro from $10/mo