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
Get this app — pick a BluixApps plan
Same catalog. Scaling tenant isolation, white-label and support tier.
| Tier | Tenants | Catalog | Support | White-label | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stacks | 1 | 19 curated stacks | Standard | — | $19/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Starter | 10 | Full catalog | Standard | +$15–25/mo | $49/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Pro | 25 | Full catalog | Priority bugfix | +$15–25/mo | $149/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Growth | 100 | Full catalog | Priority bugfix | +$15–25/mo | $349/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Scale | 500 | Full catalog | 7-day window | +$15–25/mo | $799/mo | DetailDeploy |
| Enterprise | Unlimited | Full catalog | Priority 7-day | Bundled | $1,499/mo | DetailDeploy |