I have been using Kanboard for some time now, and can recommend it. There is - as far as I know it - not yet a native desktop client, but the web-interface works quite well: https://kanboard.org/ (not affiliated in any way - just a safisfied user)

It's a php app. All you have to do to run it locally is use the php server:

php -S localhost:8001

Open in your browser:

localhost:8001/index.php

You can also directly access the sqlite database if you want.

Also running this on a raspberry pi I have stuffed somewhere in a closet, it's genuinely great. Web interface even works decently on mobile (mostly use it for viewing and dragging not creating issues).

That looks cool! Does it have APIs?

Edit: yes it has!

I'll be trying this tonight.

While it is maintained by Atlassian, I found this react library really useful for making customized Trello boards for myself https://github.com/atlassian/react-beautiful-dnd

Creating cards that made sense for my use case was fun... I was going to play with adding a card type that I could work on to create notes with my apple pencil, a bit like postit notes... Anyway, a silly side project for me I guess, but worth a look if you're heavily invested in Kanban format

I suppose this only affects you if you have a second account attached to your Trello boards, but there was a thread about Atlassian transferring ownership of personal boards to a company yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22873578

It's a specific pitfall that -- for a lot of people -- can be easily avoided, but it doesn't speak to them being friendly towards individual users.

This might change your mind https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22873578

If you're a Teams user, there's Microsoft Planner.

Thanks for this reminder. I wish I could view things in Gantt (rather than just calendar) format.

Github has a basic kanban board and since private repositories are free, it can be used as replacement to Trello.

Gitlab also has kanban boards, which I really like. Sometimes I wish I could just use the kanban boards to manage tasks, without having all the associated software development tools in the UI.

Or maybe, a better idea would be the ability to log in straight to the boards, without having to navigate via projects etc.

If you want a desktop (Windows and Mac) Kanban application you might want to look at: https://www.hyperplan.com

It is commercial software. I am the author.

If you don't mind me asking, how do you organize your thinking/planning a cross boards/projects?