Hi Folks,
I’ve used Ticktick as a SaaS task manager app for years now. There was a time when I had tried almost every productivity app under the sun and Ticktick had the best features and app and a WAY better pricing structure than alternatives like Todoist. Nevertheless, I had growing concerns about privacy and control of my own data as I need to be able to trust my to-do app with information about my life that I don’t want repeated to every advertiser on the internet. Bearing in mind the state of the internet in general, I’ve been slowly cutting away all my SaaS dependencies and it may be close to time for me to say goodby to an app that kept me sane for over a decade of my life. I’d like to move to a self-hosted solution, first for myself and eventually I’ll migrate my family to a shared project on the new solution.
What do you use to stay organized? Why do you like it?
Can you recommend something for my needs?
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Some sort of custom lists logic where I can filter with some sort of typed or gui-button filter to see and save specific views of my tasks/cards, for example “overdue+project:yard+tag:do_it_later”
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Must be source available, but I prefer open-source especially the less shareware-y less crippled versions. There’s a lot of subscription/shareware/FOSS+sub kind of stuff in this space and I’d rather use whatever the neckbeard & fedora FOSS purists use.
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I’m mostly used to the getting things done (GTD) methodology with task managers that use lists, but I am not opposed to using a tool that uses Kanban boards or something else.
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I’m partial to something that I can grow into (more of a accessible but powerful project management tool and less of a simple todo app) but I only need to account for 2-3 users and a few thousand tasks a year with minimal media attachments.
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I prefer something I can deploy via docker though I wouldn’t completely rule out a bare-metal install if the feature set justified it.
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Must have support for recurring tasks natively or via a plugin.
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Bonus points for native android(graphene)/ios apps, but access via webapp is acceptable
I’ve tried a lot of the NextCloud based solutions. I’ve tried Vikunja (which is pretty good and AGPL), and I’m currently messing with Planka which is good, but isn’t open-source which really isn’t where I’m trying to go with this. Kanboard is under the MIT license, but seems to have a steeper learning curve.
I’m looking forward to hearing what the community uses!
I’m currently using NextCloud + Davx5 + Tasks.org and am quite satisfied. I think it supports basically everything you are asking for. I’ve also toyed with jtx Board but Tasks.org felt cleaner. I always manage my tasks on my phone, but I know the tasks show up in Thunderbird desktop. Not sure about the functionality though.
Have you taken a look at TaskWarrior? It’s pure FOSS, extremely powerful, has multiple self hosting options, multiple front ends, including Android native, and supports everything on your list.
It’s also extremely neckbeardy, has a boring website, decent online documentation but a much better man page. TaskWarrior is highly scriptable, with json input/output options if you like. I love it.
EDIT: The filter from your example would be written
+OVERDUE +do_it_later proj:yardin TaskWarrior’s filter method.EDITx2: I use Debian Stable, btw. ;)
I believe Vikunja fits your needs, you have both list and kanban views, open source, categories + tags + deadlines and filters, docker is available, PWA (not sure about an app, I never use apps), recurring tasks, and more (I like staring tasks, OIDC support, subcategories, and I don’t use it but it can also be collaborative)
I’m pretty happy with it to be honest, just try it and see for yourself, I think they have a demo on their website :)

