Vibe Kanban is shutting down: a Mac alternative
bloop, the company behind Vibe Kanban, shut down in 2026 (announced 10 April); the project continues as community-maintained open source. You can keep using it, and it's now a fully local app. If you want a maintained, paid Mac app with a board one agent keeps current and per-task token cost, Hatchlog is the place to move. If you're not on a Mac, stay on the community build or use Backlog.md.
This is an honest page from the person who makes Hatchlog, written for people searching for where to go now that Vibe Kanban is winding down. Vibe Kanban was a good tool, and for one job it still is. Here’s what’s happening and what your options are.
What’s happening to Vibe Kanban
On 10 April 2026, in a post titled “Goodbye bloop”, the team announced they’re shutting down bloop, the company behind Vibe Kanban. The project itself isn’t being deleted: it continues as community-maintained open source, and the team said they’d publish a roadmap for that edition.
Two details matter for migrating today. The cloud services (issues, comments and projects) ran for 30 days after the announcement and then shut down in May 2026, so Vibe Kanban is a fully local app now; local workspaces were never affected. The announcement also said the last company release added a data export feature.
So this isn’t “the tool is gone.” It’s “the company is gone, the cloud already shut down, and the project is now a community effort running locally.” That’s the lens for everything below.
What Vibe Kanban still does well
Vibe Kanban launched in June 2025 and was early to multi-agent support, diff commenting, live preview and remote access. Run locally with npx vibe-kanban, it gives each task a workspace with a branch, a terminal and a dev server, and it switches between 10+ agents. If running several agents in parallel is your core workflow, the community-maintained build is still the closest tool to that, and it’s free.
| Hatchlog | Vibe Kanban | |
|---|---|---|
| Price model | One-time purchase, from $6 | Free; open source (Apache-2.0) |
| Platforms | Native Mac app | Local web app, run with `npx vibe-kanban` |
| Local or cloud | Local; your projects stay on your Mac | Local by default; optional self-hosted cloud |
| Agents supported | Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Claude Desktop | 10+ agents: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and more |
| Board UI | Native board the agent keeps up to date | Kanban board in a local web UI |
| Token cost tracking | Per-task token cost, for Claude Code | No per-task token cost tracking |
| Setup | Connect agents in one click | Authenticate your agent, then run `npx vibe-kanban` |
Where Hatchlog is different
Hatchlog is a native Mac app built around a single board the agent reads and updates itself, and it’s a maintained, paid product rather than a winding-down one.
One board, kept current. Vibe Kanban gives each task its own workspace. Hatchlog gives you one board where the agent moves cards as it works, so the whole project is a glance.
It shows what the work cost. Hatchlog measures the Claude Code tokens each task spent and the API-equivalent cost. Vibe Kanban doesn’t track per-task cost. Cursor and Codex aren’t measured in Hatchlog.
It’s maintained. The plain difference. Hatchlog is under active development; Vibe Kanban is handing off to community maintenance.
Moving your tasks over
There’s no Vibe-Kanban-to-Hatchlog importer, and I’m not going to pretend there is. The cloud shut down in May 2026, so your Vibe Kanban data is local now, which makes this simpler. Here’s the honest path:
- Get your tasks out of your local Vibe Kanban. They’re on your local board already. If your build still has the data export the team shipped before the shutdown, use it; otherwise read the tasks straight off the board.
- Re-create them in Hatchlog with your agent. Connect Claude Code (or another agent) to a Hatchlog project, point it at your exported file or list, and ask it to add the tasks to the board. It can do that over MCP once connected. For how to connect, see Connect Claude Code.
For a handful of active tasks, re-creating them from your own notes is usually faster than any export. Either way, the plan is the same: get the list out of the old tool, then have the agent rebuild it on the board.
Stay on the community build if…
- You want to keep running several agents in parallel from one board.
- You’re not on a Mac, or you want a free, open-source tool.
- You’re comfortable with community maintenance and a local-only setup.
Move to Hatchlog if…
- You’re on a Mac and want a board a single agent keeps current.
- You’d rather pay once for a maintained app than depend on a winding-down project.
- You want to know what each feature cost in Claude Code tokens.
If you’re weighing the whole field, not only these two, see the best task managers for AI coding agents. For a free, in-repo option that isn’t going anywhere, Backlog.md is the one I’d try first.
FAQ
Is Vibe Kanban shutting down?
Yes. On 10 April 2026, bloop, the company behind it, announced it's shutting down. The Vibe Kanban project continues as community-maintained open source, and the latest version added a data export feature.
Can I keep using it?
Yes, and it's now fully local. The cloud services (issues, comments and projects) shut down in May 2026, about 30 days after the announcement, so Vibe Kanban runs as a local, community-maintained app. Local workspaces work as before.
What's the closest alternative?
On a Mac, Hatchlog is the closest maintained board with per-task cost. If you're not on a Mac, or want to stay free and in your repo, Backlog.md and Task Master are the nearest options. For running many agents in parallel specifically, the community-maintained Vibe Kanban build is still the best match.