All three let an agent move a card. KanbanThing
hosts the board itself at a shareable link with no account at all, closest to ours in spirit but not in
where the data lives or how long it stays there. SwiftKanban
CLI (npm @nimblework/sk-cli) is a different kind of tool: a client for Nimblework's
SwiftKanban, an existing enterprise product, so it needs an account and a login before its MCP server does
anything. Ours writes JSON files under your home directory, keeps boards until you delete them, and is the
only one of the three that hands a task straight to a time tracker.
| Fact | Ours | KanbanThing | SwiftKanban CLI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tools | 16 (14 board tools plus 2 license tools) | 8: create_board, get_board, list_columns, list_cards, create_card, move_card, update_card, delete_card | Boards, cards list/get/create/update/delete via its CLI/MCP; exact MCP tool count not listed, commands mirror the CLI surface |
| Account or key needed | No. No account, no key | No. Streamable HTTP, no login; a tool call needs the board id or URL and its password | Yes. A SwiftKanban account with the Integration User role, authenticated once with sk login to get a JWT |
| Where the board lives | Local JSON in ~/.local/share/mcp-servers/kanban/ | KanbanThing's own hosted Supabase storage, reached over the network on every call | Your organisation's SwiftKanban instance |
| Board lifetime | Kept until you delete it | Deleted up to 60 days after creation, stated in its own README | Whatever your SwiftKanban admin's retention is |
| Due dates, estimates, priority, tags | All four, plus columns per board | Due date and colour only; no estimate, priority or tags | SwiftKanban's own card fields (story points, priority) via update, not documented per MCP tool |
| Hands a task to a time tracker | task_start_timer returns the exact timer-tracker arguments and records the link | Not offered | Not offered |
| Weekly review, overdue, estimate vs actual | board, overdue and weekly_review, current week free, history on Pro | Not offered | Not offered |
| Licence | MIT | MIT | MIT |
| Cost | Free tier, Pro $19 once | Free, no paid tier at all per its README | Free CLI; SwiftKanban itself is a licensed product |
Pick it for a board that needs to be open in a browser too, shared by a link with a password rather than an account, for something with an end in sight: a retrospective, a short project, a personal board you restart every few weeks. Its own README says boards are deleted up to 60 days after creation and states plainly that this is the wrong tool if you need long-lived project history. There is deliberately no way to list or search boards from its MCP server either, since every tool takes a board id or URL rather than a name, so the agent (or you) has to hold on to the link.
Pick it only if your organisation already runs SwiftKanban. It is a thin client for that product, not a
standalone board: sk login against your account is required before any MCP tool works, and
your account needs the Integration User role, which an admin grants. If SwiftKanban is where your team's
work already lives, this is the correct way to reach it from Claude; if it is not, there is no board to
connect to.
Pick ours when you want the board to still be there next year with no account, no browser tab and no
retention clock, and when the reason you have a board at all is billing the hours behind it. Due date,
estimate, priority and tags on every task, a weekly review comparing planned against done, and
task_start_timer handing the exact project and task name to
MCP Time Tracker are the parts neither competitor has: KanbanThing has no
time tracking and a 60 day board lifetime, SwiftKanban CLI has no time tracking and no board of its own to
begin with.
The kanban package carries automated tests covering the protocol handshake, board and task CRUD, corrupt
data recovery, and concurrent writers. Two server processes on one data directory firing 40 concurrent
task_add calls at the same board all persisted with unique ids and the id counter landed on
exactly 41, which is what the advisory lock around the file-backed counter is there to guarantee. Neither
competitor's README states a test count or a concurrency guarantee for its own storage.
Ours, Claude Code:
claude mcp add kanban -- npx -y @theluckystrike/mcp-kanbanKanbanThing:
claude mcp add --transport http kanbanthing https://www.kanbanthing.com/mcpSwiftKanban CLI:
npm install -g @nimblework/sk-cli
sk login --user you@example.com --password yourpassword
claude mcp add swiftkanban -- sk-mcpExact config file paths per client are on the setup pages, and the longer walkthrough is in running a kanban board in Claude with time tracking.
Yes. Tool names do not collide: ours are task_add, task_move and so on; KanbanThing uses create_card, move_card and its own names. Nothing is shared between them, so a task added in one board is invisible to the other.
Ours: local JSON is kept until you delete it. KanbanThing's own README states boards are deleted up to 60 days after creation, and calls out that this is on purpose. SwiftKanban's retention is whatever your organisation's admin sets.
No. task_start_timer, which returns the exact arguments for the time tracker's timer_start and records the link on the task, is not offered by KanbanThing or SwiftKanban CLI.
KanbanThing states in its own README that there are no accounts, no teams and no paid tier at all. SwiftKanban CLI is a free, MIT-licensed client; SwiftKanban itself is a licensed enterprise product you would already be paying for. Ours has a free tier and a one-time $19 Pro key, or $39 for the whole server collection.
KanbanThing's tool list and 60-day retention come from its README at github.com/tronschell/kanban-thing and its CLI documentation page at kanbanthing.com/cli. SwiftKanban CLI's login requirement and commands come from its README at github.com/digiteinfotech/sk-cli and its npm record for @nimblework/sk-cli. All read on 2026-09-04.