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# Vikunja Review: A Self-Hosted Notion/Asana Alternative
- URL: https://ditchthesaas.com/vikunja-review-a-self-hosted-notion-asana-alternative/
- Published: 2026-09-14T05:12:27.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-16T12:21:45.000Z
- Description: I moved my task tracking off Notion and Asana onto self-hosted Vikunja. Here's what it actually costs, what it can't do yet, and how it holds up day to day.
- Author: Jordan Cole
- Tags: Self-Hosted Stack

*Part of the same series where I document the real costs of replacing SaaS subscriptions with self-hosted tools — this time it's task tracking, not automation.*

**Disclosure:** this post contains an affiliate link to Vultr. If you sign up through it, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to providers I actually use.

## Why I moved task tracking off Notion and Asana

Notion and Asana solve different problems than they're usually bought for. Notion is a docs-and-wiki workspace that happens to have databases you can bend into a task tracker. Asana is a proper work-management tool built around tasks from day one — but it bills per seat, and the price only goes one direction as your team grows.

If all you actually need is fast task tracking — lists, boards, due dates, a few shared projects — you're paying for a lot of workspace you don't touch. Vikunja is a small, open-source, self-hosted task manager that does the task-tracking part and nothing else. That's the trade: you give up the wiki/docs layer, you keep full control of your data, and you stop paying per seat.

## What Notion and Asana actually cost

As of 2026:

- **Notion Plus**: around $10/user/month billed annually (closer to $12/user/month billed monthly)
- **Notion Business**: around $18/user/month billed annually ($20/user/month billed monthly)
- **Asana Starter**: $10.99/user/month billed annually ($13.49 billed monthly)
- **Asana Advanced**: $24.99/user/month billed annually ($30.49 billed monthly)

None of those numbers look scary at 1 user. They get real once you're paying for a 5- or 8-person team: Asana Advanced at 8 seats is roughly $2,400/year, and that's before add-ons.

## What self-hosted Vikunja actually costs

The core Vikunja software is AGPLv3 and free to self-host, forever — lists, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, table views, filters, reminders, and shared projects are all included, no per-user fee. The only cost is the server.

- Vikunja is genuinely light: roughly 50MB of RAM idle for the app itself, and around 200MB total once you add Postgres under light use
- A $5–10/month VPS handles a small team without breaking a sweat — I wouldn't go below 1GB of RAM once Postgres is in the mix, even though the documented minimum is 512MB
- If you'd rather not run the server yourself, Vikunja also sells a managed Cloud version: Personal is €4/month, Family covers up to 5 users for €10/month, and Organization is €5/user/month — all still cheaper than Asana Advanced, without the self-hosting work

## What you give up

Vikunja isn't a full Notion or Asana replacement, and it doesn't pretend to be:

- No wiki/docs layer — if your team lives in Notion for documentation as much as tasks, you'll still want something like Outline or BookStack alongside Vikunja
- No deep portfolio/timeline reporting the way Asana Advanced or Jira offer for larger orgs
- Some of the more "enterprise" features — admin panel, audit logs, time tracking — sit behind a separate Pro add-on for self-hosted instances, currently in private beta rather than bundled into the free core

For a solo operator or a small team that just needs shared task lists and a Kanban board, none of that is a dealbreaker. It becomes one the moment you need a single tool to also hold your team's documentation.

## Cost comparison

|                       | Notion Business  | Asana Advanced      | Self-hosted Vikunja            |
| --------------------- | ---------------- | ------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| Pricing model         | \~$18/user/month | \~$24.99/user/month | Flat VPS cost, no per-seat fee |
| 5-person team, annual | \~$1,080/year    | \~$1,500/year       | \~$60–120/year (VPS)           |
| Docs/wiki layer       | Yes              | Limited             | No (task tracking only)        |
| Data location         | Notion's servers | Asana's servers     | Your server                    |

## When Notion or Asana is still the better call

If your team already lives in Notion for docs, context, and process — not just tasks — ripping that out to save on task-tracking seats usually isn't worth the disruption. And if you need the reporting depth or app ecosystem of Asana Advanced at real scale, Vikunja won't get you there; it's not trying to. Vikunja makes the most sense when task tracking is the whole job, not a feature bolted onto a bigger workspace you're not using.

## Getting started

Vikunja ships an official Docker Compose setup, so getting it running is mostly editing an env file and pointing it at a Postgres container. I run mine on a small [Vultr](https://www.vultr.com/?ref=9922680) instance — the same $5–10/month tier is plenty for a small team's task list, and you can resize later if your project count actually grows.

*Next up:* [*comparing the real costs of self-hosting Ghost against staying on Substack*](https://ditchthesaas.com/self-hosting-ghost-vs-substack-real-costs-compared/)*.*

This post is one piece of a larger breakdown — see [the full SaaS-to-self-hosted cost roll-up](https://ditchthesaas.com/how-i-cut-my-saas-bill-by-90-by-self-hosting-everything/) for how the whole stack fits together.