A Local-First Trello Alternative for Personal Task Management
Trello made "put your work on a board" mainstream, and for team pipelines — cards moving through columns — it's a fine tool. But a lot of Trello boards are actually one person managing their own life: a to-do column, a doing column, a done column, and a nagging feeling that the tool wants you to be a team.
Baton Board is built for exactly that person. It's a personal, local-first dashboard: your tasks, deadlines, habits, and numbers on one board that lives on your device. No account, no workspace to administer, no cloud copy of your plans.
Honest note up front: Baton Board is not a kanban clone. There are no card columns to drag through stages. If your workflow genuinely is a multi-stage pipeline, Trello-style kanban may fit better. What Baton Board replaces is the personal Trello board — and for that job it brings tools kanban doesn't have.
What you get instead of columns
- Tasks that carry their own state. Subtasks, priority, due date and time, tags, color, progress, and recurrence live on the task itself — no dragging a card across the board to say "in progress." Completed tasks sink automatically.
- Multiple task widgets, side by side. Want "Today / This week / Someday"? Place three task widgets and drag tasks between them — the spatial clarity of a board, on your terms.
- An agenda that assembles itself. Every dated task appears in one due-ordered list; overdue turns red. No more scanning columns for deadlines.
- A calendar view built in. See dated tasks by month or week and add a task on the day it's due.
- The measuring layer kanban lacks. KPIs with history graphs, goals with pace, a habit grid with streaks, and a KPI tree that breaks your north-star number into drivers — next to the tasks that move them.
The local-first difference
| Trello | Baton Board | |
|---|---|---|
| Where data lives | Atlassian's cloud | Your device (browser local storage) |
| Account | Required | None |
| Offline | Limited | Fully (installable PWA) |
| Personal price | Free tier + paid plans | Free core; Pro ¥980/mo for analytics |
| Data export | JSON via workspace settings | One-click data.json you own |
Your plans, your clients, your ideas — none of it needs to sit in someone else's database to be organized. Baton Board stores everything locally, exports to a single data.json (with any API keys stripped), and keeps automatic backups with point-in-time restore.
Built for the age of AI
Trello's automations live server-side. Baton Board's live on your machine: paste an AI-generated checklist into Bulk add and every line becomes a task; let scripts append tasks via window.batonBoard.addTask(); give MCP-capable agents (like Claude Code) direct read/write access to the same board (Pro). Every task records its source — you, AI, extension, or bulk — so delegation stays visible.
Frequently asked questions
Is Baton Board a kanban board like Trello?
No — there are no card columns. Tasks carry status, priority, due dates, and subtasks directly, and you can place several task widgets side by side and drag tasks between them if you want spatial lanes.
Can I move my Trello tasks over?
There's no one-click importer, but Bulk add turns any pasted list into tasks (one line = one task, - [x] done-markers understood) — export or copy your card titles and paste them in.
Does it work offline?
Yes, fully. The app installs as a PWA and both the app and your data live on your device, so nothing stops working when the connection does.
Is it good for teams?
It's built for individuals. Boards are personal and local; there's no shared workspace with members and permissions.
What does it cost?
The core is free: one board, the seven free widgets, export/import, backups, search, and eight languages. Pro adds the analytics widgets, AI assistant, sync, and unlimited boards.
Pricing
Free covers one customizable board with the seven free widgets, export/import, automatic backups, board-wide search, and eight languages. Pro (¥980/month or ¥9,800/year) unlocks unlimited boards, the analytics widgets (KPI, KPI tree, goal, habit, agenda, activity, PDCA), the AI assistant, end-to-end sync, and deep customization. A ¥14,800 lifetime license is available. Polar handles payments and worldwide taxes.
Try it
Open Baton Board, paste your current to-do column into Bulk add, and see your personal board again — without the columns, the account, or the cloud.
Related reading: "A Todoist Alternative That Lives on Your Device" and "Build the Exact Dashboard You Want."