Conatus vs Vikunja
Vikunja and Conatus are both open-source task managers you run on your own server, and both are licensed under the AGPL. They share a lot: nested projects, sub-tasks, labels, saved filters, comments, attachments, assignees, recurring tasks, email reminders, a REST API and webhooks.
Vikunja is a general project tool with Gantt and table views, teams and single sign-on. Conatus copies the Todoist workflow, including its quick-add syntax and P1 to P4 priorities.
At a glance
Section titled “At a glance”| Conatus | Vikunja | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0, with paid Pro features for self-hosted organisations |
| Install | Docker Compose with PostgreSQL and Silo | One binary or container, with SQLite, MySQL or PostgreSQL |
| Hosted plan | None | Vikunja Cloud, from 4 € a month |
| Backups | Daily database dumps from first boot | You set them up |
| Views | List, board and calendar, plus Focus for overdue and today | List, Kanban, Gantt and table |
| Quick add | Todoist syntax: p1, #project, @label |
!3, +project, *label and @assignee, or a Todoist mode |
| Priorities | Four, P1 to P4 | Five |
| Dates | Due date, plus a separate deadline and duration | Due date, plus start and end dates |
| Reminders | Fixed date and time, by email and in-app | Fixed or relative to a task date, by email and in-app |
| Sharing | Per project with other accounts on your instance, as editors | Users, teams and public link shares, with read, write and admin levels |
| Sign-in | Password, optional GitHub and Google | Password, OpenID Connect, LDAP and two-factor authentication |
| Calendar | Read-only iCal feed | CalDAV |
| Imports | Todoist | Todoist, Trello, Microsoft To Do, Planka, TickTick, WeKan and CSV |
| Clients | Web | Web, Linux and Windows desktop apps, a basic mobile app and a third-party app for iOS and macOS |
| MCP | conatus-mcp, released, local or remote with OAuth | Built into 2.7.0, which is not out yet. Bearer token only |
Last compared on 2 October 2026, against Vikunja v2.6.0 and Conatus v1.2.1. Vikunja ships often, so check its feature list as well.
What Vikunja has that Conatus does not
Section titled “What Vikunja has that Conatus does not”- Gantt and table views. Conatus has list, board and calendar views. It has no timeline, and no start or end dates to draw one from.
- Teams and link shares. Conatus shares a project with individual accounts by username. There are no teams, no read-only role and no public links.
- Single sign-on and two-factor authentication. Vikunja supports OpenID Connect, LDAP and TOTP codes. Conatus has passwords, plus optional sign-in with GitHub or Google.
- CalDAV. Task apps that speak CalDAV can read and edit your Vikunja tasks. Conatus publishes a read-only iCal feed.
- Relative reminders. “1 hour before the due date” works in Vikunja. Conatus reminders are a fixed date and time.
- Task relations. Vikunja links tasks across projects as blocking, duplicate, precedes and more. Conatus has sub-tasks.
- More importers. Trello, Microsoft To Do, Planka, TickTick, WeKan and CSV, on top of Todoist.
- Apps outside the browser. Vikunja has desktop apps for Linux and Windows, and a mobile app its own docs call basic. Conatus is web only for now.
- A lighter install. One binary with SQLite is enough for a single user. Conatus always runs PostgreSQL and S3 storage next to the app.
- A hosted plan and a long track record. Vikunja Cloud runs it for you if you’d rather not run a server, and the project has more than 5,000 stars on GitHub. Conatus is self-hosted only, and its first release was in July 2026.
Where Conatus is different
Section titled “Where Conatus is different”- It works like Todoist. Quick add reads Todoist’s syntax by default, so
Call the dentist next Tuesday at 2pm for 30m #Errands @urgentsets the date, time, duration, project and label in one line. Priorities run P1 to P4, and deadlines and durations are their own fields, shown on the task row. Vikunja can switch quick add to a Todoist mode, but its priorities still run 1 to 5 and it has no separate deadline field. - The Todoist import needs no setup. Paste a Todoist API token or upload the backup
.zip, check the per-project preview, then confirm. Vikunja’s Todoist importer needs a publicly reachable instance and a registered Todoist developer app, with its client ID and secret in your config. - The MCP server is released. conatus-mcp runs locally over stdio or as a remote server that signs clients in with OAuth and PKCE, so clients that only accept OAuth can connect. Vikunja’s built-in MCP arrives in 2.7.0 and uses a bearer token, which its docs say rules out ChatGPT for now.
- Backups are on from the start. The bundled backup service dumps PostgreSQL every day and keeps the last seven, and restoring is one command.
Which one to pick
Section titled “Which one to pick”Pick Vikunja if you need teams, single sign-on, CalDAV, a Gantt chart or an app outside the browser today.
Pick Conatus if you are leaving Todoist and want the same workflow on your own server, or you want an AI agent working your task list through a released MCP server now.
Moving from Vikunja
Section titled “Moving from Vikunja”Conatus cannot read a Vikunja export yet. To switch, recreate your projects by hand or script the move against the REST API.
Try it
Section titled “Try it”Sign in to the demo as demo with the password demo. Installing your own takes three commands:
mkdir conatus && cd conatus
curl -fLO https://github.com/nojusmorkunas/conatus/releases/download/v1.2.1/docker-compose.yml
curl -fL -o .env https://github.com/nojusmorkunas/conatus/releases/download/v1.2.1/default.env.exampleFill in .env, then run docker compose up -d. The install guide covers credentials, network binding and the first login.