Kanban apps that work on a phone

By Darko Bačić, founder of App Tube · 9 October 2026 · Facts checked 9 October 2026

Pick devBoard if your small dev team wants a phone board with its own layout and a Mac app to match. Pick Trello if you want the simplest shared board, free for up to 10 people. Pick GitHub Mobile if your code and issues already live on GitHub. We make devBoard, so keep that in mind. It is on the list, and we say where the others are better.

A kanban board is a set of columns, one for each stage of work. Each task is a card that moves along as the work does.

What a phone board needs

A phone screen fits one column, maybe two. Dragging a card across five columns with a thumb is hard. So a phone board needs its own design. It should show one column at a time, move a card without a long drag, and use big tap targets.

Some apps are built for the phone from the start. Others show web views, which are web pages inside an app. Vendors rarely say which. So below we only repeat what each one has said in public.

At a glance

Paid prices are for the cheapest paid plan, billed yearly, unless the cell says otherwise. ClickUp's page showed two price lists. This is the one we saw.

devBoard

devBoard is built with Flutter, and the phone build has its own layout of rows, sheets and big tap targets. A board shows one column at a time, with column names and counts in a strip on top. Swipe to reach the next column. Press and hold a card to move it to another one. Boards in devBoard has the details.

Two people on one board see each other's moves at once. Members join by email invite, as the invite guide shows. The app opens at once with your workspace outline and My Work list, even with no signal. Boards need a connection to show cards.

Pick it if

You are a small dev team or a freelancer. You want tasks, subtasks and releases on your phone, and the same board on a Mac. A subtask is a step inside a task. A release is a group of tasks that ship together. Kanban for a team of three shows a simple setup.

The catch

There is no web version and no importer. Windows and Linux are not out yet.

Trello

Trello has iPhone and Android apps. Trello's Android team said on Talking Kotlin that its app is written in Kotlin. Trello does not say how the iPhone app is built. The free plan covers up to 10 boards and 10 people in a workspace.

Pick it if

You want a simple shared board and little else.

The catch

Cards have checklists, not subtasks. Time tracking needs a Power-Up, which is an add-on. See devBoard vs Trello or our Trello alternatives.

Linear

Linear says its phone apps are native, written in Swift for iPhone and Kotlin for Android. They came out in 2024.

Pick it if

You are a software product team that wants a fast issue tracker with Git links.

The catch

There is no built-in timer, and the free plan caps the number of issues.

Notion

Notion has iPhone and Android apps. Since 2020, Notion has been replacing web views with native code in them. It does not say how much is native today.

Pick it if

Your team lives in docs and a wiki, and tasks are a side job.

The catch

A 2026 reviewer on Capterra says the mobile app lags on big tables. There is no built-in timer.

ClickUp

ClickUp has iPhone, Android and Apple Watch apps. It does not say how they are built.

Pick it if

You want tasks, docs, chat and time tracking in one tool, and will spend time on setup.

The catch

A 2026 reviewer on Capterra notes lag when adding tasks quickly. On the free plan, time tracking is only a trial.

Asana

Asana has iPhone and Android apps. In 2014, Asana said its iPhone app was fully native. We could not confirm how it is built today.

Pick it if

You plan projects with people outside engineering.

The catch

A 2026 reviewer on Capterra says the mobile app can be slow. The free plan is for two people.

Jira

Jira has iPhone and Android apps. Atlassian does not say how they are built today. On a computer, it offers only the web version.

Pick it if

Your company already runs on Jira, or you are a software team of ten or more.

The catch

It needs someone to run the setup. A 2026 reviewer on Capterra says it slows a five-person team.

GitHub Mobile (Projects)

GitHub Projects is the board inside GitHub. GitHub Mobile is native, per GitHub's 2020 launch post. Projects on GitHub Mobile went fully live in March 2023. You can open a project, switch views and edit fields.

Pick it if

Your code is already on GitHub. You want issues, pull requests and a board in one place. A pull request is a set of code changes waiting for review.

The catch

There is no built-in time tracking. Project filters cannot do "or", such as mine or unassigned, as one user found.

How we chose

We picked well-known boards that work for a team, plus GitHub Mobile for teams whose code is on GitHub. We read each vendor's app, pricing and docs pages on 9 October 2026. "Built for the phone" means the vendor says so in public. We did not rate how each board feels in the hand. devBoard is first because we make it.

For the desktop side, see our list of project management apps built for the Mac. More lists like this are on our blog.