Synapse vs Vibe Kanban

At a glance

Vibe Kanban facts are from its GitHub repo, releases, issues, npm registry and the shutdown post on its site, checked on 16 October 2026.

What Vibe Kanban is

Vibe Kanban launched with npx vibe-kanban and served a web UI on localhost. You planned work as kanban issues with priorities, tags, sub-issues and relationships, then started a "workspace" for a task: a git worktree, a branch, a terminal and a dev server, with a coding agent CLI running inside. You reviewed the diff, left inline comments that went back to the agent, previewed the app in a built-in browser with devtools, and opened and merged PRs.

It supported ten agent CLIs, from Claude Code and Codex to Factory Droid and Qwen Code, and shipped an MCP server with 33 tools.

What happened to Vibe Kanban

• bloop, the YC company behind Vibe Kanban, shut down on 10 April 2026. The project is now described as "open source and community maintained."
• Vibe Kanban Cloud, launched in February 2026 at $30 per user per month, was ended. Subscriptions were terminated, recent invoices refunded, and hosted services ran for 30 days before the product moved to a fully local setup.
• In v0.1.44 (24 April 2026) the project routes were turned into an export-only page, so the board is no longer usable for normal work. Users in issue #3354 point to v0.1.43 as the last version with a usable local board.
• The latest npm version is 0.1.45 from 19 September 2026, with maintenance fixes. There were no commits after that as of 16 October 2026.

Vibe Kanban did a lot for this space. It made "one worktree per task, review the diff, merge" a normal way to work with agents, and the code is still Apache-2.0 for anyone to build on.

What Synapse is

Synapse is not a board. It is the layer between agents. It puts every live coding agent on your machine on one canvas, grouped by git repo. Drag from one agent to another and the second one sees what the first is doing. On each prompt, a hook injects what the linked agent said since last time, capped at 8,000 characters per link. Linked agents can message each other through six MCP tools, a CLI and a skill.

It discovers agents by scanning processes, so they can run anywhere. It is a young project, actively developed, with a desktop app in development.

Can Vibe Kanban agents talk to each other?

Not directly. Each Vibe Kanban workspace is isolated by design. What it does have is precise and worth knowing:

• An MCP server for orchestration. An agent connected to it can call start_workspace, create_session and run_session_prompt to launch another agent and give it a prompt, then get_execution to read back that agent's status and final message. That is a supervisor and worker pattern through Vibe Kanban's database, not a peer link, and it does not return the full transcript.
• get_context returns metadata about the current workspace, project and issue, not another agent's conversation.

Synapse works the other way. A link from A to B stays in place, and B receives what A has said since last time on every prompt. Either agent can message the other, whichever CLI each one runs. No supervisor is needed, and the agents do not have to have been launched by Synapse.

Open source, accounts and privacy

Both are open source and permissively licensed: Vibe Kanban under Apache-2.0, Synapse under MIT. Neither needs an account for local use.

The difference is telemetry. Official Vibe Kanban builds ship PostHog analytics, on by default with an opt out; builds from source without the key have it disabled. Synapse makes no network calls at all. Links and messages live in ~/.synapse and transcripts are read from disk.

Where Vibe Kanban is ahead

• A full review loop. Diff viewer built for large PRs, inline comments sent back to the agent, browser preview with devtools, PR creation and merge, setup and dev server scripts. Synapse has none of this.
• Adoption. More than 28,000 stars, and bloop said thousands of engineers used it daily. Synapse is new and small.
• Platforms and remote access. It runs via npx with a browser UI and has remote access through a tunnel. Synapse is macOS first.
• More agents out of the box, including Droid, Qwen Code and Claude Code Router.

Using Synapse after Vibe Kanban

If you relied on Vibe Kanban, here is a calm migration path. It keeps the parts that still work and adds what Synapse does.

1. Export your projects and issues from the export-only page before anything else changes.
2. Keep running Vibe Kanban workspaces while they still work for you. What v0.1.44 removed was the project and issue board, and users describe the rest as still usable locally.
3. Install Synapse next to it: node install.mjs && npm start. Vibe Kanban starts agents as CLIs in a terminal, so Synapse's process scan should find them. Test this on your setup, and restart running agents so they load Synapse's MCP server and hook.
4. Link a reviewer agent to the implementer on the canvas, or let two agents in different worktrees agree on an interface with synapse send.
5. When you are ready to leave Vibe Kanban, run the same CLIs in plain terminals, tmux or another workspace tool. Synapse finds them there too.

Synapse does not give you a board or a PR flow. If you need those, pair it with a workspace tool that does.

Who should pick which

• Stay on Vibe Kanban for now if your current version works, you rely on its diff review and PR flow, and you are fine with a project that is no longer actively developed.
• Pick Synapse if your agents need to share what they know, you mix Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI, or you want an actively developed MIT tool with no telemetry.
• Run both during a migration. Synapse does not replace where your agents run.

FAQ

Is Vibe Kanban dead?

Vibe Kanban is sunsetting. bloop, the company behind it, shut down on 10 April 2026, and the project is now community maintained. Its last npm release was 0.1.45 on 19 September 2026, with no commits after that as of 16 October 2026. The code remains open source under Apache-2.0.

What is a good Vibe Kanban alternative?

It depends on what you used it for. For worktrees, diff review and PRs, you need another workspace tool. For agents that share context and message each other, Synapse does that and works alongside whatever tool runs your agents. It is MIT licensed, actively developed and needs no account.

Can I still use Vibe Kanban locally?

Yes, it still runs locally with npx. Since v0.1.44 the project and issue board routes go to an export-only page, so the kanban board is no longer usable for normal work. Users report v0.1.43 as the last version with a usable local board.

Can Vibe Kanban agents share context with each other?

Not directly. An orchestrating agent can use Vibe Kanban's MCP server to start sessions, send prompts and read each session's status and final message. There is no live link between running agents. Synapse injects one agent's recent conversation into another on every prompt.

Does Synapse have a kanban board?

No. Synapse is a canvas of live agents and the links between them, not a task board. It does not plan issues, review diffs or open PRs.