Self-Hosted Focalboard vs. SaaS: Kubernetes Cost Analysis

Focalboard is an incredible open-source project. It’s a self-hosted alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana. The promise of open source is freedom: freedom from per-user pricing, freedom from data lock-in, and freedom to customize.

But “free software” is not “free infrastructure.”

If you are a startup CTO or a DevOps engineer thinking, “Let’s just self-host Focalboard on our EKS cluster to save money,” this guide is for you. We are going to break down the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of running Focalboard on AWS Kubernetes to see if it’s actually cheaper than just paying for Notion.

The Architecture: What does “Production Ready” mean?

You can run Focalboard with docker run, but that’s not production. For a team of 50 people relying on this for daily work, you need High Availability (HA), backups, and security.

graph TD
    User((User)) --> ALB[Application Load Balancer]
    ALB --> Service[K8s Service]
    subgraph EKS_Cluster
        Service --> Pod1[Focalboard Pod 1]
        Service --> Pod2[Focalboard Pod 2]
        Pod1 --> DB[(PostgreSQL RDS)]
        Pod2 --> DB
    end
    Pod1 --> S3[S3 Bucket (Uploads)]

The Requirements

1. Compute: 2 Replicas for HA (Rolling updates without downtime).
2. Database: Managed PostgreSQL (RDS) for reliability.
3. Storage: S3 for file uploads (images, docs).
4. Network: Ingress Controller + Load Balancer + TLS.

The Cost Breakdown (Monthly)

We’ll assume a “Small Team” setup (10-50 users) running on AWS us-east-1.

1. The “Base Fee” (EKS Control Plane)

If you are spinning up a new cluster just for this, you start in the hole.

• Cost: $73.00 / month.
• Verdict: If this is your only app, EKS is overkill.

2. Compute (The Nodes)

Focalboard is written in Go and is very efficient. It doesn’t need much.

• Instance: 2x t3.medium (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM) for redundancy.
• Cost: 2 * $30.37/mo = $60.74.

3. Database (RDS vs. Self-Hosted)

• Option A (RDS): db.t3.micro (Single AZ). ~$15/mo.
• Option B (In-Cluster): StatefulSet with PVC. Cheaper, but you manage backups. ~$5/mo (EBS cost).
• Recommendation: Use RDS. Your data is worth more than $10.

4. Networking (The Hidden Fees)

• Load Balancer (ALB): $16.00 (hourly) + ~$5.00 (LCU usage).
• NAT Gateway: Required for private subnets. $32.85 + processing.
• Total Network: ~$53.85 / month.

Total Monthly Bill: The “Sticker Shock”

The “Human Cost” (Maintenance)

This is the real killer.

• Upgrading Focalboard versions.
• Patching Kubernetes nodes.
• Rotating TLS certificates.
• Troubleshooting why the database is locked.

If your DevOps engineer costs $150/hour, and they spend 2 hours a month maintaining this, that’s $300/month in labor.

Comparison: Self-Hosted vs. SaaS

Let’s compare this to the “Standard” plans of competitors for a team of 20 users.

The Breakeven Point

Scenario 1: You have NO Kubernetes Cluster

Don’t do it. Running EKS just for Focalboard is financial suicide. The $73 control plane + NAT gateways will eat your savings. Use a single EC2 instance with Docker Compose or a DigitalOcean Droplet ($10/mo).

Scenario 2: You HAVE a Production Cluster

Do it. If you already pay for the Control Plane, NAT Gateways, and ALBs, the marginal cost of adding Focalboard is just the compute resources (~$35/mo). For a team of 20, you save $125/month vs. Notion. That’s $1,500/year.

Conclusion

Kubernetes economics are all about density.

• Low Density (1 App): EKS is the most expensive way to host software.
• High Density (50 Apps): EKS is incredibly efficient.

[!TIP] Planning a new cluster? Use our Cluster Cost Estimator to see how adding workloads like Focalboard impacts your total bill.