A Kanka alternative for DMs who stopped filling the entries in
Kanka is the hardest tool on this list to argue against, because its free tier is not a trial and its source code is public. The argument is not about price. It is about who does the typing.
The short version
Kanka gives away unlimited entries and unlimited campaigns at $0 and you can self-host it. If cost or data ownership is your deciding factor, Kanka wins and this page is not going to talk you out of it. What Kanka does not do is fill itself in — it has no audio transcription and markets no AI features at all.
The numbers, with sources
| What | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Kanka free tier ("Kobold") | Free forever — unlimited entries and unlimited campaigns | sourceas of 2026-09-07 |
| Kanka Owlbear tier | $4.99 USD per month — 1 active premium campaign, 10 MiB file and map uploads | sourceas of 2026-09-07 |
| Kanka Wyvern tier | $9.99 USD per month — 3 active premium campaigns, 25 MiB uploads | sourceas of 2026-09-07 |
| Kanka Elemental tier | $24.99 USD per month — 7 active premium campaigns, 100 MiB uploads | sourceas of 2026-09-07 |
| Kanka source code | Publicly available and actively maintained, under a Commons Clause–modified licence | sourceas of 2026-07-31 |
| Kanka AI or transcription features | None marketed — the words "AI" and "artificial intelligence" do not appear on the features or pricing pages | sourceas of 2026-09-07 |
| DM Scribe, for comparison | Free plan: 2.5 hours of session transcription a month and 1 campaign; paid plans from $7.99/month with unlimited campaigns | DM Scribe pricingas of 2026-09-07 |
How we sourced this: Prices, campaign counts and the free tier were re-checked against kanka.io/pricing on 2026-09-07; the per-tier upload sizes were last confirmed on 2026-07-31. Kanka advertises a "save 17%" annual discount, but the annual figures are rendered in the browser rather than served in the page, so we have not printed a yearly price — a number we calculated ourselves would be ours, not Kanka’s. Check kanka.io/pricing for annual billing.
Kanka’s free tier is genuinely free
This is worth stating plainly because most "free tiers" in this category are trials. Kanka’s is not: unlimited entries and unlimited campaigns at no cost, described on their own pricing page as free forever. Paid tiers add premium-campaign features and larger uploads rather than unlocking the basics.
It is also open source and self-hostable, which means the campaign you spend two years building is not hostage to a company continuing to exist. For some DMs that ends the conversation, and reasonably so.
The entity model is the same shape as ours
Kanka organises a campaign into characters, locations, organisations, journals, timelines and the relations between them. DM Scribe organises a campaign into NPCs, locations, items, factions and a relationship graph. These are the same idea, and if you like how Kanka models a campaign you will not find our wiki model alien.
The difference is entirely upstream of the model. In Kanka you create the character record and write the description. In DM Scribe the character record is created because someone said the name out loud in session six, and the description comes from what happened.
Where that difference actually bites
Kanka is excellent when you are the kind of DM who enjoys the admin, or who has a habit that survives a bad week. It is much less useful when the honest answer is that you have not opened it since session four and there are now eleven sessions.
That is not a criticism of Kanka — no tool fixes a habit. It is the specific problem DM Scribe is built around: the entries appear whether or not you felt like writing them, because they come out of the recording.
You should pick Kanka if…
You want to own your data, you do not want a subscription, or you actively enjoy building the campaign record by hand. All three are good reasons and none of them is a consolation prize — Kanka at $0 with unlimited entries is a genuinely strong offer, and a self-hosted install is something we do not offer at all.
- Cost is the deciding factor — Kanka’s free tier has unlimited campaigns and entries, while our free plan is one campaign and 2.5 hours of transcription a month
- You want to self-host, or want the guarantee that you could
- You do not record your sessions
- You prefer writing the entries yourself and want a good place to put them
Other comparisons
- World Anvil
World Anvil is built for authoring a world before you play it. Remembering what happened while you did is a different job. Which one you actually need.
- LegendKeeper
LegendKeeper has the best editor and nested map atlas in this category. It has no transcription. Which problem you have decides which tool you want.
- Obsidian and Notion
Obsidian is free and local, Notion is cloud and collaborative, and neither one hears your session. What that actually costs you over a long campaign.
- Otter.ai
Otter caps a conversation at 30 minutes free and 90 on Pro. A D&D session runs four hours. What that costs to fix, with current prices and sources.
- Descript
Descript meters transcription as media minutes, and a four-hour session spends 240 of them. What each plan covers for a weekly game, with sources.
- Archivist AI
Archivist meters sessions, we meter hours. That one difference decides which is cheaper for your table, and it is not the same answer for everyone.
- The DM's ARK
The DM’s ARK tags who spoke; we do not. We have a free plan that never expires; they do not. Those two facts decide most of it.