8 Best Open Source Project Management Tools

Website: https://www.openproject.org

Best for: Gantt scheduling with a self-hosted option

Starting price: $7.25 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Self-hosted Community Edition is free with no user cap; Gantt, baselines and budgeting are built in

Cons: Enterprise add-ons sit on higher tiers; cloud Basic starts at 5 users and adds users in blocks of 5

OpenProject is the most complete open source option in this list, with Gantt charts, work package tracking, time tracking, wikis and meeting notes in one place. The Community Edition is free to self-host with no user cap, and the cloud plans start at $7.25 per user per month on annual billing for Basic, with Professional at $13.50 and Premium at $19.50. Teams that need baselines, budgets and agile boards get a tool that covers the full project life cycle without a licence fee for the core. The trade-off is that enterprise add-ons sit on higher tiers. Baseline comparison, portfolio management, resource management, single sign-on and Gantt PDF export are not in the free Community Edition, and cloud Basic starts at 5 users with users added in blocks of 5, so a 6-person team pays for 10 seats. OpenProject suits teams that want serious scheduling and are ready to host the free edition or pay for the cloud plan.

Website: https://taiga.io

Best for: Small agile teams on flat per-team pricing

Starting price: €5 per month flat (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Flat per-team price with unlimited users; Scrum and Kanban boards are built in

Cons: Storage is capped at 100 MB on Enthusiast; the free plan allows only 2 projects

Taiga is built for agile teams, with Scrum backlogs, sprints, Kanban boards and issue tracking in a clean interface. Its pricing is unusual: plans are flat per team, not per user, with unlimited users on every plan. Enthusiast costs €5 per month, or €50 when billed annually, while Basic is €20 per month and Premium is €60 per month. The free plan covers 1 public and 1 private project with 10 MB of storage. The limits are storage and project count. Enthusiast allows 100 MB, Basic allows 500 MB and Premium allows 3 GB, so a team that stores many files will need a sales quote for more space. Taiga suits a small agile team that wants simple flat pricing and does not want to count seats, and it works well for teams that keep most files outside the tool.

Website: https://www.odoo.com

Best for: Project work inside a full business suite

Starting price: $31.10 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: One App Free covers Project with unlimited users; Project sits inside a full business suite

Cons: Standard is online only with no custom modules; Studio and multi-company need Custom at $61.00

Odoo Project is one app inside the Odoo suite, which also covers CRM, accounting, inventory, HR and sales. The Standard plan costs $31.10 per user per month on annual billing, or $24.90 per user per month for the first 12 months, and the Custom plan is $61.00 per user per month. The One App Free option lets a team use Project alone with unlimited users at no cost, and the Community Edition is free to self-host. The catch is that Standard is Odoo Online only, with no custom modules or third-party apps. Studio, multi-company support, external API access and Odoo.sh hosting all need the Custom plan, and Odoo.sh hosting is not included in the subscription price. Odoo suits a business that already plans to use several Odoo apps and wants project work to share data with sales, billing and stock.

Website: https://www.redmine.org

Best for: Free issue tracking on your own server

Starting price: Free

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Free licence with unlimited users and projects; hundreds of community plugins extend it

Cons: No official cloud version or vendor support; agile boards and reports need plugins

Redmine is the oldest tool in this list and the most purely free: it is open source under the GPLv2 licence, with no licence fee, no user cap and no project cap. It covers issue tracking, Gantt charts, calendars, wikis, forums and time tracking, and hundreds of community plugins add features such as agile boards, help desk views and advanced reports. A team that can run a Ruby on Rails server gets a full project tracker for the cost of hosting alone. The limits are that there is no official cloud version and no vendor support contract. Modern agile boards and advanced reporting are not built in, so teams usually buy third-party plugins, for example an agile plugin at about $299 per year. Redmine suits developer teams that want a free, endlessly customisable tracker on their own servers and are comfortable maintaining it themselves.

Website: https://leantime.io

Best for: Goal-linked planning for small teams

Starting price: $8 per user/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Open source edition is free to self-host; goals, ideas and projects link in one view

Cons: AI features, whiteboards and custom fields sit on Pro; the free edition has no file management

Leantime links goals, ideas and projects in one view, so a team can trace a task back to the goal it serves. The open source Community Edition is free to self-host under the AGPLv3 licence, and Leantime Pro costs $8 per user per month on annual billing, or $10 when billed monthly, with a 14-day free trial and no card required. The interface is designed to be calm and clear, which suits teams that find other tools noisy. The free edition lacks the AI features, program management, strategy boards, retrospectives, file management, whiteboard, custom fields and recurring tasks that Pro includes. Leantime suits a small team that wants goal-linked planning and a friendly interface, and that is ready to pay $8 per user per month for the full feature set or to accept the limits of the free edition.

Website: https://plane.so

Best for: Jira-style cycles at a low price

Starting price: $6 per seat/month (billed annually)

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Free cloud plan covers up to 12 users; cycles, modules and roadmaps mirror Jira workflows

Cons: Free plan caps at 12 users with no time tracking; SSO and approval workflows need Business

Plane is a modern open source issue tracker that will feel familiar to any team that has used Jira: cycles, modules, roadmaps, backlogs and issue views work in a similar way. The free cloud plan costs $0 for up to 12 users, and a free self-hosted Community Edition has no user limit. Pro costs $6 per seat per month on annual billing, or $8 monthly, and Business is $13 per seat per month. New cloud workspaces start with a 14-day Business trial. The free plan caps at 12 users and lacks time tracking, integrations and the marketplace, which are Pro-only. Single sign-on through SAML or OIDC and workflows with approvals are Business-only at $13 per seat per month. Plane suits software and product teams that want Jira-style planning at a low price and are happy to move to Pro once the team grows past 12 people.

Website: https://wekan.github.io

Best for: Free Trello-style boards on your own server

Starting price: Free

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Free MIT licence with no user or board cap; Trello-style boards run on your own server

Cons: No undo function, so errors need daily database backups; no official vendor support

Wekan is a free, open source Kanban board under the MIT licence, built as a self-hosted alternative to Trello. There is no licence fee, no user cap and no board cap, and teams can run it on their own server with their own data. Cards, lists, labels, checklists, due dates and attachments cover the basics of board work, and optional commercial support and hosted deployments exist for teams that want help. The main limit is that there is no undo function: the project itself warns that user errors, deletions or disk problems can eat data, so daily database backups are required. There is also no official vendor support, only community GitHub issues, unless a team buys commercial support. Wekan suits teams migrating from Trello that want a free, private Kanban board and are ready to look after their own backups.

Website: https://kanboard.org

Best for: A fast, light Kanban board

Starting price: Free

Free plan: Yes

Pros: Fast, light Kanban board with unlimited users; simple setup on a basic server

Cons: No cloud version, mobile app, Gantt or time tracking; extra features need community plugins

Kanboard is the simplest tool in this list on purpose: a fast, light Kanban board that runs on a basic server with almost no setup. It is free and open source under the MIT licence, with unlimited users, boards and tasks. Drag and drop, swimlanes, filters, subtasks and automatic actions cover the core of board work, and the interface stays out of the way. The limits follow from the same design choice. There is no official cloud version, no native mobile app and no built-in Gantt or time tracking, so anything beyond a simple board needs a community plugin. There is also no vendor support. Kanboard suits minimalists and small teams that want a quick board for day-to-day work and do not need scheduling, reporting or a mobile app.