At work, we spend our time tracking projects, discussing and moving projects forward, even taking stock of projects and eliminating bottlenecks.
A project management tool is critical for teams to do this well.
A great tool can assist teams in recognizing, prioritizing, and completing tasks. Choosing the best tool for your team is critical because these tasks make up the bulk of larger projects and initiatives that drive company and business success.
A tool that can not only manage tasks, events, and meetings but also give you an overview of a project and all of the projects you have going on at any given time can make a big difference when you're making quarterly and yearly plans, or even when you want to pivot more quickly, let's say in a weekly or daily standup.
I used to manage hundreds of authors for a media site hosted by a tech company, and now I help a project management tool company (OpenProject reach its audience by sharing its remarkable features and stories. So, in this post, I've given an overview of the top 5 open source project management software in 2024.
Take a look. Compare which ones could enable you to tackle your challenges, and consider the feature sets, hosting options, pricing, and security of these solutions.
Please also check your potential project management software provider’s privacy policy and data security strategy in detail. Project management software processes confidential data, so you must ensure your data is in the right hands and protected.
5 best open source project management tools in 2024:
OpenProject
OpenProject is the leading open source project management software, licensed under GNU GPL v3.
Free and open source software
The software code is freely available on GitHub, and changes to the source code are transparently traceable at any time. With OpenProject, there is no vendor lock-in.
OpenProject meets the highest data protection and security requirements. Based in Berlin, Germany, the company focuses on developing a secure and privacy-compliant European alternative for project management and team collaboration.
Data sovereignty
With OpenProject, users retain full control over their data. The self-installed version is hosted on its own servers, offering the highest level of data sovereignty. Alternatively, hosting is provided on demand on secure servers within Germany. Subcontractors are based in the EU, and there is no user tracking on websites or within the application.
Secure hosting
As self-hosted versions, the Community and Enterprise on-premises editions provide users with data sovereignty. You will benefit from a set-up with ultimate control over your data and your preferred technical set up.
If you don’t have the capacity or knowledge to host OpenProject in your environment, we offer the Enterprise cloud edition with secure hosting in the EU or on request in Germany. With the OpenProject Enterprise cloud, you will benefit from a data center and network architecture built to meet the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations. You can rely on hosting in a high-security data center and redundant infrastructure built for high availability and performance. Continuous encrypted data backups in separate locations, regular data privacy assessment, and certification by external auditors are part of the security strategy.
Extensive project management features
OpenProject maps the entire project lifecycle, from project planning, execution, and control to project closure. The software supports classic, agile, and hybrid project management and includes extensive project management functions, such as project and milestone planning (Gantt charts), task recording, agile boards, project wiki, pre- and post-processing of deadlines, forums, time and cost recording, and budgets.
Also, UX and UI play important roles at OpenProject. We invest heavily in our interface design team so that using OpenProject is as intuitive as possible and users don’t need much training or a documentation quest before jumping right in.
Configuration
The software is flexibly configurable, can be adapted to individual requirements and is suitable for the respective company processes. With a powerful API, additional systems can be connected if required.
Partners with openDesk
OpenProject is one of the software solutions used for openDesk. They aim to offer a true open source alternative to Microsoft and Google throughout Europe. OpenProject is ‘openDesk’ ready, which means the current version (and upwards, of course) can be used as part of openDesk.
Active maintenance and development
OpenProject is continuously developed and maintained by an active developer community. New functions, improvements, and updates are released regularly. This also allows a quick reaction to possible security gaps.
Professional support and training
OpenProject offers professional support and training. This ensures that users receive both technical and functional support in order to work with the software in the best possible way.
Pricing
The OpenProject Community edition covers a wide range of features and plugins and is free of charge. This is an on-premises version that requires you to host it in your own environment.
The Enterprise cloud and on-premises editions offer you professional support as well as additional premium and security features. Consequently, these are paid plans. Pricing starts from €5.95 per month per user, long-term subscriptions though are cheaper.
OpenProject offers a 14-day free trial, which you can extend on request.
GitLab (or GitHub)
GitLab is a source code management and DevOps platform that can also be used for project management, licensed under MIT open source license. It has a clear focus on software development. The users benefit from fast deployments, standardization, automation and increased security of the software development process.
Feature set
GitLab has a vast feature set to allow the mapping of the entire software delivery lifecycle. It offers many specific features targeted at software developers, such as DevOps Reports. GitLab supports both agile and traditional project management methodologies, as it also includes timelines, task management, and workflows. However, time tracking or budget and costs are features missing in GitLab’s offer.
Overall, one can say that GitLab has a more technical user interface because the main target group is software engineers. It might not be as intuitive as other open source project management software in 2024.
New in 2024: If you are not entirely convinced by the GitLab offering regarding project management but like its feature set, you can use OpenProject with its GitLab integration, which was recently added to the core.
Hosting
GitLab is available in the cloud and on-premises. The self-installed version provides full data control. GitLab’s cloud version, the GitLab.com core infrastructure, is primarily hosted in Google Cloud Platform’s (GCP) US-East1 region.
The location where your data is stored is important as it determines which regulations and data privacy measures apply (in the EU, for example, providers have to adhere to GDPR). Feel free to read more about cloud security.
Pricing
While a free version is available (with limited storage, users, and features), paid versions start at $19 per user per month. To test the paid version, GitLab offers a 30-day free trial.
Tuleap
Tuleap is an open source project management software for agile project management, licensed under GNU GPL.
Feature set
Tuleap comprises all agile project management features like task board, backlog, Kanban boards, burnup and burndown charts, and dashboard. It allows you to execute software development, test management, project tracking, and agile planning in particular.
If you are an agile or software development team, Tuleap’s clear focus on the agile methodology might work well for you. For a broader project management approach, you might miss traditional project management features like a Gantt chart or a Wiki and options to track time, budget, and costs. Working in Tuleap, its interface seems intuitive.
Hosting
Tuleap is available in the cloud and on-premises. The premium cloud version gives you a hosting choice among providers in France, Switzerland, USA, UK, Korea. There is no information on the basic cloud hosting.
Pricing
There is no free version of Tuleap available. The cheapest option is the basic cloud version that starts from 6€ per user per month. However, Tuleap offers a free trial if you contact them.
Taiga
Taiga is an open-source project management tool that began at a Kaleidos hackathon in 2013. It is licensed under MPL 2.0.
Feature set
Taiga’s vision was to create an intuitive and visually appealing agile project management tool for developers and designers. Accordingly, Taiga offers a comprehensive feature set for agile project management. It includes Kanban boards, backlog, estimation tool, issue tracking, dashboard and more.
Consequently, classic project management features are not part of Taiga, limiting its use cases to agile methodologies only. Taiga has a very intuitive interface, which makes it easy for users to start working with the software.
See a comparison between Taiga and OpenProject to compare both open source project management tools.
Hosting
Taiga is available in the cloud and on-premises. The cloud version is hosted in the EU by AWS, which means it complies with GDPR in this regard.
Pricing
There is a free cloud and free on-premises version available. The paid Taiga cloud edition comes with premium support and is at $70 per month (unlimited users).
Orangescrum
Part of the top 5 open source project management software 2024 is also Orangescrum. It offers a cloud, on-premises version and open source enterprise edition. The open source edition is licensed under GNU GPL v3.
Feature set
Orangescrum offers classic as well as agile project management features. Resource management, schedule management (Gantt charts), budget and cost management, issue tracking, time tracking, workflow management as well as backlogs are available.
The on-premises and cloud version include even more features (burndown chart, project overview, task labels, custom task types, recurring tasks, invoicing etc.). Those are premium features and are part of paid plans.
Orangescrum’s interface looks very intuitive. See a comparison between Orangescrum and OpenProject to compare both open source project management tools.
Hosting
Orangescrum is available in the cloud and self-hosted. The cloud version is hosted with AWS (location not mentioned).
Orangescrum’s privacy policy states that they are taking many steps across the entire company to ensure they will be ready for the GDPR.
Pricing
The Orangescrum open source edition can be downloaded for free. You can add paid support plans to it, from $299 per month. You can try Orangescrum for 15 days for free.
There is a free Orangescrum cloud edition for 3 users and limited storage, paid plans are starting from $8 per user per month. The on-premises version with premium features and support is charged as a once-off (from $4,425), with potential support subscriptions for following years.
In conclusion
If you are looking for an open source project management software in 2024, we recommend to have a look at OpenProject, GitLab, Tuleap, Taiga, and Orangescrum.
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