The best Project Management
Every option ranked — open-source, self-hostable, and commercial — by our transparent Sovereignty Score, with honest trade-offs so you choose what fits you, not us.
Tools for planning and tracking work across teams — issues, tasks, sprints, backlogs, Kanban and Scrum boards, roadmaps, and Gantt scheduling — so teams can organize projects, track progress, and coordinate delivery.
L5Applications — layer 5 of the AI stack- 1
OpenProject
Top pickOpen sourceGPL-3.0 self-hosted project management with Gantt, agile boards, and portfolio features in the free Community Edition.
Free to self-host (Community Edition, GPL-3.0); paid Enterprise cloud/on-premises tiers from about €5.95/user/month for premium and security add-ons · in our Jira comparison →
What is OpenProject? →95sovereignty - 2
Wekan
Top pickOpen sourceThe closest open-source, self-hosted match to Trello's own card-and-list model.
Free / self-host (commercial support available separately) · in our Trello comparison →
What is Wekan? →90sovereignty - 3
Plane
Open sourceAGPL-3.0, modern open-source project management for issues, cycles, and roadmaps — a lighter, contemporary Jira alternative.
Free to self-host (Community Edition, AGPL-3.0); paid cloud and Enterprise tiers available · in our Jira comparison →
What is Plane? →92sovereignty - 4
Redmine
Open sourceGPL-2.0 veteran project management and issue tracker — lightweight, extensible, and runs on modest hardware.
Free / self-host (GPL-2.0-or-later); costs are hosting, maintenance, and optional third-party support only · in our Jira comparison →
What is Redmine? →90sovereignty - 5
Vikunja
Open sourceA modern task manager with List, Kanban, Gantt, and Table views in one app.
Free / self-host for all core features; Pro add-ons (admin panel, audit logs, time tracking) via a paid license from ~$5/user/month; managed Cloud hosting also available · in our Trello comparison →
What is Vikunja? →89sovereignty - 6
Taiga
Open sourceOpen-source agile project management with clean Scrum and Kanban boards, self-hostable and free.
Free / self-host (open-source); optional paid hosted cloud plans available from Taiga · in our Jira comparison →
What is Taiga? →88sovereignty - 7
Kanboard
Open sourceA minimalist, low-overhead Kanban board for teams who want speed over features.
Free / self-host (paid cloud hosting plans available from the maintainer) · in our Trello comparison →
What is Kanboard? →86sovereignty
Is it free?
The free tier, its real limits and where you start paying — read from each vendor's own pricing page and dated.
Run these yourself
What each one actually needs — real RAM, honest running cost, and the setup time nobody quotes.
- Self-hosting OpenProject 4 GB. The vendor sizes its minimum for up to 200 users, so a 5–20 person team fits inside it
- Self-hosting Wekan 4 GB total, the README's production minimum
- Self-hosting Plane 8 GB, the vendor's recommendation for production
- Self-hosting Redmine 2 GB for Redmine plus PostgreSQL or MySQL on one box. Each app process sits at 256–512 MB and can spike past 1 GB on large issue trees or expensive queries
- Self-hosting Vikunja 1 GB for Vikunja plus PostgreSQL on one box. The docs say you probably won't need Redis until you have more than a handful of users
- Self-hosting Taiga 2–4 GB. A community member running it on a 4 GB AWS t3.medium measured about 1.5 GB in use across all containers (September 2025)
- Self-hosting Kanboard 1 GB for Kanboard plus PostgreSQL on one box. It is a PHP app, and no source I found says a small team needs more
Replacing a specific tool?
Head-to-head comparisons for each popular project management product.
Straight head-to-heads
Two project management tools, side by side — verified facts and a plain verdict.