OpenProject review

Self-hosted project management with real Gantt charts, free under GPL-3.0.

Facts checked July 2026

Free plan: Yes
Free plan score: 74/100Strong
Starting price: €5.95/month
Open source: GPL-3.0
Based in: Germany
Company: OpenProject GmbH

Our take

OpenProject offers the most complete free feature set for classic project management, including Gantt charts, but only if you are willing to host it yourself.

Classic project planning, in development since 2012

OpenProject is a German open source platform aimed at classic and hybrid project management: work packages, Gantt charts with dependencies, agile boards, time and cost tracking, meeting management, and wikis. It has been in development since 2012 and is popular with public-sector and privacy-focused organizations.

Gantt without seats, data without a third party

Organizations that need Gantt charts and dependencies without paying per seat
Teams with a legal or policy requirement to keep project data on their own servers
Anyone replacing Microsoft Project or paid Asana tiers for timeline planning

Free only if you host it, and the Enterprise price needs 25 seats

OpenProject is open source (GPL-3.0). As of July 2026, the self-hosted Community Edition is free with no user limit. Paid Enterprise plans (cloud or on-premises) start at 5.95 euros per user/month with a 25-user minimum, adding support and some enterprise add-ons. There is no free cloud tier, only a 14-day trial, so free here genuinely means self-hosted.

Where the free Community Edition's limits land on you

Free means running your own server; there is no free hosted option
The interface is functional but dated next to Linear or Plane
Some features, like advanced boards and custom themes, are Enterprise-only
Upgrades and backups are your responsibility on the Community Edition

Worth the server if you need real Gantt charts

If you can run Docker and want Gantt-level planning for zero license cost, OpenProject is the most complete option in this list. If nobody on the team wants to maintain a server, look at Plane's cloud tier instead.

What OpenProject offers

Kanban boards
Gantt & timeline
Agile & sprints
Time tracking
Self-hosting
Docs & wiki

Not included

Automations
No user cap on free plan
App integrations
Mobile apps

OpenProject plans and pricing

Community Edition is free to self-host with no user limit; there is no free cloud tier, only a 14-day trial

Free here genuinely means self-hosted: budget admin time for installation, upgrades, and backups.

Community

Free

Self-hosted with work packages, Gantt charts, boards, and time tracking

You run the server, updates, and backups yourself

Basic

€5.95/mo

Enterprise cloud or on-premises with support and enterprise add-ons

Price is per user in EUR, 25-user minimum

Professional

€10.95/mo

Adds priority support and onboarding services

Price is per user in EUR, 25-user minimum

As of July 2026. Check current pricing on the OpenProject pricing page.

OpenProject's free plan score

How good OpenProject's free plan really is, judged on four things and weighted into one number.

74/100

Strong

Gantt charts and time tracking for nothing, as long as you run the server.

Free plan generosity: 72/100
Feature depth for the category: 86/100
Freedom and honesty: 80/100
What free users report: 58/100

Read the full free plan breakdown

Scored July 2026. How we calculate the free plan score.

Frequently asked questions about OpenProject

What licence is OpenProject under, and is there a user limit?

GPL-3.0, with the code public at github.com/opf/openproject, and the self-hosted Community Edition has no user limit at all (as of July 2026). Nobody counts seats, nothing is metered, and the project data sits on hardware you control.

Who makes OpenProject?

OpenProject GmbH, based in Berlin, and the project has been in development since 2012. It is widely used by public-sector and privacy-focused organizations, which is part of why the self-hosted route gets as much attention as the hosted one.

How much does OpenProject Enterprise cost?

Basic starts at 5.95 euros per user per month and Professional at 10.95 euros, both with a 25-user minimum (as of July 2026). That minimum is the number to read twice: it puts the floor at roughly 149 euros a month, which prices out the small teams who would otherwise be the natural first customers.

How much work is it to run OpenProject yourself?

Enough that we would not call it free unless someone on your team wants the job. Installation, upgrades, uptime and backups are all yours, and there is no free hosted fallback, only a 14-day trial (as of July 2026). The interface is also functional and dated next to Linear or Plane, which most people notice within an hour.

Can OpenProject replace Microsoft Project?

For timeline planning, yes. The free Community Edition covers Gantt charts with dependencies, work packages, agile boards, and time and cost tracking, with no per-seat licence (as of July 2026). The trade is that you host it yourself, where Microsoft Project is something you install and forget about.

Latest OpenProject news

Changes that affect what you get for free: pricing, free plan limits, ownership, and whether the project is still maintained. Not every release.

We checked OpenProject's own blog, changelog and release notes in July 2026 and found nothing that changes the picture above.

Reader reviews

What people who actually use OpenProject think of it.

No reviews of OpenProject yet. If you have used it, yours would be the first.

The useful part is the specifics: what you used it for, and where it got in your way.