Plane review

Open source project tracker with cycles, modules, and a free cloud tier for 12 people.

Facts checked July 2026

Free plan: Yes
Free plan score: 74/100Strong
Starting price: $6/month
Open source: AGPL-3.0
Company: Plane
Founded: 2022

Our take

Plane gives software teams a Jira-style tracker they can self-host for free, with a usable 12-member cloud tier, though it is younger than the incumbents it replaces.

What Plane borrows from Jira, and what it drops

Plane is a project tracker built for software teams: work items instead of tickets, cycles for sprint planning, modules for grouping features, and five layouts including kanban, spreadsheet, and Gantt-style views. You can use the hosted cloud or run the Community Edition on your own server.

Three teams that should look at Plane

Software teams that want Jira's structure without Jira's configuration maze
Companies that need issue data on their own infrastructure
Teams up to 12 people who want a free cloud tracker with sprints included

Self-hosting stays free; the cloud is priced from $6 a seat

Plane is open source (AGPL-3.0). As of July 2026, the cloud free plan supports up to 12 members per workspace with projects, cycles, modules, unlimited views, and 500 AI credits per seat. Pro is $6/seat/month and adds time tracking and work logs; Business is $13/seat/month with templates, intake forms, and dashboards. The self-hosted Community Edition is free with no member cap; you provide the server.

Docker, thin integrations, and the limits of a young project

Self-hosting takes Docker familiarity; budget an afternoon for setup and updates
Some conveniences (time tracking, templates, recurring work items) sit behind paid tiers even self-hosted
The integration catalog is thinner than Jira's marketplace
The project is young; expect occasional rough edges and fast-moving releases

Our pick for open source project tracking in 2026

We think Plane is the best open source pick in this category right now: active development, a real free cloud tier, and an honest license. If you cannot run Docker and have more than 12 people, price out the Pro tier before committing.

What Plane offers

Kanban boards
Gantt & timeline
Agile & sprints
Self-hosting
App integrations
Docs & wiki

Not included

Automations
Time tracking
No user cap on free plan
Mobile apps

Plane plans and pricing

Cloud free plan for up to 12 members with projects, cycles, modules, and pages; the AGPL Community Edition is free to self-host with no member cap

The self-hosted Community Edition costs nothing but you run and update the server yourself; plan on Docker experience.

Free

Projects, work items, cycles, modules, pages, and 500 AI credits per seat

Up to 12 members per workspace

Pro

$6/mo

Adds time tracking, templates, dashboards, and workspace wiki

Price is per seat, billed annually

Business

$13/mo

Adds project templates, recurring work items, and intake forms

Price is per seat, billed annually

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

Plane's free plan score

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

74/100

Strong

Twelve free cloud members, or no cap at all if you host it yourself.

Free plan generosity: 80/100
Feature depth for the category: 76/100
Freedom and honesty: 82/100
What free users report: 55/100

Read the full free plan breakdown

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

Frequently asked questions about Plane

Is Plane a genuine replacement for Jira?

For most software teams, yes. Plane covers the same shape of work with work items, cycles for sprint planning, modules and five layouts including kanban and a Gantt-style view (as of July 2026). What it does not match is Jira's marketplace, since Plane's integration catalog is much thinner.

What licence is Plane released under?

AGPL-3.0, with the code public at github.com/makeplane/plane. That is an OSI-approved licence, so the Community Edition is genuinely yours to run with no member cap and nobody able to switch it off (as of July 2026). The cloud version is the same project, hosted.

Does Plane include time tracking on the free plan?

No, and self-hosting does not change that. Time tracking, templates, recurring work items, dashboards and the workspace wiki all sit behind Pro at $6 per seat per month, even when the software runs on your own hardware (as of July 2026). This is the detail people miss most often about Plane's Community Edition.

Does Plane have mobile apps?

Yes, iOS and Android apps alongside the web app and the self-hosted server (as of July 2026). That puts it ahead of most self-hostable trackers in this category, where mobile is usually either missing or community-maintained.

Is Plane mature enough to build a process on?

It is young, founded in 2022, and that shows in both directions. Releases move fast and development is active, which is why we call it the best open source pick in this category, but rough edges turn up more often than on a twenty-year-old product. We would trial it on one team before moving everything across.

Latest Plane 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 Plane'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 Plane think of it.

No reviews of Plane 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.