Choosing the right open-source project management tool is not just about comparing feature lists. It is about deciding what kind of system your teams will live inside every day and whether that system will still make sense two years from now.

Plane and OpenProject both offer open-source foundations, self-hosting options, and real alternatives to tools like Jira. But they take very different paths to get there.

If you need a more organized, modern project management experience — with layered planning from initiative to work item, a workspace-level wiki, production AI, and self-hosting that takes minutes, not days — Plane is the stronger long-term choice.

In this guide, we break down the real differences across features, customization, deployment, pricing, and self-hosting.

TL;DR

Core differences at a glance

One workspace for planning, docs, and execution

Plane brings planning, execution, documentation, and collaboration into a single workspace. Instead of stitching together separate tools for tracking work, writing docs, managing sprints, and handling intake requests, Plane keeps everything connected under one login.

Here is what ships inside Plane today:

• Project management with five layout views (List, Board, Calendar, Gantt, Spreadsheet) on every tier, including free
• A workspace-level Wiki with a rich-text editor, slash commands, embeds (Figma, Loom, Google Docs, Draw.io), nested pages, version history, and PDF/Word export
• Cycles, Modules, Milestones, and Initiatives for planning at every level from sprint to strategy
• Native time tracking for accurate estimates and reporting
• Intake forms and email capture for structured requests from internal teams or external clients
• Workflows and automations with trigger-and-action rules and approval processes
• Integrations with GitHub (including Enterprise), GitLab (including self-managed), Slack (create work items, sync comments, AI bot), Sentry (auto-create items from errors) and more.
• Cloud, self-hosted, and air-gapped deployment (air-gapped available on Business and Enterprise)

OpenProject spreads functionality across separate modules: Work Packages, Backlogs, Meetings, Wiki, Forums, Budgets, and the new Documents feature. Some of the most requested capabilities, like Kanban-style action boards that automatically update work package attributes when cards are dragged between columns, require a paid Enterprise plan. Plane includes full Board view on every tier, including free.

The total cost of ownership

Choosing a project management tool is a long-term commitment. Migrating data, retraining teams, and rebuilding workflows after a year costs more than most teams budget for. So the real question is not just "what does it cost per seat?" but "what will I actually pay when I account for everything?"

Both Plane and OpenProject offer free self-hosted editions. The comparison gets more interesting at the paid tiers.

As of February 2026, here is the side-by-side breakdown:

OpenProject prices converted from EUR to USD at approximate rates (€5.95 ≈ $7.25, ~€11 ≈ $13.50). Verify current rates on OpenProject's pricing page.

At every tier, Plane costs less per seat. But the bigger story is what is included at each tier.

Plane's Pro plan ($6/seat/month) includes the workspace Wiki, time tracking, custom work item types, epics, initiatives, and SSO via SAML. On OpenProject, SSO via SAML and OIDC requires the Professional tier ($13.50/seat/month with a 25-user minimum). If you have a 15-person team and need SSO, Plane has a plan for you at $6/seat. OpenProject's lowest SSO-eligible tier starts at 25 seats.

OpenProject does have one clear cost advantage: time tracking and budgeting are included on all tiers, including the free Community Edition. Plane's time tracking requires Pro ($6/seat/month).

Core work management and feature breadth

Plane covers a wider surface of modern work management, while OpenProject operates for traditional project controls.

This is where the philosophical split between the two tools becomes most visible. OpenProject calls its core unit a "Work Package," a flexible container that can represent tasks, milestones, phases, features, bugs, or user stories. The system is designed around structured project management with Gantt timelines, dependency tracking, and multi-project hierarchies.

Plane uses "Work Items" as its core unit, with the option to define custom types: bugs, features, support tickets, requests, stories, and whatever else your team needs. Where OpenProject organizes work around project timelines, Plane organizes it around teams, cycles, and outcomes.

Setting up workflows on Plane.

OpenProject includes budgeting and cost reporting on all tiers, including free — that is worth knowing if your org runs earned value analysis or tracks labour costs per project. But the feature set feels like it was designed for a different era of project management.=

Plane's approach to time tracking is more practical for how modern teams actually work. You log time directly on work items, pull downloadable reports, and on Business+, run worklog approvals so managers can review and sign off before numbers hit the books. It fits naturally into the flow of work instead of sitting in a separate module.

And beyond time tracking, Plane gives every team — including free users — five layout views with rich, stackable filters. OpenProject's Community Edition includes basic manual boards where you drag cards between columns, but those boards do not update work package attributes automatically. Kanban boards that actually change status on drag require a paid Enterprise plan.

Customization and flexibility

Plane gives teams control over how their workflows, fields, and structures behave. OpenProject offers customization in some areas but gates key capabilities behind higher tiers.

Both tools support custom fields and custom work item types. That said, the customization experience differs significantly.

Plane lets teams on Pro and above define custom work item types, so your Engineering team can track Bugs and Features while your Support team tracks Tickets and Requests, all inside the same workspace. On Business, you get workflow automations with trigger-and-action rules, approval processes, and project templates that save the full configuration of states, fields, and automations.

OpenProject supports custom types and custom fields on all tiers. But workflow automation (custom actions) requires the Enterprise Basic tier or above. And form configuration, controlling which fields appear on which work package types, also requires Professional or higher.

Here is the thing that catches most teams off guard with OpenProject: the free Community Edition includes custom fields, custom types, 2FA, and project templates, but locks action boards, team planners, SSO, and custom actions behind paid Enterprise plans. So the customization feels generous until you try to build an actual automated workflow around it.

Knowledge management

Plane includes a workspace-level wiki designed for documentation across teams. OpenProject includes a project-level wiki built on basic markup, with a new real-time Documents feature.

Documentation is where the two tools' different design philosophies become most visible.

Switch between Projects and Pages in one click. Plane keeps everything organized.

Plane's Wiki is a workspace-wide documentation system with a rich-text editor: slash commands, tables, embeds (Figma, Loom, Google Docs, Draw.io), inline images, checklists, and outline view. Pages support nested hierarchies on Business+, versioning with multi-user diffs on Pro+, templates at workspace, team, and project levels, and PDF/Word exports. You can even publish pages externally.

OpenProject has two documentation features. The original wiki is available on all tiers including the free Community Edition and provides basic markup-based editing at the project level. No page nesting, no templates, no embeds, and no export options.

If your team currently uses Confluence or Notion alongside their PM tool, Plane's wiki can replace that separate subscription. OpenProject's Documents feature is headed in the right direction, but most teams using OpenProject today still pair it with an external documentation tool for anything beyond basic project notes.

Planning and tracking

Plane structures planning around Cycles, Modules, Epics, and Initiatives. OpenProject structures planning around Gantt charts, Backlogs, and Versions.

Both tools support sprint-style planning. Plane calls them Cycles: time-boxed iterations with burn-down charts, auto-transfer of incomplete items, and transfer history. OpenProject uses a Backlogs module with sprint and product backlogs, plus taskboards.

Where they diverge is the layers above sprints. Plane offers Modules (group work by component or theme), Epics (larger bodies of work), and Initiatives (roll up epics with auto-updated progress and Gantt views). These create a clear hierarchy: Initiative → Epic → Cycle → Work Item. OpenProject does not have a direct equivalent to Modules, Epics, or Initiatives at the standard tiers. It uses version-based release planning, which works well for waterfall but feels less natural for agile teams. OpenProject v17.0 introduced Programs and portfolios as a Premium-tier add-on (starting at 100 seats), providing strategic oversight across multiple projects.

On the flip side, OpenProject's Gantt charts are good for open-source tools. Automatic and manual scheduling modes, predecessor/successor dependencies with lag/lead, baseline comparison (Enterprise for full date-range baselines; Community for yesterday-only), and multi-project Gantt views.

Integrations and extensibility

Plane connects natively to developer and collaboration tools. OpenProject focuses on EU-aligned file management and its role in the European open-source ecosystem.

Plane ships with native integrations for GitHub (including GitHub Enterprise), GitLab (including self-managed), Slack (create work items, sync comments, AI bot), and Sentry (auto-create items from errors). The Marketplace adds apps like Raycast and VS Code MCP. For migration, Plane includes importers for Jira, Linear, Asana, ClickUp, Notion, and Confluence, covering the most common tools teams switch from.

OpenProject's integration story is different. Its strongest integration is with Nextcloud, a deep file management connection where files and folders in Nextcloud link bidirectionally to work packages, project folders can be created directly from OpenProject, file access is governed by project roles, and a Nextcloud dashboard widget surfaces OpenProject notifications and allows work package creation without switching tools. OpenProject v17.0 added an MCP Server integration. Beyond that, the ecosystem relies on community-maintained plugins of varying quality and has no Zapier or Make support.

Plane also offers a native MCP server for connecting AI agent frameworks, typed SDKs for Node.js and Python, and HMAC-signed webhooks. OpenProject has an OpenAPI 3.1 spec, OAuth2 support, a SCIM server API for user provisioning (Corporate tier), and a Ruby gem plugin system for self-hosted instances.

Security and compliance

Both tools take security seriously, but they serve different compliance profiles and make different certification investments.

Plane holds SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA certifications, independently audited and continuously monitored. SSO via SAML is available on all paid tiers, and self-hosted or air-gapped deployments give teams full control over their data.

OpenProject takes a different approach rooted in its position as a German company serving the European public sector. It is GDPR-compliant by design: EU-domiciled, EU-only cloud hosting, automated Data Processing Agreements, and no functional cookies. Its hosting infrastructure providers (AWS and Scaleway) hold ISO 27001 certification, though OpenProject GmbH itself does not hold organizational SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, or CCPA certifications

Deployment and self-hosting

Both Plane and OpenProject offer self-hosted open-source editions. The self-hosting experience, however, is very different.

Plane's self-hosted installation is a one-liner:

curl -fsSL  https://prime.plane.so/install | bash

The Prime CLI handles installation, configuration, upgrades, backups, monitoring, and multi-instance management from a single tool. The Docker image is under 2GB compressed. Minimum requirements: 2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, 20GB storage. Plane supports Docker Compose, Kubernetes (Helm charts), Docker Swarm, and Podman. It is also available on Coolify and Portainer for managed self-hosting.

For teams that need full network isolation, Plane offers a dedicated Air-gapped Edition with pre-bundled offline packages and signed bundles for Docker and Kubernetes. No external network calls at all. The air-gapped edition is available on the Enterprise tier with custom pricing and a 12-month minimum commitment. Standard self-hosted editions (Free through Business) require internet connectivity for license validation.

OpenProject's self-hosted Community Edition installs via DEB/RPM packages (their recommended method) or Docker. The packaged installation is well-documented and reliable, but involves more manual steps than Plane's one-line approach.

One more thing: Plane's Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and the self-hosted free tier mirrors the cloud free tier with a limit of 12 users per workspace. OpenProject's Community Edition has no user limit, which is a meaningful advantage for larger teams who want basic features at zero cost.

Pricing compared

Here is the full breakdown of paid tiers as of February 2026.

Plane pricing from plane.so/pricing. OpenProject pricing from openproject.org/pricing. OpenProject EUR-to-USD conversion approximate. OpenProject also offers Premium (starting at 100 seats) and Corporate (starting at 250 seats) tiers with custom pricing.

The pricing structures tell different stories. Plane charges the same price whether you deploy on the cloud or self-host. OpenProject's self-managed Enterprise pricing requires higher minimums: 25 users for Basic and Professional, 100 for Premium, 250 for Corporate. If you are a 15-person team that needs self-hosted features beyond the Community Edition, Plane has a plan for you. OpenProject does not.

Final notes

Plane and OpenProject solve different problems for different teams, and being honest about that distinction matters more than pretending one tool is universally better.

OpenProject has been around for 13 years and serves a specific niche — waterfall methodologies, budgeting, cost reporting, and BIM for construction. Its Gantt charts are mature and EU-sovereign hosting appeals to European public-sector teams. But the interface feels dated, there are no production AI features, and basic setup tasks like configuring workflows can take hours. Worth factoring in if you are making a long-term decision.

Plane is the modern alternative. It ships with five layout views on every tier, a workspace-level wiki with rich-text editing and version history, production AI with agents and natural language queries, native Slack integration, and one-line self-hosting. For teams that want a single workspace across Engineering, Product, Marketing, and Operations without bolting on extra tools, Plane fits that need from day one.

Choose Plane if you want a workspace that consolidates projects, documentation, and AI across departments and deploys with minimal friction. Choose OpenProject if you need deep financial project controls, EU-native data sovereignty, or BIM integration for construction projects.

Frequently asked questions

Is Plane better than OpenProject for small teams?

For teams under 12 users, Plane's free tier includes Board views, Cycles, Modules, and AI, features that OpenProject either does not offer or locks behind paid plans. OpenProject's free Community Edition supports unlimited users but requires self-hosting and limits boards to basic manual columns without automatic attribute updates. For small teams that want quick setup and a modern editing experience, Plane is the stronger fit.

Can I migrate from OpenProject to Plane?

Plane does not currently offer a direct OpenProject importer. But teams can export data from OpenProject as CSV/XLS and import it into Plane. Plane also offers importers from Jira, Linear, Asana, and ClickUp, so if you are migrating from one of those tools, the process is straightforward.

Does Plane offer self-hosted deployment like OpenProject?

Yes. Both Plane and OpenProject offer self-hosted open-source editions. Plane installs with a single command and includes a CLI for upgrades, backups, and monitoring. Plane also offers a dedicated air-gapped edition for fully offline environments on the Enterprise tier with custom pricing. OpenProject installs via DEB/RPM packages or Docker.

Does OpenProject have AI features?

As of February 2026, OpenProject does not have any production AI features. Plane's AI system (Plane Intelligence) is in production with natural language queries, content generation, AI agents, and Slack integration.