Best Asana Alternatives (2026)
Open-source, self-hostable, and lower-cost alternatives to Asana — ranked and compared.
Asana is one of the most polished project management tools on the market, but its economics catch up with growing teams fast: the Advanced tier that unlocks portfolios, goals, and real cross-team reporting runs $24.99 per user per month, and that's before you factor in the two-seat minimum on every paid plan. A 25-person team on Advanced clears $7,000 a year, recurring, with the number only going up as headcount grows — and none of that spend buys you control over where the underlying task and project data actually lives, since Asana is fully closed-source and cloud-only.
The alternatives below solve that in different ways. Plane and Huly are the closest in spirit to Asana's modern UI, both self-hostable for free with no per-seat cost once you're running your own server. OpenProject goes further into enterprise territory with real Gantt charts and governance controls that some regulated teams specifically need. Redmine and Kanboard trade a modern interface for over a decade of stability. Focalboard and Wekan strip things down to a pure Trello/Notion-style board for teams that don't need sprints or goals at all. None of them charge per seat — the only ongoing cost is the VPS you run them on.
The 9 best Asana alternatives
Open-source project management platform in the style of Linear, Jira, and Asana.
- Fast, modern UI that mirrors Linear's keyboard-driven workflow
- Free self-hosted Community edition with no user cap
- AGPL-3.0 core means any modified, network-served fork must publish its source
Open-source all-in-one project management platform combining issues, docs, and chat.
- Genuinely replaces several tools at once (PM + docs + chat) in a single self-hosted stack
- Fast, modern UI comparable to Linear/Notion
- Huly Inc discontinued its own hosted cloud service in 2026 — self-hosting is now the only supported path
Open-source, self-hosted kanban and table boards in the style of Trello and Notion.
- Genuinely lightweight — a single binary can run a personal server
- MIT licensed with no paid tier or feature gate at all
- Mattermost stopped actively developing it in 2023; it's now community-maintained only
Open-source Trello-style kanban board, self-hosted with Meteor and MongoDB.
- MIT licensed, completely free with no paid tier ever
- Very close Trello feature/UI parity, so migration is nearly frictionless
- Meteor + MongoDB stack is heavier to self-host than newer Go/Node single-binary tools
Open-source project management with Gantt charts, agile boards, and enterprise governance.
- Genuinely strong Gantt/roadmap view — rare in open-source PM tools
- Mature permissions model suited to regulated or public-sector teams
- Ruby on Rails stack feels heavier and slower than newer Node/Go tools
Open-source project management built around goals and lean/agile methodology, not just tasks.
- Unusual goals-first structure connects daily tasks back to strategy explicitly
- Genuinely accessibility-conscious design, documented as a project priority
- Smaller community and plugin ecosystem than Plane, Redmine, or OpenProject
Minimalist, self-hosted kanban board with a single-file PHP install.
- Extremely lightweight — runs comfortably on a $5/mo VPS with SQLite
- MIT licensed, zero paid tier, no telemetry
- Project is in maintenance mode — mostly bug fixes, few new features since 2023
Long-running open-source project management and issue tracker built on Ruby on Rails.
- Extremely mature and stable — running in production since 2006
- Enormous third-party plugin and theme ecosystem
- UI is dated and configuration-heavy compared to modern tools
Open-source to-do and task management app you can self-host in one Go binary.
- Single Go binary self-hosting — no external database required for small installs
- Genuinely covers both personal to-do lists and small-team project boards
- AGPL-3.0 licensed, which restricts commercial SaaS resale of a modified version
Asana alternatives compared
| Spec | Plane | Huly | Focalboard | Wekan | OpenProject | Leantime | Kanboard | Redmine | Vikunja |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| License | AGPL-3.0 | EPL-2.0 | MIT | MIT | GPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 | MIT | GPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Open source | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-host | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Starting price | Free / self-host | Free / self-host | Free / self-host | Free / self-host | Free / self-host | Free / self-host | Free / self-host | Free / self-host | Free / self-host |
| Stars | 53,600 | 26,401 | 26,260 | 20,977 | 15,455 | 10,142 | 9,679 | 5,965 | 4,634 |
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Frequently asked questions
What is the best Asana alternative?
Plane is our top pick — Open-source project management platform in the style of Linear, Jira, and Asana. It is open source and self-hostable, Free / self-host.
Is there a free or open-source Asana alternative?
Yes. Plane, Huly, Focalboard, Wekan, OpenProject, Leantime, Kanboard, Redmine, Vikunja are open source, and most can be self-hosted for free aside from infrastructure cost.
Can I self-host an alternative to Asana?
Yes — Plane, Huly, Focalboard, Wekan, OpenProject, Leantime, Kanboard, Redmine, Vikunja support self-hosting, giving you full data ownership.