Top 5 open source project management tools in 2015

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Do you use a dedicated project management tool?

An updated version of this article is available here: Top 11 project management tools for 2016.

Last year, I covered five of the best open source project management tools, like ProjectLibre and OpenProject. The article struck a chord with readers and continues to prove valuable. So, this year I revisited the tools mentioned in last year's article, taking into account comments and suggestions from readers, and provided an update on where they are today. First, I share five new open source project management tools for 2015. All in all, this article will give you a good look at 11 of the top open source project management tools out there.

The criteria I used is based on the following:

  • Is the software provided under an open source license?
  • Does it have an active community?
  • Does it have up-to-date documentation available?
  • Is the source code available?
  • Are there new or recent releases?

Five new tools for 2015

Tuleap Open ALM

Tuleap Open ALM is not just a project management tool, it is an application lifecycle management tool, including support for agile development and project management. Tuleap received the InforWorld.com Bossie Award in 2013 and is used by Fortune 500 companies, small and medium businesses, and open source projects.

Tuleap allows for agile, traditional, hybrid, or custom processes for project magament. It supports planning, sprints, tasks, reports, and more. This tool is very suitable for open source development companies, as the tool also integrates with Git, SVN, Jenkins, and more.

Tuleap is licensed under a GNU Public License and is available on GitHub. The open source version contains all features and allows for unlimited projects and users. In addition to professional support, there is an active community for support and documentation. Tuleap is in active development, with version 7.8 in December 2014 being the latest release.

OrangeScrum

OrangeScrum is a modern project management tool for freelancers, agencies, and small and medium businesses. Features include a scrum task board, resource planning, progress tracking, and more. It is designed for use by IT companies, education and health services, construction and manufacturing, and others.

The tool is web-based on top of a CakePHP framework. It is available as a free and open source under GPLv3 and available on GitHub. There is also a paid SaaS solution in which the parent company Andolasoft provides professional services and support.

The OrangeScrum developer community has an active forum and roadmap. The latest version is 1.5.1 and under active development.

Taiga

Taiga is an open source project management platform in beta for startups, agile developers, and designers. For an introduction, see Nitish Tiwari's coverage in Taiga, a new open source project management tool with focus on usability. Read more in this interview with CEO Pablo Ruiz Múzquiz.

"Taiga is a tool that aims to solve the basic problem of software usability. Designed with this sole aim, the developers claim it's beautiful to look at all day long."

With a focus on agile development, Taiga has all of the required features such as a backlog, Kanban, tasks, sprints, and issues. Taiga is open source under the GNU Affero GPLv3 and available on GitHub. There is also a paid version. Taiga runs on Nginx, Python 3.4, and PostgreSQL 9.3 or higher. You can find documentation on their site and support via their Google group.

Odoo

Odoo, formerly known as OpenERP, is a full suite of business applications, of which Odoo project management is just one. It is multiplatform and supports Windows, Fedora, CentOS, RHEL, and others. Odoo is licensed under AGPLv3 and available for download.

Odoo has a professional community with everything a user or developer needs, including forums, documentation, IRC, tracker, GitHub, and more. It supports a Kanban view with tasks and issues as well as a Gantt chart and control deadlines. The tool can easily be adapted to meet your own project management methods. It's also highly collaborative, allowing for multiple members to work on proposals or minutes at the same time and sending tasks as emails automatically. For the full set of features, check out the tools description page.

MyCollab

MyCollab supports three modules: MyCollab CRM, Document Management, and MyCollab-Project.

MyCollab-Project is the tool we're looking at in this case and has many features, like a Gantt chart and milestones, to time tracking, issue management, risk and problem management. MyCollab-Project comes in three editions, of which the Community Edition is the free option. MyCollab is licensed under AGPLv3, built in Java, and bundles open source frameworks and libraries. The source code is on GitHub and the tool is available for download on the website. Documentation is available there as well.

MyCollab-Project's latest release is 4.5.5 with a focus on enhancing project functionalities and mobile distribution. GitHub is used in place of a traditional forum, where they accept contributions and provide support.

Progress report on tools featured in 2014

Here's an update on the projects I covered last year.

ProjectLibre has moved from version 1.5.8 to 1.5.9. It has not yet released version 2.0, nor is there a SaaS (software as a service) option available. In July 2014, ProjectLibre passed the 1 million mark for number of downloads.

LibrePlan current version is the one they released in April 2013. For a full update, check the State of the Union 2015.

OpenProject is active and continues to improve as evidenced by their release notes. They are currently at version 4.0.4. The migration to Ruby on Rails 2.1 and 3.2 was successfully completed in March 2014 with their release of version 3.0.

]project-open[ released a 4.1 beta in June 2014. The expected 4.2 has not been released yet, but I spotted a version 5.0 on their roadmap for 2015.

Redmine seems to continue with steady improvements.

The bonus tool I covered last year was Agilefant. They have since implemented a paid-for version but continue to provide the basic tool as open source.

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Robin Muilwijk
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Former Opensource.com and Open Organization moderator/ambassador.
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36 Comments

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Amol Khiste | January 13, 2015
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Glad that Tuleap made it to the list! It's the first thing that came to my mind on reading the title and was happy to see it listed first. I like that it has a fully functional community edition without any users/projects limit. Also it is has both project management and ALM.

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Robin Muilwijk | January 14, 2015
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Thanks for the comment, Tuleap was actually suggested on the 2014 article. I had a look at it and really liked it, also for the things you mention, as it has no limitations as open source version and also the lifecycle part of the tool.

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SamT | March 13, 2015
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Disappointed again.

I have been searching for and trying out PMs for 2 decades now. I
(used to) work in the most intensive project management field on earth. Not only the biggest, but the busiest, the oldest, and the one that employs the most people on Earth.

A field of projects ranging in size from a single man hour to projects of literally billions (with a B) man hours.

I have yet to find any Open Source Project Management Software for the Construction Industry, the father of PM.

<Really Big SIGH />

PS: For a really long term and well managed project, check out the Pyramids of Egypt.

PPS: For the most awesomely managed project EVER! Check out the construction story of the Empire State Building.

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Pablo Torre | April 30, 2015
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Why don't you start your own openSource project?

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Om | October 1, 2015
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Hi,

Why dont you try Orangescrum. It has both Opensource Version: http://www.orangescrum.org/free-download & the popular Cloud Version: http://www.orangescrum.com

They customize according to your needs at a nominal cost.
Give it a shot.

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Bob Walthers | January 14, 2015
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I've tried quite a few open source tools over the years, among them OrangeScrum and MyCollab. MyCollab was pretty good, but it actually had too many features I didn't need and they kinda cluttered up the UI. I was looking for something even simpler that would let me see all my tasks at a glance and move things around quickly. I've recently switched to a new tool called MeisterTask (www.meistertask.com), which is still in beta but is extremely intuitive. If you just want to get stuff done with your team without all the fuss like Gantt charts and pie charts, then I'd highly recommend it.

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Sparxz | January 20, 2015
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Great article. Pity no screen shots.

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Kristina Gebert-Kolb | February 10, 2015
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I’ve been using Arc 9 to manage all my creative projects, especially ones that require direct client interaction. It’s definitely the easiest platform to use because, it combines all the best features of traditional collaboration software like; basecamp, vimeo, and dropbox, into a single web application.

I love that not only is it great for video (which is nearly impossible to find these days), it handles everything else with ease. You can upload almost any type of image, coding/development script, pdf, text, or file without having to convert them back and forth. I am still most impressed by the features available for sharing, which instantly turn projects into fully branded presentations. You can invite clients (via email) to view your work in customized private portals, with annotation tools that encourage both written and visual feedback.

I’ve found it to be the perfect solution for many of my creative workflow obstacles, and I really think other creatives would benefit from it as much as I have.

http://www.arc9.com

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Phillip Tredson | February 13, 2015
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Best free open source project management is Bitrix24 IMHO. Capterra had a great list of free open source solutions last year http://blog.capterra.com/free-open-source-project-management-software/

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Amine | February 26, 2015
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Hello and thanks
I agree that Bitrix24 is one among the best. But is a little bit complicated to master and use at day2day life.
There is no Issue Tracking ... and so for managing bugs and customers feedbacks it is somehow not the ideal
Another limit is the fact that external users are only offered with paid premium account

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occygen | February 27, 2015
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To improve your QA/Testing activities, OCCYGEN offers you an easy way to manage your projects and test plans. It is a project management tool focused on QA activities which allows you to organize requirements, test cases and test runs for all your projects. With Occygen it is possible to automate test cases using Python scripts and Nosetests .Besides, it synchronizes your data with other tools (Mantis, Jira and Bugzilla).
Discover more features on www.occygen.com.

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Konstantin V Bekreyev | March 1, 2015
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Thank you, very interesting. But you did not discuss the issue of localization, multilingual projects, and this is very important. I ask that the next review pay attention to it.

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Brian Kenyon | March 10, 2015
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Hi Robin,
This is a great list, however I think you have missed www.project.net . We have been regular updating our open source project management software for the past few months on Sourceforge. We've been around for almost a decade and are a great collaborative online MS Project replacement and is especially useful to enterprise PMOs.

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Robin Muilwijk | March 11, 2015
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I will make sure to add this in next years list, if we run a third edition! Thanks for letting me know.

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ariff | March 26, 2015
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all this is ok , however how can a frrelancer earn something out of these software

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Robin Muilwijk | March 28, 2015
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You could develop some professional services around such software. Consulting, training, implementations etc.

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Rutul | April 23, 2015
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Glad to see Odoo in the list. Odoo is growing rapidly in terms of functionality as well as the usage in different marketspaces. Kudos to Odoo team.

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Rob Shankar | April 26, 2015
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Hello Rob,

We have proposed a hosted Netsuite OpenAir solution to a Large client with 3000 users scaling to about 10,000 users. Obviously there is a monthly cost for doing this.

Could you recommend an Open source EPM solution that could be hosted internally, has most desired Project Management features, is intuitive, has a good GUI and is scalable which continues to be supported and enhanced.

Please let me know as to how we could get in touch with you.

Best regards,

Ravi Shankar

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Robin Muilwijk | April 26, 2015
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Hello Ravi,

I'd be happy to make some suggestions, but do not know the organization where you are implementing the tool. This is equally important. Also what PM methods they use. So it might be smarter to review the tools yourself, I found them to be very close to each other in terms of features and quality.

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Rob Shankar | April 26, 2015
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Hello Robin,

It is a government agency.. I am talking to them tomorrow again. Is there some way to contact you by phone? Are you saying most of the EPM software would scale up to 3000 plus users? Is there a single site where we could test drive the PM software without downloading and installing ourselves.

It has been my dream to further customize /extend Open EPM software.Want to give our clients superb functionality and performance.

BTW, do you know monthly pricing for 3000 to 10000 plus users for Netsuite Openair. I have a few quotes.

Thanks my friend.

Ravi Shankar
CEO
Fourth Technologies .

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Paul Marshall | May 12, 2015
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Hi Ravi

Which government is this? http://www.kahootz.com isn't open source but they have been approved by the UK government as a result of their high security levels so might be of use to you.

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JayTX | June 2, 2015
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By open source I was thinking all these are available for installation in our local environment, then i got to see some of the sections stating as 'web-based' and comments stating about 'online'. @Robin, hope you could add another factor for your evaluation - strictly hosted vs. available for private installation? The distinguishing factor to be brought out is where the data resides.

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Robin Muilwijk | June 2, 2015
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If we run this article another time, I'd be happy to take this into account. Thanks for the suggestion!

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Paul Labuschagne | June 15, 2015
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There is a free fully featured Scrum tool that runs on a XAMPP stack at http://practicalagile.co.uk.
It allows you to create and manage Projects, Iterations, Epics, Stories, Story Tasks and Comments using a tool that is simple, easy to use and only does what it needs to do.
One of the more useful features is that you can have a hierarchy of Stories or Epics, something that is normally only included in scrum tools at a substantial cost. The hierarchy is easily accessible from most places and visible for each story that is part of a tree. This means Stories can have children (and obviously parents) to an almost infinite level.
A complete install including all dependencies for windows is provided for those that want to get up an running quickly and easily along with instructions on how to install inside an existing XAMPP installation.

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Robin Muilwijk | June 15, 2015
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Thanks for the suggestion Paul, do you happen to know if it is also open source? I had a quick look, but could not spot a license.

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Paul Labuschagne | June 20, 2015
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The app itself is covered under The MIT License (MIT) free to do whatever you want with it
the dependencies
fancytree and jqplot are also covered under the same license
jhtmlarea is Licensed under the Microsoft Reciprocal License (Ms-RL)
so all entirely open source

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Babynus | July 12, 2015
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Hi,
Glad to see that Tuleap entered the Top five. It's really interesting and really Open Source (in the talk and in the being). But to my point of view, it is not a Project Management Software, even though it can be integrated in Project Management process. It is an ALM (Aplication Lifecycle Management) not a PM software.

Also Odoo is an ERP. It is a very good ERP, and really Open Source, but the Project Management part of Odoo is very poor. It is really NOT a Project Management Sorftware.
You could in the same way have place Dolibarr : also an ERP withh (poop) Project Management module.

I find it'a a pitty not to find to 3 of Project Management in SourceForge :
- ]project-open[
- Ganib (but the position as Open Source is not cear with this one)
- ProjeQtOr

Also, for all those who look for comparision of Project Management software, my advise is to have a look at http://pmsoftware.weebly.com/.
The way to evaluate softwares is really good and pragmatic, and they publish their method, so that you can use it to evaluate tools (unfortunately they applied their method only to three tools)

Hope this comment may help people looking for project managemebt software.

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Tiberiu Ghioca | July 24, 2015
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Hi Robin,

Although not open source RationalPlan Single can be used for free on Linux operating systems:
http://www.rationalplan.com/projectmanagementblog/rationalplan-single-is-distributed-as-freeware-on-linux-operating-systems/

Just thought it is a good addition for those users that do not really need open source solutions to manage projects.

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Miley | August 26, 2015
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So, what about Worksection.com? It is also a good tool... and it's free.

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Robin Muilwijk | August 28, 2015
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Thanks for the suggestion. I covered open source tools, and as far as I can see, Worksection.com isn't.

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PaulinaZ | September 2, 2015
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Hi,

I can recommend a cloud app, that we have recently created. It is dedicated to small companies, and is now in beta phase. In contrast to many others avialable on the market, it provides all the tools, which are needed to run the business correctly. You can use the app from the very beggining of creating a plan for the project - to calculate the amount of time and money for it - to the end, by issuing an invoice. Thanks to the app you can also check out updates of the project - the progress, time and costs which they are generating.

Don’t hesitete to try it. We will be grateful for a feedback :)
http://www.bugilo.pl

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Tom T | September 10, 2015
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Hi Robin,
I hope you create another post on cloud-based PM tools (like https://www.wrike.com/) that people can use to manage their open source projects.

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chunge | September 17, 2015
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Hello everybody, there's a new open source project management tools named zentao. Including product, project, and QA management. http://www.zentao.pm

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Tim Hampshire | October 16, 2015
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Havent actually tried any of the above, might check them out. Have been using Dooster.net past few years and havent had any problems, worth a look I think.

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