Open source alternatives to Asana

What Asana does

Asana organizes team work into projects and tasks that can be viewed as a list, a board or a calendar. Paid plans add timeline and Gantt views with task dependencies, reporting dashboards and unlimited automations, and the Advanced tier adds portfolios that group related projects and goals that tie daily work to objectives. Rules, forms with branching logic, custom task types, CSV and PDF export, and more than 100 integrations round it out. The plans are Personal (free), Starter, Advanced and Enterprise.

Why people look for an alternative

• A very small free plan. Asana’s Personal plan is limited to 2 users, so any team needs a paid plan billed per seat.
• Planning views behind paywalls. Timeline and Gantt views and dashboards start on Starter; portfolios and goals need Advanced.
• No self-hosting. Asana is only available as a hosted service, and choosing the region where data is stored is an add-on at Enterprise level.
• Cost that grows with the team. Every member who needs to work in projects is a paid seat.

What to compare in an alternative

1. Views. List, board and calendar are common; check timeline or Gantt, and whether dependencies are supported.
2. Above the project level. Portfolios, goals, programs or a cross-project planner.
3. Workload. Resource planning, capacity and time tracking, if you manage people’s time.
4. Automation and forms. Rules that move or assign work, and intake forms.
5. Moving your data. Asana exports to CSV; check whether the alternative imports CSV or offers its own importer.

Which one to choose

OpenProject covers the most ground: Gantt charts with milestones, boards, time and cost tracking, and portfolio features in its paid add-ons. Plane suits product and software teams with list, board, calendar, spreadsheet and Gantt layouts plus pages for documentation. Worklenz is the closest match for agencies and service teams, combining task views with resource planning, time logs, budgets and a client portal. Leantime is designed for people who are not trained project managers, mixing tasks, goals, timesheets and strategy tools. Kaneo is the lightest option, with board, list, calendar and Gantt layouts and a one-container install.