Project management tools like Jira are essential in software development but often not well-loved. These tools can hinder developers by enforcing rigid processes. Despite being cluttered, Jira's high level of customization keeps it popular across industries.

While customization is a key strength, it can be implemented more effectively through open-source solutions.

With this in mind, I’ve compiled a list of open-source project management and issue-tracking tools to help you find the best fit for your needs.

1. Tegon - The dev-first open-source alternative to Linear, Jira
2. Taiga - The open source project management tool
3. OpenProject - Open source project management for teams
4. Huly - All-in-One Project Management Platform
5. Plane - Open-source project management that unlocks customer value

Feel free to star and contribute to the repositories.

1. Tegon: The dev-first open-source alternative to Linear, Jira

I've used countless project management tools but was never fully satisfied with either the user experience or the features they offered.

That’s not the case with Tegon. It's simple, lightweight, and built to handle complex workflows with its powerful Tegon Actions framework, which automates repetitive tasks in issue tracking. Here are a few examples:

• Automatically assigning labels when issues are created
• Generating sub-issues for PR reviews as soon as a PR is opened
• Creating issues directly from Slack using the 👀 emoji
• Sending weekly summaries and changelogs of completed issues to Slack

Tegon also uses AI to suggest issue titles from descriptions and identify duplicate issues in the backlog.

Additionally, Tegon acts as an omni-channel bug reporting tool, allowing users to automatically create bugs from multiple sources, such as Slack, Email, Discord, Zendesk, and even WhatsApp.

Getting started with Tegon:

Step 1 - Install Docker on your workstation (see instructions). Make sure you’re on the latest version of docker-compose.

Step 2 - Run the following commands in your terminal:

git clone https://github.com/tegonhq/docker.git
cd docker

Step 3 - Create a .env file

cp .env.example .env

Step 4 - Run the start script and follow the prompts, They handle 2 major steps in start script setting up trigger.dev and setting up tegon for you.

./start.sh

Step 5 - You can now check tegon at http://localhost:8000

For more information, visit the official docs, and their website.

Star the Tegon repository ⭐

2. Taiga - The open source project management tool

Taiga on-premise hosting option is ideal for larger teams or multiple small teams that need to have all data on their own servers and/or want to customize Taiga:

• Easy to update
• Your choice of community contributions
• Translated to >20 languages
• Customize your installation
• Unparalleled security and control

The issue model of Taiga has 3 main characterstics:

• Highly Flexible: The Issues Module can be used independently or alongside Scrum and KANBAN, making it a popular choice for teams due to its versatility.

• Customizable and Efficient: Offers powerful filtering, ordering, and customization options (e.g., issue types, severity, and priority) to streamline workflows and improve task management.

• Integration with Other Modules: Issues can be promoted to user stories or KANBAN cards, and can be linked to sprints for a more focused project management experience.

Getting started with Taiga:

Step 1: Clone the repo

$ cd taiga-docker/
$ git checkout stable

Step 2 - Start the application

$ ./launch-all.sh

Step 3 - After some instants, when the application is started you can proceed to create the superuser with the following script:

$ ./taiga-manage.sh createsuperuser

Step 4 - The taiga-manage.sh script lets launch manage.py commands on the back instance:

$ ./taiga-manage.sh [COMMAND]

If you’re testing it in your own machine, you can access the application in http://localhost:9000

You can check their docs for more details

Star the Taiga repository ⭐

3. OpenProject - Open source project management for teams

OpenProject is a web-based project management software. Its key features are:

• Project planning and scheduling
• Product roadmap and release planning
• Task management and team collaboration
• Agile and Scrum
• Time tracking, cost reporting, and budgeting
• Bug tracking
• Wikis
• Forums
• Meeting agendas and meeting minutes

OpenProject design and features are similar to Jira, key thing i noticed different in this it has multiple task types [Phase, Milestone, Task]
vs [EPIC, STORY, TASK, BUG] in Jira

Check out their docsfor detailed guide on hosting

Star the OpenProject repository ⭐

4. Huly - All-in-One Project Management Platform

Huly is an open-source platform that serves as an all-in-one replacement for Linear, Jira, Slack, and Notion.

It tackles the ambitious challenge of creating a super app by combining project management, knowledge base, and communication tools into a single platform.

Documents in Huly can be used for sharing reference materials among team members, collaborating on plans and roadmaps, storing meeting notes and assigning action items.Documents in Huly can be used for sharing reference materials among team members, collaborating on plans and roadmaps, storing meeting notes and assigning action item

Getting started with Huly

Step 1 - Installing nginx and docker

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install nginx
$ sudo snap install docker

Step 2 - Clone the huly-selfhost repository and configure nginx

Next, let's clone the huly-selfhost repository and configure the server address. Please replace x.y.z.w with your server's IP address.

$ git clone https://github.com/hcengineering/huly-selfhost.git
$ cd huly-selfhost
$ ./setup.sh x.y.z.w # Replace x.y.z.w with your server's IP address
$ sudo ln -s $(pwd)/nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Now we're ready to run Huly
Finally, let's restart nginx and run Huly with docker compose.

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx
$ sudo docker compose up

Now, launch your web browser and enjoy Huly!

Star the Huly repository ⭐

5. Plane - Open-source project management that unlocks customer value

Plane is an open-source project management tool designed to track issues, run sprint cycles, and manage product roadmaps—without the complexity of managing the tool itself.

It follows a similar approach to ClickUp, aiming to be a single solution for everything from documentation to issue tracking, all in one app.

Getting started with Plane:

Step 1 - Setting up Docker Environment

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh -

Step 2 - Downloading Latest Stable Release

mkdir plane-selfhost

cd plane-selfhost

curl -fsSL -o setup.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/makeplane/plane/master/deploy/selfhost/install.sh

chmod +x setup.sh

Star the Plane repository ⭐