Free and open-source self-hosted alternative to Jira, Asana, Trello, Monday.com, OpenProject and Redmine. Plan projects, track tasks on lists & kanban boards, log time, run custom workflows, and report — on your own server, with no per-user fees and no licence key.
Quick Start · Features · Compared with other open source tools · FAQ · Documentation · Contributing · License
Orangescrum is a project management and collaboration tool that helps teams plan, track and deliver work in one place — an open source alternative to Jira, Asana, Trello and Monday.com for teams that would rather not pay per seat or hand their project data to someone else's cloud.
This is the Community Edition — free and open source under the GNU AGPL v3.0. There is no licence key, and no limits on users, projects or storage. You run it on your own infrastructure and your data never leaves it. That last point is why it is used by teams in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, finance and government.
- Features
- Orangescrum vs other open source project management tools
- Tech Stack
- Quick Start
- Configuration & Everyday Commands
- Backups
- Desktop App
- Development Setup
- Documentation
- Security
- Contributing
- FAQ
- License
Projects & Tasks
- Projects with members, roles and per-project workflows
- Tasks with priorities, due dates, assignees, labels and task types
- Subtasks and task groups (milestones)
- List, Kanban board, calendar and overview views
Planning & Tracking
- Custom statuses and workflows per project
- Time logging and timesheets
- Reports and analytics dashboards
- CSV import/export
Collaboration
- Comments, mentions and activity feeds
- File attachments on tasks
- Email notifications (SMTP)
Administration
- Self-service setup wizard (no licence key)
- Five built-in roles (Owner, Admin, User, Client, Guest)
- Company/workspace-scoped data isolation
Every tool here is open source and can be self-hosted for free. The table is about where each one is strongest, not which is best.
| Orangescrum CE | Plane | OpenProject | Leantime | Taiga | Redmine | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL v3 | GPL v3 | AGPL v3 | MPL 2.0 | GPL v2 |
| Free user cap | None | None | None | 3 | None | None |
| Kanban board | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Plugin |
| List and table views | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom workflows | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| Milestones | Task groups | Modules | Yes | Milestones | Epics | Versions |
| Time tracking | Yes | Not built in | Yes | Yes | Plugin | Yes |
| Reports and dashboards | Yes | Partial | Yes | Partial | Partial | Partial |
| Gantt | Self-Hosted edition | Partial | Yes | Timeline | Not built in | Yes |
| Sprints | Self-Hosted edition | Yes | Yes | Not built in | Yes | Plugin |
| Wiki | Self-Hosted edition | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes |
| REST API | Self-Hosted edition | REST | REST | REST | REST | REST |
Self-Hosted edition marks a feature that is not in the free Community Edition but is in the paid Orangescrum Self-Hosted and Cloud editions — contact sales. The Community Edition is self-hosted as well, so the label is about the edition, not about who runs the server. There is a supported migration path from this edition to those, so starting here is not a dead end.
Competitor rows checked 6 September 2026, Orangescrum rows 17 September 2026. Projects move quickly, so check each vendor before you decide. A longer write-up of the same six tools is at Top 6 open source project management software.
Orangescrum Community Edition suits you when time on tasks matters as much as the tasks: time tracking, billable hours and the reports over them are built in and free, where Plane has no time tracking at all and Taiga needs a plugin. It also has no user cap, so a team of forty costs the same as a team of four.
Look elsewhere when you need Gantt charts, sprints, a wiki or a REST API and want them for free: OpenProject gives you all four under GPL, and Redmine gives you Gantt plus a plugin ecosystem that has been going for twenty years. If you would rather stay with Orangescrum, those four are in the paid Self-Hosted and Cloud editions — contact sales.
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Backend | CakePHP 4.6 · PHP 8.2+ |
| Database | PostgreSQL 16 |
| Frontend | Vue 3 (Vite) + AngularJS (legacy views) |
| Runtime | Docker & Docker Compose (Apache + PHP) |
Requirements: Docker Desktop (Windows, macOS or Linux). Nothing else — PHP, PostgreSQL and the web server all run inside Docker.
git clone https://github.com/Orangescrum/opensource-community-edition.git
cd opensource-community-edition
docker compose up -d --buildThen open http://localhost:8080 and follow the setup wizard: system check → database → mail → create your admin account.
That machine is now your Orangescrum server. Anyone on the same network reaches it at http://<that-machine-name>:8080.
To change the port, credentials or public URL, copy .env.example to .env and edit it before starting.
docker compose stop # stop
docker compose up -d # start again
docker compose logs -f # view logs
docker compose pull && docker compose up -d # updateYour data lives in Docker volumes and survives stop/start/update. To back it up:
docker compose exec orangescrum-postgres pg_dump -U orangescrum orangescrum > backup.sqlA Windows desktop client lives in desktop/. It connects to the server above — install it on each team member's machine and enter the server address once.
Only needed if you intend to change the code. Requires PHP 8.2, Composer, PostgreSQL 16 and Node.js 18+.
composer install
# if config/app_local.php is missing afterwards:
composer run-script post-install-cmd --no-interactionSet the database credentials in config/.env, then:
bin/cake migrations migrate
bin/cake migrations seedFront-end bundles are built with Vite:
cd frontend/task-views && npm install && npm run buildFull instructions — configuration, manual (non-Docker) install, backups, reset and troubleshooting — are in the Installation Guide.
Please report security vulnerabilities responsibly and privately to support@orangescrum.com — do not open a public issue for security reports. See SECURITY.md for details.
Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md — all contributors are asked to sign the Contributor Licence Agreement in CLA.md.
Copyright (c) 2026 Andolasoft Inc.
Orangescrum Community Edition is free software, licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0-or-later). The full licence text is in LICENSE.
Because the licence is the Affero GPL, one obligation deserves a specific mention: if you modify Orangescrum and let other people use it over a network, you must publish the corresponding source of your modified version to those users. That applies to hosted and SaaS deployments, not only to redistributed copies.
Need to use Orangescrum without these obligations, or want the Enterprise edition? A commercial licence is available from Andolasoft Inc. — see contact sales.
See NOTICE for copyright, third-party attributions and trademark terms. Bundled open-source dependencies and their individual licences are listed in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.
"Orangescrum" and the Orangescrum logo are trademarks of Andolasoft Inc. The AGPL grants rights to the software, not to the marks.
Is Orangescrum free? Yes. The Community Edition is free and open source under the GNU AGPL v3.0. There is no licence key and no limit on users, projects or storage.
Is Orangescrum a good open source alternative to Jira? For the core workflow most teams use Jira for — tasks, boards, custom statuses and workflows, roles — yes, and without per-user licensing or Jira's paid Data Center tier to self-host. Sprints and Gantt charts are not in the Community Edition, so a team that runs formal Scrum should look at OpenProject, or at the paid Orangescrum Self-Hosted edition — contact sales.
Can I self-host it?
Yes, that is the only way it runs. docker compose up -d --build and the setup
wizard, or a manual install with PHP and PostgreSQL. See
INSTALL.md.
Does it track time? Yes. Time logging, a timer, billable and non-billable hours, and CSV and PDF export of the time log are all in the free edition. Timesheet approval is not.
Is there a REST API? Not in the Community Edition. The paid Self-Hosted and Cloud editions have one — contact sales.
What licence is it released under? GNU AGPL-3.0-or-later. If you modify it and let others use it over a network, including as a hosted service, you must publish your modified source to those users. A commercial licence without that obligation is available from Andolasoft Inc.
Who maintains it? Orangescrum is developed and maintained by Andolasoft Inc.
Questions or support: support@orangescrum.com · orangescrum.com