10 Top, Free and Open Source Project Management Software Solutions and Services

10 Top, Free and Open Source Project Management Software Solutions and Services

Project Management Software Solutions play vital role in any business. There are plenty of free and open source project management software solutions and services available in the market. We have picked some widely accepted free and open source project management software solutions like Readmine, Codendi, ProjectPier, Open Atrium, PlanCake, KForge, Open Workbench, Project HQ, Collabtive and Feng Office. These free and open source project management software are equipped with a lot of exciting features like Multiple projects support, Flexible role based access control, Flexible issue tracking system, Gantt chart and calendar, News, documents & files management, Feeds & email notifications, Per project wiki, Per project forums, Time tracking, Custom fields for issues, time-entries, projects and users, Issue creation via email, Multiple LDAP authentication support,  User self-registration support, Multilanguage support, Multiple databases support etc. Lets have a look at these free and open source project management software:

1. Readmine

Redmine is a flexible project management web application. It is written using Ruby on Rails framework and it is cross-platform and cross-database. Redmine is open source and released under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 (GPL).

Redmine contains a lot of functionality geared heavily towards developers. It’s really powerful tool but may take some time to getting used to. It supports multiple projects, role-based access and permissions, Gantt charting and a calendar. Redmine also supports wiki and forums assigned on a project level to help centralize information and communication

Redmine is equipped with many exciting features like Multiple projects support, Flexible role based access control, Flexible issue tracking system, Gantt chart and calendar, News, documents & files management, Feeds & email notifications, Per project wiki, Per project forums, Time tracking, Custom fields for issues, time-entries, projects and users, SCM integration (SVN, CVS, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and Darcs), Issue creation via email, Multiple LDAP authentication support,  User self-registration support, Multilanguage support, Multiple databases support etc.

2. Codendi

Codendi is an open-source collaborative development platform offered by Xerox. From only one interface, it gathers, all the needed tools for software development teams: management and versioning of code, bugs, requirements, documents, reporting, tests etc. It is mainly used for managing software project processes. It is based on open-source standards, Codendi is the collaborative platform for software project management proposed by Xerox.

At the origin, Codendi is a fork from Sourceforge.net. Codendi is based on an LAMP architecture (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and offers and SOAP Web Services interface.

3. ProjectPier

ProjectPier is a Free, Open-Source, self-hosted PHP application for managing tasks, projects and teams through an intuitive web interface. ProjectPier will help your organization communicate, collaborate and get things done. Its function is similar to commercial groupware/project management products, but allows the freedom and scalability of self-hosting.

ProjectPier is a cross-platform application that is written using PHP, Javascript and requires a MySQL database backend. ProjectPier is freely available and licensed under the Gnu Affero General Public License (AGPL), which means you're welcome to use and modify the software as long as any changes are distributed under the same license restrictions.

4. Open Atrium

Open Atrium is an open source platform designed specifically to make great teams communicate better. An intranet in a box with: a blog, a wiki, a calendar, a to do list, a shoutbox, and a dashboard to manage it all. Let’s not forget that it’s also completely customizable.

Open Atrium is a part of a growing open source offering helping commercial companies, international organizations, federal governments, and online publishers grow their enterprise platforms with excellent team communications tools. Open Atrium is powered by an active community, and it’s working. Open Atrium is now being translated into more than twenty languages and several hundred people are growing its base of features.

Atrium’s theme is built using Bootstrap, a front-end framework using responsive CSS that allows content to be ready for multiple screen sizes, out of the box. Over two dozen cross-browser, responsive layouts and several responsive image styles are included to aid in site building and allow your site to work seamlessly on mobile devices.

5. PlanCake

PlanCake is a open source task management system. It allows you to export all your data but you can even download the entire PlanCake system and run it on your own server.

PlanCake is an Open-Source and GTD-Friendly Task Management Tool PlanCake has an inbox, a to-do list, and a calendar by default. You can create new lists to sort and separate contexts and projects. The calendar aggregates all your date-based to-do list items and has a great feature where you can suppress repetitive tasks so they will be shown only on the closest active day and not cluttering up your calendar view for future days and weeks.

6. KForge

KForge is a freely available web-based open source project management application suitable for knowledge management and software projects. It uses a plug-in architecture, so features and functionality can be easily swapped out as needed. The software is free, but its installation and management require some technical ability. Its open source license allows for modifications to be made, which is useful for software development shops.

The modular architecture allows for a variety of source control systems (Git, Subversion), project tracking modules, Wiki and mailing list functionality, as well as popular CMS applications like WordPress and Joomla. This power and flexibility makes KForge’s relative installation difficulty worthwhile, but it is an application more suitable for software development shops.

The robust KForge community is one of the main strengths of the software. Businesses will benefit from being able to switch parts of the software to fit their workflows and preferred applications. New plug-ins are being developed and a mailing list exists; subscribe to learn tricks of the application and get usage questions answered.

7. Open Workbench

For businesses looking for an open source alternative to Microsoft Project, Open Workbench is an excellent option. It provides a standard desktop application look and feel, with a Gantt Chart view that should make any users of Microsoft’s tool feel right at home. CA Technologies also provides a version, but they require users looking for full enterprise features to subscribe to their own project management system, CA Clarity PPM.

While the software’s open source code base is older, it still allows businesses to benefit from being able to get a handle on their project workloads. For smaller businesses wanting to manage projects without all the other features of Redmine and KForge, Open Workbench remains a good option.

No matter the size of your business, these three open source project management tools are worth further exploration to see which application provides the best fit. All three provide the tangible business benefits gained from on-time, successful project completion.

8. Project HQ: Inspired on BaseCamp

Project HQ is next on the list of open source and online project management software. Project HQ is interesting because it uses only open source technologies while being open source itself. Project HQ is independent of closed source databases such as MySQL and instead replaces it with SQLAlchemy, an interesting endeavor, to say the least. The software performs well and seems to take inspiration from Basecamp and ActiveCollab, so it’s simplistic but still reasonably powerful.

9. Collabtive: Another Basecamp Alternative

Collabtive is a project that was started in November of 2007 as an open source web based project management software. Their goal with Collabtive is to offer an alternative to ActiveCollab and Basecamp, which they do a reasonable job at. While the software isn’t quite as powerful as ActiveCollab, it’s just as intuitive and simple to use as Basecamp.

10. Feng Office: All-Around Project Collaboration Software

Feng Office is the final open source project management software is more focused on general project development. Feng Office features easy contact management, time management, project management and even document management. Everything can be edited online, or downloaded/uploaded at a later time. Feng Office is not tailored to any specific job type; it’s the all-around project collaboration software that’s easy to use as well as intuitive. Well worth giving a shot if nothing else suits your project type.