If you run Jira on your own servers and want to keep it that way, the shortlist almost always ends with OpenProject and Plane. The short version: OpenProject is classic project management with Gantt charts, built for organisations that think in projects. Plane is the modern issue tracker for software teams that want to keep the Jira feel. For both, the deciding question is less the tool itself than which features are missing from the free edition.
Why this is coming up now
Atlassian already ended Server (support stopped on 15 February 2024) and is now doing the same to Data Center. According to Atlassian, new customers haven’t been able to buy Data Center subscriptions since 30 March 2026, and existing customers can keep buying until 30 March 2028. End of life is 28 March 2029. After that, instances are read-only.
Companies that run Jira on-prem on purpose (often for data protection, sometimes because a customer contract says so) are left with two paths: Atlassian Cloud or another tool. If you’re going through your SaaS subscriptions anyway, take the second option seriously. Two and a half years sounds like plenty. For a migration with workflows, custom fields and teams set in their habits, it isn’t.
Two tools, two ways of working
OpenProject is made by OpenProject GmbH in Berlin and licensed under the GPLv3. It thinks in projects, with work packages, dates and Gantt charts. If you come from classic project management or work with the public sector, you’ll feel at home quickly. That’s no accident: the project management in openDesk, the open-source workplace suite run by the German federal government’s ZenDiS, is built on OpenProject.
The catch is the Enterprise edition. The pricing page lists SSO (SAML, OpenID Connect, Kerberos), LDAP group sync, the team planner and portfolio management among the paid features. Enterprise plans cost €5.95, €10.95 and €15.95 per user per month, with minimum seat counts. Boards, on the other hand, are in the free edition.
Plane is much younger and feels like the issue tracker software teams want today: close to Jira and Linear, with a clean interface. Under the hood it’s a Django, Node and React stack on PostgreSQL and Redis, and the Community Edition is AGPL-3.0.
Here too, read the fine print. Plane itself says the Community Edition only matches its free cloud tier. Everything beyond that lives in the Commercial Edition, which is closed source (it does include 12 free seats per workspace). Per the pricing page, Pro costs $6 and Business $13 per user per month, billed annually. SSO for self-hosted instances starts at Pro.
| OpenProject | Plane | |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | classic project management, Gantt | issue tracking for software teams |
| Licence (free) | GPLv3 | AGPL-3.0 (Community Edition) |
| Paid version | Enterprise (from €5.95 per user/month) | Commercial Edition, closed source |
| SSO | Enterprise | from Pro |
| Jira import | Jira Migrator (beta, Server/DC 10.x/11.x) | Cloud and Commercial Edition only |
What about importing from Jira?
This is where the two differ most. With version 17.4, released 23 April 2026, OpenProject made its Jira Migrator available without a feature flag. It brings over projects, issues with comments, history and attachments, plus users, statuses and a subset of custom fields. It’s still in beta, and according to OpenProject it only reads Jira Server and Data Center 10.x and 11.x. Jira Cloud isn’t supported, which doesn’t matter much for the people this post is written for.
Plane also has a Jira importer, but only on Plane Cloud and in the Commercial Edition. So if you self-host the free Plane and want your Jira history, you pay at least for the migration. That’s not a scandal. You just want to know it before the pilot, not after.
What about Redmine and Leantime?
Both exist, and both have their fans. Redmine (GPLv2) is the veteran: stable, extensible, and the interface looks about as old as it is. For teams that manage tickets and otherwise want to be left alone, that’s fine. Leantime (AGPLv3) is leaner and comes across as a tool for small teams that don’t want a full project management suite. As a Jira replacement for a development team with established workflows, I wouldn’t put either of them first.
Which one fits whom?
My take: if you plan in projects with deadlines, phases and dependencies, pick OpenProject. That goes double for public-sector work and mid-sized companies, where somebody eventually wants to see the Gantt chart. If you have a software team that works in sprints and actually liked Jira (just not Atlassian’s licensing), Plane will make them happier.
Before deciding, put an honest list on the table. Do you need SSO? LDAP groups? If so, you end up in the paid version of either tool, and the comparison changes. If the Jira history has to come along, there’s no way around Plane’s Commercial Edition. And one difference remains even when you pay: with Plane you move to a closed-source edition, with OpenProject you add Enterprise features on top.
Running it, realistically
Both run as containers and belong in the same operations routine as the rest of a self-hosted stack: database backups, updates, monitoring. We went through the same exercise for wikis with Outline and Docmost, and the login question is identical here. If you run a central identity provider, you want SSO, and that costs money with both tools. If you’d rather not carry the instance, the migration and the login yourself, you can get it as managed operations.
Your Jira runs on-prem and the Data Center end date is already in the calendar? Get in touch. We’ll look at your workflows and work out whether OpenProject or Plane fits and what the migration will realistically cost.