Plane is an open source project management tool you can self-host — a Jira and Linear alternative for tracking issues, running sprint cycles, and mapping product roadmaps, with built-in docs, analytics, and AI in one workspace.

What is Plane?

Plane is a project management tool that tracks issues, runs sprint cycles, and manages product roadmaps in one workspace. It’s open source under AGPL-3.0 and self-hostable, pairing work-item tracking with built-in docs and analytics — a Jira and Linear alternative you can run on your own infrastructure.

What is Plane best for?

Product and engineering teams that want Jira- or Linear-style issue tracking and agile planning without per-seat SaaS pricing or handing their roadmap to someone else’s cloud. It suits teams comfortable running their own stack who want boards, sprints, docs, and roadmaps in one place — one of the most popular open source project management tools alongside options like OpenProject.

What can Plane do?

Track work items with sub-issues, rich text, attachments, and custom properties
Run time-boxed cycles (sprints) with burndown charts and velocity tracking
Break large projects into modules and switch between list, board (kanban), spreadsheet, calendar, and Gantt views
Write specs and notes in built-in Pages, with AI-assisted writing
See real-time analytics and dashboards without manual status reports
Connect Slack and Teams, and automate through a REST API and MCP server
Self-host with Docker or Kubernetes (including air-gapped), or use managed Plane Cloud

Is Plane free?

Yes — the self-hosted Community Edition is free under AGPL-3.0, so you only pay for your own server. Plane Cloud has a free tier for up to 12 users, then Pro at $6/seat/month and Business at $13/seat/month; the Enterprise tier (SSO/LDAP, audit logs, managed or air-gapped deployment) is custom-priced.

Where does Plane fall short?

It’s open-core: the free self-hosted Community Edition trails the paid Cloud, and enterprise features like SSO/LDAP and audit logs are reserved for commercial editions.
It runs as a full multi-service app (a Django API, a Node live server, Postgres, Redis, and object storage), so it’s heavier to stand up than a single-binary kanban board — overkill if you only want a lightweight task list.
Its integration and plugin ecosystem is smaller than Jira’s, with fewer third-party marketplace apps, so you’ll lean on the API for custom connections.

What does Plane replace?

Plane is a self-hosted alternative to Jira and Linear, and it competes with Monday.com and ClickUp. It covers the same issue tracking, sprint planning, and roadmap work, but you keep ownership of the data and skip per-seat pricing on the Community Edition.

FAQ

Is Plane open source? Yes. The Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and the code is public on GitHub. Some enterprise features live in a separate commercial edition, but the core project management app is genuinely open source.

Can I self-host Plane for free? Yes. The Community Edition is free to self-host with Docker or Kubernetes — you only pay for the server. Plane Cloud is the paid, managed option if you’d rather not run it yourself.

Is Plane a good Jira alternative? For teams that want agile boards, cycles, and roadmaps without Atlassian’s cost and complexity, yes. Jira still has a deeper plugin marketplace and more enterprise tooling, so very large organizations may miss those.

What do I need to run Plane? A server with Docker (or Kubernetes) plus the bundled Postgres, Redis, and object storage. A small-team instance runs comfortably on a modest VPS.