Redmine

What is Redmine?

Redmine is an open source project management and issue tracking web application written in Ruby on Rails. It handles multiple projects with per-project roles and workflows, and bundles issue tracking, Gantt charts, time tracking, wikis, forums, and version-control integration into one self-hosted tool you run on your own server.

What is Redmine best for?

Redmine suits engineering and IT teams that want a free, self-hosted issue tracker tied closely to their source control. It’s a strong fit for bug tracking and maintenance work, small-to-mid-sized teams, and organizations that need to keep project data in-house rather than in a SaaS. Its plugin ecosystem lets you extend it well beyond the defaults.

What can Redmine do?

• Track issues with fully customizable statuses, trackers, custom fields, and per-role workflows
• Manage multiple projects and subprojects, each with its own members, roles, and permissions
• Draw Gantt charts and calendars automatically from issue start and due dates
• Log time at the project or issue level and report it by user, activity, or category
• Browse repositories and diffs for Git, Subversion, Mercurial, Bazaar, and CVS
• Run a per-project wiki, forums, news, and document/file sharing
• Authenticate against LDAP directories and offer configurable user self-registration
• Extend everything through community plugins and themes, plus a REST API for integrations
• Serve a 49-language interface out of the box

Where does Redmine fall short?

• The interface looks dated. Reviewers consistently describe Redmine’s UI as old-fashioned and less intuitive than modern tools like Jira, Asana, or ClickUp, which raises the onboarding curve for non-technical users.
• Agile and resource planning are weak by default. There are no native Scrum/Kanban boards or sprint tooling, and the Gantt view is view-only — you can’t drag tasks to reschedule. Teams that want agile boards or capacity planning lean on third-party plugins of varying quality.
• Heavy reliance on plugins for gaps. Missing features (boards, better dashboards, some integrations) come from community plugins that need ongoing maintenance and can break across Redmine upgrades, so a plugin-heavy install adds real upkeep.

Is Redmine free?

Yes — Redmine is fully free and open source under the GPL-2.0-or-later license, with no paid tiers, seat limits, or feature gates. You self-host it at no license cost. Some companies (for example the commercial Easy Redmine fork) sell hosted, enhanced versions, but the upstream project itself is free.

What does Redmine replace?

Redmine is a practical open source stand-in for paid project and issue trackers. Teams adopt it as a Jira alternative for issue tracking and workflows, an Asana alternative for task and project management, and a Basecamp alternative for lightweight team collaboration with wikis, forums, and file sharing — without per-user fees or handing data to a SaaS vendor.

FAQ

Is Redmine open source? Yes. Redmine is released under the GPL-2.0-or-later license and developed in the open; the official code lives in a Subversion repository with a GitHub mirror.

Can I self-host Redmine for free? Yes. Redmine is free to self-host with no license cost. You’ll need a server running Ruby (3.1–3.4 depending on version) with Rails, plus a supported database.

What do I need to run Redmine? Ruby on Rails and a database — PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQL Server (SQLite works but isn’t recommended for production). Optional extras like ImageMagick enable Gantt image exports and thumbnails.

Is Redmine a good Jira alternative? For issue tracking, time tracking, and version-control-linked workflows, yes — especially if you want to self-host for free. It’s weaker on out-of-the-box agile boards and has a more dated interface than Jira.