Project management software: 6 free and feature-filled open source tools

Whether you own a small business or you’re just starting one, every dollar counts; finding free software to help you manage, communicate, collaborate and keep projects progressing smoothly isn’t easy. At CIO we’ve taken some of the guesswork out of it with this list of 6 (alphabetically sorted) open-source project management tools that can help make lighter work of planning and managing your projects. 

Although most project management software providers offer additional advanced and robust features for an additional cost, these picks have free basic or community offerings with more than enough functionality for most projects.  In fact, it should be mentioned that these solutions aren’t just used by small start-ups, many of them are still being used by Fortune 500 companies today due to scalability, powerful features and versatility.

If you are looking for open-source project management software, check these out and spend time researching and trying each of them to find the one that best meets your project needs.

1. Freedcamp

Freedcamp launched in 2010, and offers on-going access to their free version of agile project managment software with unlimited projects, users and storage. This includes many features like dashboards that give all users a customized at-a-glance view of their projects, the ability to work with tasks, subtasks, discussions, milestones, time, files, and calendars. A project manager can even convert tasks into Kanban cards. To find out more about the features, go to Freedcamp.

2. LibrePlan

Developed in 2009, Libreplan is a free, web-based project planning software focused on resourcing and scheduling. It assists project leaders and teams with planning projects, managing resources, monitoring and controlling projects, tracking information, collaborating, managing risk, setting role-based security and much more. See all the available features by visiting Libreplan.

3. Odoo

Founded 2002, Odoo allows companies to scale up to 49 users with their free web-based solution. This software offers great flexibility where more than one project can be viewed at a time and includes portfolio management capabilities. Odoo handles task management, issue tracking, communication and collaboration, reporting, and has at-a-glance dashboards. Check out Odoo for a complete list of features.

4. OpenProject

Developed in 2010, OpenProject provides companies the ability to plan projects, schedule, develop roadmaps and release dates for product development, manage tasks, calendar, collaborate, track issues, and monitor time, quality and cost. This software works for agile/scrum environments, and the free community edition is feature rich. Go to OpenProject to find out more.

5. Project-open

Project-Open also offers a free community edition of PM software with many features, including portfolio and resource management, financial management, time & expense tracking, collaboration, reports, at-a-glance customizable dashboards, scheduling, and workflow management. To find out more about the features visit Project-open.

6. ProjectLibre

ProjectLibre’s community edition is compatible with Microsoft Project and offers features like Gantt charts, network diagrams, work breakdown structures (WBS), earned value costing (EVC) and resource histograms, among other features. The software is scalable from small business all the way up to Fortune 500 companies. Visit ProjectLibre to see what their solution has to offer.