Which open-source Asana alternative fits your team
Plane suits teams that want an Asana-style task and cycle workflow, and OpenProject suits teams that need Gantt charts, work packages and portfolio planning. Plane's Community Edition is licensed AGPL-3.0, and its importers include Asana and CSV, although the Asana importer is available on Plane Cloud and on the self-hosted Commercial Edition, not on the open-source Community Edition. OpenProject is licensed GPL-3.0 and is the stronger choice when dependencies, milestones and resource loading matter more than lightweight task lists, but portfolio and resource management sit in its paid Enterprise plans. Confirm which edition you would run before you plan the import path.
Teams usually start looking at alternatives for a reason that is specific to their contract or data. A renewal with a new price, a requirement to keep project data in a specific region or data center, or a wish to avoid dependence on one vendor's export options are the common triggers. Asana's own CSV export covers project tasks with fields such as task ID, dates, assignee, tags, notes and parent task, which is enough for many task lists. The organization-wide export, which returns complete data as gzipped JSON, is limited to service accounts of an Enterprise+ organization, so ask your Asana administrator whether your plan includes it before you assume you can take everything out. Attachments, custom fields, portfolios, goals and automation rules may need separate handling, so inventory them first.
Before choosing, run a short test with one active project. Export it from Asana, import it into a trial instance of each candidate, and check that task hierarchy, dates, assignees and comments arrive intact. Ask each vendor or implementation partner to confirm in writing which SSO, provisioning and reporting features are included in the edition you will license, since identity integration is often the item that changes the cost. This test will show you whether the team's daily workflow fits the tool before you commit to a full migration.
Plane and OpenProject as self-hosted Asana replacements
Asana users who want to keep project data inside their own infrastructure usually shortlist Plane and OpenProject first, with Redmine as a lighter alternative. The cards below compare their licenses, editions, import paths and the trade-off each one asks you to accept.
Plane for agile task tracking
Plane's Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and is the closest match for teams that work in lists, boards and cycles, similar to how many Asana teams organize work. Plane v1.4.2 was published on August 23, 2026. Its Asana importer is available on the self-hosted Commercial Edition, not the Community Edition, so confirm the edition and license terms before you plan an import. Check whether AGPL obligations affect any modifications you intend to make.
OpenProject for structured delivery
OpenProject is licensed under GPL-3.0 and suits teams that need work packages, timelines and portfolio views beyond basic task lists. Its free Community edition covers core project work, while SSO, LDAP synchronization and SCIM provisioning sit in paid Enterprise plans. Version 17.9.2 was published on October 15, 2026. The trade-off is that identity integration and portfolio features may add licensing cost, so ask for the plan that matches your authentication requirements.
Redmine as a lighter option
Redmine is a self-hosted application under GPL v2, built on Ruby on Rails, with issue tracking, Gantt charts, wikis, time tracking and LDAP authentication. Version 7.0.2 was released on September 30, 2026. It fits teams that want a smaller footprint and plugin-based extension, but it has no Asana importer, so most of the migration will be CSV-based work. Confirm whether the plugins you need are maintained for the version you deploy.
Asana CSV export as the baseline
Every Asana project can be exported to CSV from the project actions menu, with task ID, dates, name, assignee, due date, tags, notes and parent task. This path works on any Asana plan and is the most portable input for Plane's CSV importer or for a scripted load into OpenProject. The CSV carries task-level data only, so comments, attachments, custom field history and automation rules need separate handling. Plan a check of record counts and assignee mappings after each load.
Enterprise+ organization export
Asana's organization export returns an organization's complete data as gzipped JSON, but only service accounts of an Enterprise+ organization can request it. If your plan qualifies, this export is the most complete source for historical data and can be parsed before loading into the target tool. If it does not, ask your Asana administrator whether the plan includes it, since you cannot obtain it through a standard user account. Validate the JSON structure against your target schema before importing.
Hosting and identity responsibilities
Self-hosting moves operational duties to your team: upgrades, backups, TLS, database maintenance and user lifecycle. Confirm your own infrastructure requirements and the upgrade path for each release before you commit. Identity is the main gap to plan for, because SSO and directory-driven provisioning depend on the edition you choose. Document who owns each duty, including backup restore tests, before cutover.
Which Asana capabilities each open-source option covers
This table maps the Asana capabilities most teams rely on to what Plane, OpenProject and Redmine document today. Cells marked to confirm are open questions, not assumed parity. Check each project's current documentation and a trial instance before committing, because CSV exports carry tasks and fields but not Asana rules, forms or portfolio settings.
| Asana capability | Plane | OpenProject | Redmine |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tasks and subtasks | Work items with sub-items; confirm hierarchy depth in current docs | Work packages with child work packages; confirm the options in your version | Issues with subtasks through parent-child relations in the core tracker |
| Projects and assignees | Projects with assigned members; the Asana importer maps projects and tasks | Projects with assigned work packages and member roles | Projects with members and roles; issues assigned to one user |
| Due dates and timelines | Due dates on work items; confirm timeline or Gantt-style views | Due dates and Gantt charts for scheduling work packages | Due dates and Gantt charts in the core issue tracker |
| Tags and notes | Labels and descriptions; check how Asana tags import in your test run | Labels and descriptions; confirm tag support against your Asana fields | Descriptions and wiki pages; tag-style labels usually need a plugin, so confirm |
| Portfolios | Confirm whether a portfolio view exists in your edition | Portfolio and resource management sit in paid Enterprise plans | No dedicated portfolio view; cross-project views or plugins usually cover this, so confirm |
| Forms and intake | Confirm whether intake forms exist; Asana forms do not export | Confirm form and intake options; custom fields are configurable | Confirm; intake forms typically need a plugin or custom setup |
| Rules and automation | Confirm which automations exist; Asana rules must be rebuilt manually | Confirm workflow and notification options; Asana rules must be rebuilt | Workflows control status transitions; automation usually needs plugins, so confirm |
| Integrations and imports | Importers for Asana, Jira, Linear, ClickUp, Notion and CSV, on Cloud and Commercial Edition | Jira Migrator in beta for Jira Data Center only; Asana import needs CSV or a custom script | Git and Subversion integration; Asana import needs CSV or a custom script |
How to get data out of Asana: CSV export or organization export
Start with the project-level CSV export, because it is available to any team that can open the project it needs to move. From the project's actions menu, choose the export to CSV option and Asana produces a file with one row per task. The columns include the task ID, start and due dates, name, assignee, tags, notes and parent task. That parent task column matters for migration: it is the only field in the export that preserves subtask hierarchy, so the import mapping needs to rebuild the parent and child relationships rather than treating every row as a top-level item. Check the Asana guidance on exporting projects to CSV for the current column list before you build a mapping, because the export does not carry everything a team relies on, such as attachments, comment history or custom field definitions beyond what appears in the file.
The organization export is a different tool with a narrower gate. Asana's organization export returns an organization's complete data as gzipped JSON, which is the most complete extraction route Asana documents. It is available only to service accounts of an Enterprise+ organization. If your workspace sits on a lower plan, you will not be able to run it, and a service account cannot be created to work around the plan limit. Before you plan around it, ask your Asana administrator whether the organization is on Enterprise+, who holds the service account role, and whether that account can be used for a one-time export. The Asana developer reference for organization exports describes the request flow and access requirements.
Decide the route before you schedule cutover. If you are not on Enterprise+, plan on the CSV export per project and accept that attachments, comment threads and some custom field structure will need manual handling or a scripted pass against the Asana API with the permissions your account already has. Confirm with your Asana contact what your plan includes, and record which projects are exported by which method. That inventory becomes the checklist for validating the target Plane or OpenProject workspace after import.
What a self-hosted Asana replacement costs over several years
This table separates the license and edition costs from the infrastructure, migration, support and staffing costs that a self-hosted Asana replacement adds. Read each row by asking who is paid, whether the cost is one-time or recurring, and what drives it up. The main takeaway is that the software license is often only one line in a multi-year total, and that Plane importers and OpenProject enterprise features sit in different editions that must be priced separately.
| Cost component | Who is paid, one-time or recurring | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Plane Commercial Edition | Plane, recurring. Needed for the self-hosted Asana importer, which Plane documents as available on Plane Cloud and the Commercial Edition only. | Seat count, support tier and whether the edition terms cover your deployment model. Request the price and renewal terms in writing. |
| OpenProject Enterprise tier | OpenProject, recurring. SSO, LDAP synchronization, SCIM provisioning and portfolio management sit in paid plans, not the free Community edition. | Which features you need at launch, the plan level, user count and on-premises versus cloud hosting. Confirm which tier includes each feature you rely on. |
| Asana export and data preparation | Your team or the implementation partner, one-time. A project CSV export is available to all plans, but a full organization export needs an Enterprise+ service account. | Number of projects, custom fields, attachments and whether you need the full organization dataset. Check your Asana plan before planning the extraction. |
| Infrastructure hosting | Your cloud account or data center, recurring. Covers servers, storage, backups, networking and monitoring for the chosen platform. | User count, attachment volume, high availability needs and region. Ask the vendor or partner for sizing guidance in writing. |
| Migration and configuration | Implementation partner or internal staff, one-time. Covers mapping Asana sections, custom fields, rules and integrations to the new tool. | Asana rules, forms, portfolios and integrations that must be rebuilt, plus validation of imported tasks, owners and due dates. |
| Security hardening and integrations | Internal security team or a partner, one-time plus periodic. Covers identity integration, access reviews, logging and connectors. | Identity provider choice, audit logging requirements and how many systems the tool must connect to. |
| Support and upgrades | Vendor support contract or partner retainer, recurring. Covers patches, version upgrades and incident response. | Support hours, upgrade frequency and whether a retainer covers testing of each new release. |
| Internal skills and administration | Your staff, recurring. Covers administration, user onboarding, backups and restores, and tool governance. | Team size, number of administrators and how much custom configuration you keep in-house. |
What you give up when leaving Asana and the usual workarounds
Moving from Asana to a self-hosted tool rarely carries over every feature one for one. The cards below cover the gaps teams most often find after cutover, the paid tiers that may gate them, and the workarounds that keep work moving. Check each item against the current edition and release you plan to run before you commit to a timeline.
Automations and rules
Asana rules that move tasks, set fields or notify people on a trigger often have no direct equivalent in a self-hosted tool. Inventory every active rule in your Asana projects and classify it as simple (field changes, status moves), notification-based or cross-tool. Confirm automation coverage in the specific Plane or OpenProject edition you plan to run before assuming a rule can be recreated. Where it cannot, rebuild the trigger with a webhook or a scheduled job that calls the tool's API.
Forms and intake
Teams that collect requests through Asana forms will need another intake path. Options include a form tool connected to the project tool's API, or a standard request template that people fill in manually. Ask which intake channels generate tasks today, who owns them, and whether requesters need an external login. Test that the new intake creates items with the correct project, assignee and required fields before you retire the Asana form.
Portfolio and resource views
Portfolio roll-ups, workload views and resource planning are often what leadership reads most. In OpenProject, portfolio and resource management sit in paid Enterprise plans, so confirm whether your reporting depends on them. If it does, budget for that tier or accept a reporting change and rebuild the summary from exported data. Document which dashboards are business-critical so they receive a deliberate replacement rather than being dropped silently.
SSO and SCIM provisioning
Single sign-on and SCIM user provisioning are usually required by identity policies for regulated teams. In OpenProject, SSO, LDAP synchronization and SCIM provisioning are listed in paid Enterprise plans rather than the free Community edition. Confirm with your identity team which of these controls are mandatory, then confirm the equivalent options for Plane. Plan joiner, mover and leaver processes manually if provisioning is not available on the edition you choose.
Third-party app integrations
Asana connections to Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, Jira and similar tools will stop working after you switch. List every integration and its data direction, then check whether the target platform offers a native connector or a documented API. Plane's importers cover migration, not ongoing sync, so ongoing integrations usually need a middleware layer or custom webhook work. Assign an owner to each integration before cutover.
Historical activity logs
Asana's activity history and task comments are part of the audit trail many teams rely on for approvals and disputes. Asana's CSV export carries task fields, notes and parent tasks, but it does not replace a full activity record. Ask your compliance lead which history must be preserved, export it while Asana access is still available, and store it in a read-only archive. Confirm which history types the importer carries across before you assume they survive the move.
How to migrate projects off Asana in seven phases
This sequence moves Asana projects into a self-hosted platform in controlled stages, from inventory through decommissioning, so each step produces evidence that the data, owners and workflows arrived intact. Each phase ends with a check that the team can sign off before the next one begins.
Inventory projects, automations and integrations
Before any export, the administrator lists every Asana project, team, portfolio, custom field, rule, form, and connected app in use, and records who owns each one and which ones are still active. Asana rules, forms, and integrations do not move with a CSV file, so each one needs a named replacement or a decision to retire it. The output is a signed-off inventory that shows which projects migrate, which are archived, and which automations must be rebuilt by hand in the target platform. Confirm the current export options and plan level with Asana before starting, since the organization-wide export is limited to Enterprise+ service accounts.
Export data from Asana
For most teams, the practical route is a CSV export from each project's actions menu, which carries task ID, name, assignee, due date, tags, notes, and parent task. Organizations on Enterprise+ can ask a service account to run a full organization export, which returns complete data as gzipped JSON, useful for attachments and history that a CSV does not capture. Store the exports in a restricted location and log who ran them. The check at the end of this step is a file count and row count per project that matches what the inventory expects, with attachments handled separately and listed by name.
Map Asana fields to work items and statuses
Build a mapping table that connects Asana concepts to the target's concepts. Tasks and subtasks usually become work items and child items, sections become statuses or groups, assignees become users, and custom fields become custom fields or are dropped. In Plane, check how its Asana importer maps assignees, sections, and parent tasks, and in OpenProject, confirm how types, statuses, and hierarchy are represented. Record every field that has no equivalent so the decision is documented. The output is an approved mapping document that the project owners have reviewed.
Import and verify a pilot with one team
Choose one team with a single active project and run the import into a non-production instance. Plane's Asana importer is available on its Commercial Edition, while the CSV route and OpenProject's import options depend on the edition and version you run, so confirm which path your edition supports. After the import, compare counts, due dates, assignees, statuses, and parent-child relationships against the Asana source, task by task for a sample and by totals for the rest. Imported data must be checked against the source, because importers can silently drop fields, reorder dates, or flatten hierarchy. The team signs off on the pilot only when discrepancies are logged and resolved.
Run a parallel period with both tools
Keep Asana open as the system of record while the pilot team works in the new platform for real tasks. Record every discrepancy, missing automation, and training question in a shared log, and decide with the project owners which tool is authoritative for each project. Adjust the mapping and import scripts based on what the log shows, then re-run the import for the pilot team and confirm the fix holds. The parallel run ends when the pilot team has completed a full planning cycle without falling back to Asana and the open discrepancy log is empty or formally accepted.
Import remaining teams and cut over
Repeat the verified import process for each remaining team in waves, applying the lessons from the pilot and the parallel run. Freeze edits in Asana for each migrating project on the agreed cutover date, run a final export and import to capture late changes, and reconcile counts again before opening the new workspace. Communicate the new links, notification rules, and access model to users at the same time. The check is that every migrated project has a final reconciliation record signed by its owner.
Decommission the Asana workspace
Once cutover is confirmed, archive the Asana projects in read-only form and retain the final exports under the organization's records policy, so that history can be retrieved if an auditor or a dispute requires it. Revoke Asana integrations, service accounts, and user licenses that are no longer needed, and remove the connected apps from your identity provider. Confirm with the legal and compliance owners how long the exports must be kept and where they are stored. The step closes when access is removed, the retention location is documented, and the platform owners have confirmed the self-hosted instance is backed up and monitored.
Choosing Plane or OpenProject by how your team works
When the main driver is that project data must stay inside your own cloud account, data center or air-gapped network, both platforms can run self-hosted under their open-source licenses. Plane's Community Edition is licensed AGPL-3.0 and OpenProject is licensed GPL-3.0, so the licensing terms differ in what you must publish if you modify and distribute the code. Neither choice changes where data lives, since both are deployed by you.
- Deployment ownership: Confirm who operates the database, object storage and backups in your environment.
- Licensing review: Have legal review AGPL-3.0 against GPL-3.0 if you plan to modify source code.
- Identity controls: Check whether single sign-on and directory provisioning are in the edition you need, since OpenProject places SSO, LDAP synchronization and SCIM provisioning in paid Enterprise plans.
- Importer availability: Plane's importers run on Plane Cloud and the self-hosted Commercial Edition, so confirm whether you need that edition for the Asana import.
The question to answer before deciding: Do your identity and provisioning rules need to be enforced in the platform itself, or can they sit in a separate layer?
When the main driver is the renewal cost of Asana, the comparison should cover the components that recur after migration rather than the license line alone. The community editions of both platforms carry no license fee, so the recurring spend shifts to infrastructure, operations, upgrades and support. Plane's Community Edition is free to self-host, while OpenProject's Enterprise plans add paid features and an Enterprise on-premises or cloud subscription.
- Community or paid edition: Decide whether you can run without SSO, LDAP or SCIM, or whether those features are required from day one.
- Operations labor: Count the internal or partner hours for upgrades, backups and monitoring, which recur every release cycle.
- Migration effort: Estimate the one-time cost of mapping Asana fields, sections and custom fields to the target platform.
- Support model: Compare community forums with a retainer or enterprise support agreement.
The question to answer before deciding: Which edition features would you pay for each year, and who will carry the upgrade work when they change?
When teams depend on timelines, dependencies and portfolio views, the difference between the platforms matters most. OpenProject is built around work packages with Gantt charts and includes portfolio and resource management in its paid Enterprise plans. Plane focuses on issues, cycles and modules, so teams that rely on dense dependency planning should test whether its views cover their scheduling needs.
- Dependency-heavy schedules: Test OpenProject's Gantt views with a real dependency chain from an existing Asana project.
- Portfolio roll-ups: Confirm which portfolio and resource management features sit in the Enterprise tier.
- Cycle-based delivery: Plane suits teams that plan in sprints or cycles and track issues rather than long-range schedules.
- Reporting gaps: Asana dashboards and custom reports will need to be rebuilt on either platform, so list the reports your leaders use today.
The question to answer before deciding: Do your leaders review schedules and portfolios weekly, or do your teams mainly manage sprint-level work?
Organizations on Asana Enterprise+ can request a full organization export through a service account, which returns complete data as gzipped JSON. That file is richer than a project CSV, so it can preserve more structure during extraction. Both platforms can accept data from Asana, but the import route depends on the file format and the edition you choose, so the export shape should guide the decision.
- Service account access: Confirm that a service account exists and that your Enterprise+ administrator can run the organization export.
- Format handling: Plan the transformation from gzipped JSON into the target importer's expected structure, and test on a sample workspace first.
- Scope of data: Verify which objects, attachments and custom fields appear in the export before deleting anything in Asana.
- CSV fallback: Use the per-project CSV export from the project actions menu for teams without Enterprise+ access.
The question to answer before deciding: Does your Asana plan give you the organization export, and if not, can your team accept a project-by-project CSV migration?
Questions buyers ask before replacing Asana
What drives the cost of replacing Asana with a self-hosted tool?
The cost comes from four components: the software itself, the infrastructure that runs it, the people who install and operate it, and the migration work. Open-source core editions carry no license fee, but the Enterprise features many regulated teams need are paid. OpenProject keeps SSO, LDAP synchronization, SCIM provisioning and portfolio and resource management in its paid Enterprise plans, so check which of these you require before you compare totals. Infrastructure, backups, upgrades and monitoring recur every year. Migration effort is mostly one-time and grows with the number of projects, custom fields, attachments and automation rules you carry over. Ask any vendor or implementation partner for a quote that lists each component separately and states what recurs.
How long does an Asana migration to a self-hosted tool usually take?
Duration depends on the size and shape of your Asana workspace, not on the tool alone. The main variables are the number of projects and tasks, how many custom fields and rules need rebuilding, whether attachments and comments must come across, and how many integrations depend on Asana's API. Your own environment decides the schedule, so measure it before committing to a date. Inventory projects, export a sample to CSV from the project actions menu, and test the import into a staging instance of your chosen platform. Any timeline a vendor gives should follow from that inventory, and it should be written into the agreed scope before work starts.
What does the internal team need to provide during a migration?
Your team needs to own decisions that no outside party can make for you. These include which projects move, which fields map to which, who approves the target permission model, and who signs off on data that is archived rather than migrated. Engineers need access to the hosting environment, identity provider settings, backup targets and DNS. A named business owner should validate the imported data against the Asana source. Expect a periodic test cycle with project leads. If you outsource the build, keep a named internal owner for the platform after handover, because someone must apply upgrades and respond to incidents.
Can we run an Asana to self-hosted migration ourselves?
A self-run migration is realistic for small workspaces with simple structures, provided you have someone comfortable with Linux, containers or the vendor's installation method, and with working through CSV or API data. It becomes harder as complexity grows. Asana's CSV project export covers fields such as task ID, dates, name, assignee, due date, tags, notes and parent task, which is enough for many simple projects but may not carry over every relationship or configuration. For organization-wide data, Asana's organization export is available only to service accounts of an Enterprise+ organization. Plane's importer for Asana runs on its Commercial Edition, which is a licensing question you must confirm with the vendor before you plan around it.
How does the Enterprise+ export limit affect migration planning?
Asana's full organization export, which returns complete organization data as gzipped JSON, is available only to service accounts in an Enterprise+ organization. If your organization is on a lower tier, you cannot rely on that export and must plan around project-level CSV exports instead. Those exports are per project and lose some relationships, so inventory what they miss. If you do have Enterprise+, confirm that your service account has the permissions needed, and budget time to parse the JSON structure. Ask Asana directly which export options your current plan includes before you set the migration method.
Which self-hosted platform fits Asana's workflows best?
The right choice depends on whether your teams need task boards and lightweight collaboration or structured portfolio and project planning. Plane is licensed AGPL-3.0, and its Community Edition is the self-hosted starting point, with importers for Asana, Jira, Linear and others on Plane Cloud and on the Commercial Edition. OpenProject is licensed GPL-3.0 and offers a free Community edition, with portfolio and resource management in paid Enterprise plans. Run a pilot project in each candidate to test how permissions, notifications and reporting behave for your teams. Confirm each vendor's current feature list, edition boundaries and license terms in writing before you decide.
What should we confirm with each vendor before signing anything?
Ask for the current edition matrix, the license text for the version you plan to run, and a list of which features sit in paid tiers. For Plane, confirm whether the Asana importer is included in the edition you will deploy, since it is documented for the Commercial Edition and Plane Cloud. For OpenProject, confirm which Enterprise plan includes SSO, LDAP and SCIM, and whether its Jira Migrator matters to your roadmap, because that tool is in beta and does not cover Jira Cloud. Request the upgrade policy, supported versions, and the support terms that apply to a self-hosted install. Also ask how each vendor handles data export if you ever leave.
Does replacing Asana change our compliance or security posture?
It can, because a self-hosted platform moves identity, access control, logging, backups and data location into your own environment. Those controls then become your responsibility to configure, monitor and evidence. Identify which controls your current Asana configuration satisfies and map each one to the new system before cutover. Enterprise SSO and SCIM provisioning matter here if your access reviews depend on them. DeployOpen plans, implements, hardens and documents self-hosted platforms inside your own infrastructure and prepares systems and evidence for compliance assessments, but it does not issue audit reports or certifications. Independent auditors and certification bodies make those determinations.
How DeployOpen scopes and supports an Asana replacement
DeployOpen plans, implements, integrates, hardens, backs up and documents a self-hosted Plane or OpenProject instance inside your own infrastructure, whether that is your cloud account, a data center or an air-gapped network. The work starts from a fixed scope agreed in writing before any installation begins. That scope names the platform, the hosting target, the identity integration, the projects and templates to migrate, the export files in use (a project CSV or an Enterprise+ organization export), and the acceptance checks each deliverable must pass. Because the export route and the target edition decide much of the effort, the first decision to settle with DeployOpen is which Asana data source you actually hold, and whether you need a commercial edition of the target platform for its importer.
Within that scope, the work usually covers the items a security or platform team will ask about first: deployment configuration, single sign-on, role and permission design, backup and restore testing, logging, patching and the documentation an assessor or internal audit will request. Confirm with the platform vendor which identity features sit in paid tiers before you fix the scope, since that changes the licensing line in the quote. DeployOpen does not issue audit reports or certifications, so the evidence it prepares is handed to your own auditors. After go-live, ongoing support, platform upgrades and continuous testing are available as retainers that run alongside the fixed-scope engagement, and you should ask for the retainer terms, response expectations and upgrade approach in writing.
