Which fits: Asana or self-hosted Plane?
Plane fits teams whose work is tasks, cycles, modules and pages. If your planning runs in sprint-like cycles, you group work into modules, and you keep specifications in pages next to the work, Plane's work items, cycles and modules map closely to how such teams already operate. Asana fits teams that depend on portfolios, goals and organization-wide reporting, where leadership views roll up across many projects and objectives are tracked as first-class records. Before you decide, list the views and reports your executives open every week. If those views are Asana portfolios or goals, treat that as a gap to test, not a detail to assume away. Confirm current feature availability for your plan directly with Plane and Asana, since packaging changes over time.
Four factors usually settle the choice. The first is portfolio reliance: if you cannot rebuild roll-ups without a portfolio equivalent, evaluate the alternative pages for OpenProject and plan the reporting work before you commit. The second is SSO and LDAP needs. On self-hosted Plane, SAML and OIDC start at the Pro plan, while LDAP support is listed as an Enterprise feature, so an LDAP directory requirement changes the plan you buy. The third is seat count, because self-hosted Plane's paid plans count seats by users with paid roles, which means guests, viewers and inactive accounts can change the bill. The fourth is the Community versus Commercial edition choice. A self-hosted Community install must switch to the Commercial Edition before it can use a paid plan with a license key, so the edition decision is effectively a licensing and operations decision, not only a feature one. Write these four answers down before you request a quote from any vendor or implementation partner.
Which option fits which team scenario
This table matches common team situations to the option that fits best, with the condition that drives each choice. Read it by finding your scenario, then checking the condition column against your own licensing, data and operations needs. Plane's Free tier and Community edition share a feature set, but paid Plane plans are a different decision with their own license and edition requirements.
| Scenario | Better fit | Deciding condition |
|---|---|---|
| Single product team running sprints and backlogs | Plane Community Edition | Work is organized as work items, cycles and modules, and the team does not need Enterprise features such as LDAP or API-enabled audit logs. |
| PMO running portfolios and resource plans | Plane paid plan or OpenProject Enterprise | Plane's portfolio-style views depend on the plan tier, and OpenProject lists portfolio and resource management under paid Enterprise plans. Confirm the exact feature set with each vendor before deciding. |
| Regulated team that must keep task data on its own servers | Plane Community or OpenProject Community, self-hosted | Either option runs in your own infrastructure. Confirm where attachments and backups are stored, since both need PostgreSQL and object storage configured by your team. |
| Team that requires LDAP directory synchronization | OpenProject Enterprise | OpenProject lists LDAP synchronization in paid Enterprise plans. Plane lists LDAP support as an Enterprise feature, so confirm the current Plane tier that includes it. |
| Team that needs SAML or OIDC single sign-on | Plane Pro or above, or OpenProject Enterprise | On self-hosted Plane, SAML and OIDC start at the Pro tier, which requires moving from Community to the Commercial Edition with a license key. |
| Team with no in-house operations staff | Managed or supported deployment of either tool | Self-hosting adds database, cache, queue and storage upkeep. A fixed-scope implementation partner or retainer can cover this if no one on staff owns it. |
| Team planning dated projects with dependencies and Gantt charts | OpenProject Community | OpenProject provides work packages, Gantt charts and time tracking in its free Community edition, while Plane's cycles and modules are oriented toward iterative work. |
| Team that is trying Plane without committing to a license | Plane Community Edition | Community matches the Free tier feature set, so a trial install carries no license key requirement. Moving to a paid plan later requires switching editions. |
How Plane runs in your own environment
Plane documents Docker Compose as the method for small and mid-size teams. It is the shortest path to a running instance: one host runs the Plane containers alongside the data services they depend on, and your team manages upgrades by pulling new images and restarting the stack. This model suits a single environment with a modest user base and a team that can handle host patching, backups and certificate renewal without a dedicated platform group.
- Single host layout: All application containers and supporting services run on one machine, so host capacity and disk limits apply to the whole product.
- Operational ownership: Your team owns the host operating system, container runtime, backups and restore tests.
- Scaling limits: Scaling beyond one host is not the purpose of this method. Growth usually means moving to the Kubernetes path.
- Edition choice: Community Edition runs without a license key. Paid plan features require the Commercial Edition, so confirm which edition your install method provides before you begin.
- Other runtimes: Plane also documents Podman as an alternative container runtime, so check the runtime your security team has approved.
Before you commit, confirm the current Compose file, the required host sizing and the backup procedure in Plane's self-hosting documentation for your chosen version.
Plane documents Kubernetes with Helm for high availability. The chart deploys the application services and can be configured to use external PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible object storage. That lets your platform team run the application tier on its own cluster while placing stateful services under the controls they already operate. The Kubernetes guide installs the Commercial Edition, so this path also brings a license and edition decision into the design.
- Application tier: Plane's web, API and worker components run as Kubernetes workloads that you can scale and place across nodes.
- External data services: The Helm values can point PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and object storage at managed services in your environment, which moves backup and failover to those services.
- Ingress and secrets: Ingress, TLS and secret handling follow your cluster standards rather than a Plane-specific layout.
- Edition and seats: The Kubernetes guide installs the Commercial Edition, whose Free plan includes 12 seats and the Free feature set with no license key.
- Upgrades: Chart versions and image tags move on Plane's own release cycle, so plan a staging rollout and a rollback path.
Confirm the chart version, the supported external service versions and the Helm values for each external dependency in Plane's Kubernetes documentation before you design the cluster.
Plane offers an Airgapped edition for environments with no outbound internet access. It is proprietary, separate from the Community and Commercial codebases, and follows its own release cycle. Teams in defense, critical infrastructure and some public sector settings use this route when every container image, package and update must arrive through an approved transfer process. The operational work shifts from pulling updates to moving them through your controlled channel and verifying them.
- Separate codebase: The Airgapped edition is a distinct build with its own versions, so updates do not follow the Community release line.
- Offline artifacts: Images and dependencies must be staged inside your network and mirrored to internal registries.
- Supporting services offline: PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible storage such as MinIO must also run inside the boundary.
- Licensing: Confirm with Plane how the Airgapped edition is licensed, supported and updated before procurement.
- Change control: Each update needs a verified transfer, a test install and a documented rollback.
Ask Plane for the current Airgapped installation guide, the required artifact list and the update process, and confirm them against your own transfer and approval rules.
Plane is not a single container. A self-hosted deployment uses PostgreSQL for relational data, Redis or Valkey for caching and queues, RabbitMQ for messaging between services, and S3-compatible object storage such as MinIO for attachments and uploads. Each of these is a stateful service with its own backup, patching and capacity needs, and each one is a place where your data sits. Plan them as part of the product, not as an afterthought.
- PostgreSQL: Holds work items, projects and workspace records, so it drives your backup and recovery objectives.
- Redis or Valkey: Supports caching and background processing. Confirm the supported versions with Plane.
- RabbitMQ: Carries messages between application services, so monitor its queues and disk.
- Object storage: MinIO or another S3-compatible store holds uploaded files, which need their own backup and encryption decisions.
- Managed or self-run: Helm values can point each service at an external managed offering, which changes who is paid for operations and where logs and backups live.
Before you decide between self-run and managed services, confirm the supported versions and the external configuration keys in Plane's Kubernetes documentation.
The right deployment model depends on your availability targets, your team's operating skills and your data location rules. Plane's documentation covers each method, but the choice has consequences for cost, staffing and evidence. Use this tab as a checklist before you ask for a scoped quote or a proof of concept. Each item is something to confirm with Plane or in your own environment, not something this page assumes.
- Availability requirement: Decide whether a single host or a highly available cluster meets the business need.
- Edition and features: Confirm which edition each method installs and which plan features you need, such as SAML, OIDC, LDAP or audit logs.
- Data locations: Map where PostgreSQL, object storage and logs will sit and who can access them.
- Operating ownership: Assign owners for upgrades, backups, restore tests and monitoring of each supporting service.
- Version support: Check the supported versions of every external service against the release you plan to deploy.
Bring these answers to Plane and to your own platform team so the deployment design matches your environment.
Where your Asana data would live and who controls it
Moving from Asana to a self-hosted Plane changes who holds the data, who signs users in and who keeps the records. Each card below is a decision or check that the team owns once Plane runs in its own infrastructure.
Data location and hosting model
With Plane Cloud, Asana data moves to a vendor-hosted environment. With self-hosted Plane, the team chooses the location: its own data center, a cloud account it controls or an EU provider. Plane documents Docker Compose for smaller teams and Kubernetes with Helm for high availability. Confirm where PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and object storage will run, because attachments and task history sit in those stores.
Single sign-on with SAML and OIDC
On self-hosted Plane, SAML and OIDC are available on Pro and above, so the identity provider you already run can control sign-in. Check which plan you need before cutover, and confirm that your identity provider's group claims map to Plane roles. Asana SSO settings do not carry over, so existing user groups must be rebuilt in the new identity configuration.
Directory sync with LDAP
LDAP support is listed as an Enterprise feature for self-hosted Plane. Teams that provision users from Active Directory through LDAP should price this in before they assume SAML or OIDC alone covers their joiner and leaver process. Without it, deactivating a departed employee depends on a manual step in Plane, which must be part of the offboarding checklist.
Audit logs and access records
API-enabled audit logs are listed as an Enterprise feature for self-hosted Plane. Without them, reviewers may have no built-in record of who changed a project, moved a task or exported data. Ask Plane which events are logged on your plan, where logs are stored, how long they are kept and how you forward them to your SIEM.
Editions and license keys
The Community Edition is AGPL-3.0 and matches the Free tier feature set. Moving to a paid plan requires switching to the Commercial Edition and applying a license key, and seats are counted by users with paid roles. Record which edition each environment runs, since the Commercial and Airgapped editions are proprietary and have separate release cycles.
Compliance evidence you must produce
DeployOpen prepares the controls, configuration records and evidence that an assessment needs, but it does not issue audit reports, attestations or certifications. Independent auditors and certification bodies make those determinations. Agree with your auditor which evidence they expect for access reviews, backups and change records before you design the Plane environment.
What the Community, Commercial and Airgapped editions change
The first decision is which Plane edition you are actually running, because the edition sets the license, the feature set and the path to paid plans. Plane Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and matches the feature set of the Plane Cloud Free tier. Plane also ships a Commercial Edition and an Airgapped Edition, both proprietary and each built on a distinct codebase with its own release cycle. A team that expects to use SAML, OIDC, LDAP or audit logs should not assume the Community install provides them. Read the Plane editions and versions documentation before you choose a deployment method, and confirm which features each edition includes against your own requirements list.
Moving to a paid plan is not a configuration toggle on the Community install. A self-hosted Community deployment must first switch to the Commercial Edition, which unlocks plans activated with a license key. Seats are counted by users who hold paid roles, so the license cost depends on how many people need write or administrative access, not on the total number of accounts. Ask your Plane contact how guest, viewer and member roles are counted, how a role change mid-cycle is billed, and whether the seat count is measured on Plane's side or in your own deployment. Build a role map for your Asana users before you buy, because a mapping that gives everyone an editor role will raise the seat count sharply.
The AGPL-3.0 license has obligations that matter only if you modify Plane's code. If you change the Community Edition and make the modified version available to users over a network, you may have to offer those users the corresponding source of your changes under the same license. Internal-only changes used by your own staff may fall outside that duty, but the exact trigger depends on how the software is deployed and who uses it. Route this question to counsel before you fork Plane, add a custom integration inside the codebase, or build a portal for external users. Keep custom work in separate services where possible, and record which files differ from the upstream release so the review is quick.
What self-hosting Plane costs beyond the subscription
Plane Community carries no license fee, so the cost of self-hosting sits in the components around it: infrastructure, operations, upgrades, backups and the one-time move out of Asana. Each card below names who gets paid for each item, whether it is one-time or recurring, and what to ask for before you compare totals with your current Asana invoice.
Asana seat fees that stop
Your current Asana cost is a per-seat subscription that recurs for every user on the plan. Moving to Plane Community removes that line, but only if your team stays within Community features. Before you compare totals, confirm the seat count, the plan tier you are on today and any add-ons such as portfolios or advanced reporting, since those features are what drive Asana's higher plans.
Commercial seat fees for paid features
If you need features outside the Community feature set, such as SAML or OIDC single sign-on on self-hosted Plane, you move to the Commercial Edition with a license key. Plane's pricing page lists Pro at 6 to 8 US dollars and Business at 13 to 15 US dollars per user per month, with Enterprise Grid on request. Count seats by users with paid roles, and ask whether guests, viewers or admins are billed differently.
Database, cache, queue and object storage
A self-hosted Plane deployment runs PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible object storage such as MinIO. These are recurring infrastructure costs, whether you run them on your own servers, in a cloud account or on managed services that the Helm chart can point to. Storage and compute grow with the number of work items, attachments and users, so ask for sizing for your project volume and peak load.
Operations time and upgrades
Someone must run the stack, watch capacity, rotate secrets and apply Plane releases. Plane publishes Community releases on its own cycle, and the Commercial and Airgapped editions have separate release tracks, so the upgrade path depends on your edition. Estimate the recurring admin hours per month, and ask who on your side or your implementation partner owns patching, incident response and version tracking.
Backups and restore testing
Backups cover the PostgreSQL database and the object storage that holds attachments, and both must be restorable together. Asana does not give you that control in the same way, so the recovery responsibility moves to your team. Budget for backup storage, off-site copies and periodic restore tests, and ask any vendor or partner to show a tested restore, not only a backup job.
One-time migration and implementation
Migration is the largest one-time cost. Plane's Asana importer moves projects, but rules, portfolios and some views must be recreated by hand, and the CSV or organization export you start from determines what comes across. Ask for a fixed-scope quote that lists the projects in scope, the fields to map, the automations to rebuild, user onboarding and a cutover plan with a rollback window.
How a move from Asana to Plane usually proceeds
The sequence moves projects, tasks and attachments from Asana into a Plane instance you control, and it ends with Asana access retired only after the team has checked the migrated work. Each step closes with a check the team can run before moving on.
Inventory projects, integrations and automations
The workspace owner or an Asana admin lists every project, team, portfolio, goal, custom field, rule and integration that touches work, and notes which projects are active, archived or owned by someone who has left. Platform engineering or IT records the apps connected to Asana, such as Slack, Google Drive or reporting tools, because those connections must be re-pointed or replaced. The step is done when the list is agreed with the project owners and each item is marked as migrate, rebuild or retire.
Export project data from Asana
For a small set of projects, project owners can export each one to CSV from the project actions menu, which carries task ID, dates, name, assignee, due date, tags, notes and parent task. For a complete extraction, an Enterprise+ organization can run the organization export through a service account, which returns gzipped JSON. Teams without that plan should confirm what the CSV route omits, such as attachments and comments, before relying on it. The step is done when each exported file is stored in a controlled location and the row counts match the task counts shown in Asana.
Run Plane's Asana importer on a test instance
The platform team installs Plane on a test environment, either the self-hosted Community Edition or the Commercial Edition if the team needs paid features, and runs the Asana importer from Plane's importers documentation. Plane also offers the importer on Plane Cloud, which matters if your data residency rules allow it. The step is done when a sample project imports cleanly and the team has confirmed in Plane's documentation exactly which fields, attachments and relationships the importer carries over.
Rebuild rules, portfolios and dashboards
Asana rules, portfolios, goals and custom dashboards generally do not transfer as working objects, so owners recreate them in Plane using work items, cycles, modules, pages and views. Automations that send notifications or update fields must be redesigned or replaced with integrations. The step is done when each item on the inventory marked rebuild has a Plane equivalent, or has been formally dropped with the owner's agreement. Confirm the current list of non-transferring objects in Plane's importer documentation before you start.
Validate migrated work with project owners
Project owners compare a sample of tasks in Plane with the Asana originals, checking assignees, due dates, parent-child relationships, comments and attachments. Anything missing or altered is logged with a fix or a manual workaround. Identity and access settings, including who can see each workspace, are checked against Asana membership. The step is done when each owner signs off on their projects in writing and the log of open defects is empty or accepted.
Cut over and freeze Asana edits
The team agrees a cutover point, announces it to all users, and runs a final export or re-import of changes made after the test run. Asana is set to read-only for migrated projects so new work is not split across two systems. Users are trained on Plane's work items and views, and the support path for questions is published. The step is done when all active work is recorded in Plane and no owner reports tasks being updated in Asana.
Retire Asana access and keep the export
After a retention period agreed with compliance, the organization removes users, revokes integrations and API tokens, and cancels or downgrades the Asana subscription at the renewal date the contract sets. The final exports are stored under the records policy so the team can answer later questions about historical tasks. The step is done when the access review shows no active Asana users or tokens, and the retained export is listed in the records inventory.
Questions buyers ask before moving from Asana to Plane
What does it cost to move from Asana to a self-hosted Plane?
The software itself has no license fee on the Community Edition, so the cost is the work around it. Four components matter: infrastructure to run Plane, the migration work, the admin time to operate the stack, and any paid Plane plan you choose. Infrastructure recurs every month and covers compute plus PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible object storage. Migration is one-time and grows with the number of projects, custom fields and automations you rebuild. Ongoing admin time recurs with upgrades and backups. Cost goes up with more seats on a paid tier, more high-availability components, and more rules to recreate. Ask any implementation partner for a quote built from a written scope that lists each of these components separately. Plane's published per-user prices for its paid plans are listed on its pricing page, so confirm current figures there.
How long does an Asana to Plane migration take?
Duration depends on scope, not on the tool alone. The main drivers are the number of projects and tasks, how many custom fields and rules you rebuild, whether you need historical attachments and comments, and whether single sign-on and network controls must be in place before go-live. A pilot with one or two active teams is usually much shorter than a full organization move. Plane offers an Asana importer on Plane Cloud and on the self-hosted Commercial Edition, so the import step itself is rarely the longest part. Ask for a written timeline with milestones for pilot, cutover and decommissioning of Asana. Do not accept a duration that does not list the scope it assumes.
What does our team need to provide before a self-hosted Plane install?
Plan for four areas of ownership before installation starts:
- Admin: named owners for the Plane instance, upgrades, backups and user lifecycle.
- Identity: an SSO decision. On self-hosted Plane, SAML and OIDC are listed from the Pro plan upward, and LDAP support is an Enterprise feature, so confirm which you need before you buy.
- Network: DNS, TLS certificates, load balancing and firewall rules for the users who will reach the instance.
- Storage and data: a PostgreSQL database, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ, and S3-compatible storage such as MinIO, plus a backup plan for all of them.
If you run Kubernetes, the Helm chart can point each service at an external managed database or cache, which changes who operates what.
Can our in-house team migrate from Asana to Plane alone?
An in-house team can often do it alone if it has platform engineering skills, someone who can run PostgreSQL and object storage, and time to test the import against real projects. The risks sit in the details: task history and attachments that the import does not carry over, dependencies and rules that must be rebuilt by hand, and security settings that were never documented. Asana's organization export is limited to Enterprise+ service accounts, so most teams rely on per-project CSV exports, which miss fields a migration may need. Decide early whether you want a fixed-scope engagement for installation, migration and hardening, or a retainer for ongoing support. DeployOpen plans, implements, integrates, hardens, backs up and documents self-hosted platforms in your own infrastructure, and most engagements are fixed-scope with agreed deliverables.
Can Asana portfolios and goals be rebuilt in Plane?
Partly. Plane's work items, cycles, modules and pages cover much of day-to-day task and sprint tracking, so lists, boards and team workflows usually translate well. Asana portfolios, goals and resource management are a different layer. Plane's own pricing lists its feature tiers, so check there which views and reporting features apply to your plan, and test any portfolio roll-up you depend on in a pilot before you commit. Where Plane does not match a feature, the usual approach is to rebuild the view with modules or a reporting layer, or to keep a portfolio tool beside Plane. Write down each Asana portfolio and goal you use today so you can test them one by one.
Is Plane's Free tier enough for our team?
It depends on seat count and on which features you need. Plane's Kubernetes documentation states that the Free plan includes 12 seats and the Free feature set with no license key, and that the Community Edition matches the Free tier feature set. If you need SAML or OIDC single sign-on, you must move to a paid plan, which means switching a Community install to the Commercial Edition first. Count your active users, not your total headcount, and compare that count with the seat limit before you decide. Confirm current seat limits and feature lists on Plane's pricing page, because plans change.
Does moving to self-hosted Plane change our compliance position?
Self-hosting keeps Asana data inside infrastructure you control, which can help with data residency and vendor-access questions. It does not make you compliant by itself. Your auditor will look at access control, logging, backups, change management and vendor management across the new stack. DeployOpen prepares systems, controls and evidence for compliance assessments, but independent auditors and certification bodies issue the reports and attestations. Ask your assessor early which evidence they expect from a self-hosted tool.
How DeployOpen helps evaluate and move to self-hosted Plane
DeployOpen is a Chainscore Labs company that plans, implements, hardens, backs up and documents self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own infrastructure. For Asana vs Plane, we start by confirming which Asana features your teams actually use, then test whether Plane covers them in your environment.
How we scope
- Inventory the Asana projects, lists, boards, timelines, goals and portfolios your teams rely on today
- Confirm which Plane edition, deployment method and seat model fit your user count and identity requirements
- Agree deliverables, timelines and exclusions in writing before any work starts, as all engagements are fixed-scope
How we build
- Deploy Plane in your own cloud account, data center or air-gapped network, with PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible storage configured
- Configure work items, cycles, modules and pages to mirror your agreed workflows, and document any gaps against Asana features
- Test the importer on a copy of a representative Asana CSV export and review fields, dates, assignees and attachments before cutover
How we hand over
- Deliver architecture notes, runbooks, backup and restore procedures and a record of configuration decisions for your team
- Provide a written list of Asana capabilities that were not recreated, such as rules, portfolios or goals, with proposed alternatives
- Walk administrators through upgrades and the Community versus Commercial edition process so your team can operate the platform
How we support
- Offer ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing as a retainer after handover, scoped separately from the project
- Plan Plane version upgrades and test them in a staging environment before production rollout
- Ask for a written quote based on your agreed scope, since DeployOpen does not publish a price list
