How to migrate from monday.com to Plane without losing board history
If a renewal, a licensing change or a data residency requirement is pushing your boards off monday.com, the short answer is that boards and items move through a GraphQL API export and Plane's CSV importer, while automations, integrations and dashboards are rebuilt by hand. Column values map to Plane properties, so the work is mostly in the mapping and in checking that history, assignees and dates arrive intact. Plan the export and the column mapping as the main tasks, and treat the automation rebuild as a separate workstream with its own sign-off.
Internal platform, IT or PMO teams usually do this work, since they hold the monday.com admin access and know which boards matter. Many teams bring in an implementation partner for the export script, the staging environment and the rebuild of workflows, but the people who own the boards still need to approve the mapping. Ask any partner to confirm in writing which monday.com objects are in scope, how comments and attachments are handled, and who signs off the test import before cutover. Effort depends mainly on the number of boards, the column types in use and how many automations depend on them, so count these before you request a quote.
Plan the Plane edition before you import. Plane's Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and matches the feature set of the Plane Cloud Free tier. Paid features on self-hosted Plane require the Commercial Edition with a license key, and seats are counted by users with paid roles, so confirm which features your teams need (such as SSO or timeline dependencies) and which edition covers them. Check the Plane importers overview for the CSV importer's current supported fields, and test the import with a copy of one representative board before committing to a full migration.
Which monday.com features map to Plane and which need rework
This table compares the main monday.com building blocks with their closest Plane equivalents and marks each as clean, needs rework or gap. Use it to scope which boards can move as they are and which need reshaping before or after the import. Plane's feature availability differs between the Community and Commercial editions, so confirm current capabilities for your edition before you commit.
| monday.com feature | Plane equivalent | Migration status |
|---|---|---|
| Boards and items | Projects and work items | Clean: each item becomes a work item with its title and description |
| Column values | Custom properties | Needs rework: map each column type to a property type and confirm supported types |
| People and assignees | Workspace members and assignees | Needs rework: users must be invited before assignments import |
| Groups | States or modules, depending on structure | Needs rework: groups have no direct one-to-one equivalent |
| Subitems | Sub-work items | Clean: parent and child links can be preserved if the CSV carries them |
| Timeline and calendar views | Timeline and calendar layouts | Needs rework: confirm dates and dependencies import and that layouts are available on your edition |
| Automations | Not transferred | Gap: rebuild recipes or rules manually or with integrations |
| Integrations and dashboards | Not transferred | Gap: rebuild reporting and connect tools again in Plane |
| Updates and comments | Comments and activity | Needs rework: confirm whether historical updates import through the CSV route |
What monday.com exports and integrations you must rebuild
Moving from monday.com to Plane means two separate jobs: pulling your data out through documented routes, and rebuilding the parts of the account that never leave monday.com. Each card below covers one item to plan for before the first import.
Boards, items and column values
The GraphQL platform API lets you read boards, items, column values, users and workspaces in your account, so it is the documented programmatic route for extraction. Write the output to structured files (JSON or CSV) that keep each item's board ID, group and column IDs so you can map them to Plane work items and properties. Confirm which columns return usable values in your account, since some column types, such as formula or mirror columns, may need a custom read.
Users and workspace structure
The API returns users and workspaces, which you need to rebuild assignees, people columns and the workspace-to-project layout in Plane. Build a user list that maps each monday.com email to a Plane account before import, because assignees that do not match an existing member will not link cleanly. Decide early whether each board becomes a Plane project and which roles your users receive.
Board export for people
The board export is a person-facing file, not a migration format, so use it for review and sign-off rather than as the import source. Ask the business owner of each board to confirm the columns, groups and status values that matter, and record any board that holds data outside the columns the API returns. This gives you a checklist to verify the Plane import against.
Automations, integrations and dashboards
Automations, integrations and dashboards do not transfer to Plane. Inventory every automation recipe, notification, connected app and dashboard widget on the boards in scope, then decide for each whether Plane provides an equivalent, a workflow outside Plane or no replacement. Automation logic often carries the real process rules, so document the trigger and the action before you turn anything off in monday.com.
Attachments and files
Attachments and files are the item most likely to fail silently, because a file URL pulled through the API may expire or require account authentication. Download and store every file on your own server, record its original item and column, and confirm the file count and sizes match after import. Test a sample of large files, images and linked documents in a pilot board before you migrate the full account.
The migration sequence from inventory to decommission
This sequence moves monday.com boards into Plane in controlled stages, so each board is inventoried, mapped, proven in a test workspace, reconciled against the source and only then retired. Each stage produces a written artifact that the next stage depends on.
Inventory boards, columns and dependencies
List every board in scope with its workspace, owner, item count, column types and active users, and record which boards are linked to automations, integrations, dashboards or other boards. Mark which column types, such as formula, mirror or dependency columns, have no direct Plane property so they are flagged early. The output is an inventory sheet with one row per board and a short list of items that will need manual rebuilding. Confirm with the account owner which boards are still in active use before counting them as scope.
Export board data through the GraphQL API
Use a monday.com API token from an account admin to extract boards, items, column values, users and workspaces through the GraphQL platform API, storing each export as a dated, read-only file. Keep the raw JSON alongside any CSV you produce so the original values can be checked later. Confirm that the token has access to every board in scope, since a missing permission can silently produce a partial export. The output is a staged export folder with a manifest that lists each board and its item count.
Run a pilot import into a Plane test workspace
Create a separate Plane test workspace on a non-production instance, then import one representative board through the CSV importer, choosing a board that uses the most common column types so the pilot exercises real mappings. Check how Plane handles statuses, assignees, dates and any multi-value fields, and note every value that is dropped, truncated or converted. The output is a pilot log that lists each import error and the decision taken for it. Confirm with the Plane documentation for your edition that the CSV importer is available on your plan before starting.
Sign off the column-to-property mapping
Build a mapping document that pairs each monday.com column with a Plane property, a status value or a work item field, and records the transformation rule for each one. Include the handling for people columns, timeline ranges, tags and any column with no equivalent, such as formula or mirror columns, which usually become text notes or are rebuilt. Ask the board owners and the project lead to review and sign the document before any bulk import. The output is a signed mapping document that becomes the reference for every later import.
Import the remaining boards in batches
Load the in-scope boards into the production Plane workspace in batches, following the signed mapping document and applying the rules from the pilot. Record which import ran for each board, when it ran, and which account performed it, so the run can be repeated if a batch needs correction. Rebuild the automations, dashboards and integrations that were flagged in the inventory, since these do not transfer from monday.com. The output is an import log and a list of rebuilt items with their owners.
Reconcile counts and run in parallel
Run both systems side by side for a period agreed with the project owners, and compare item counts, status totals, assignees and due dates for each board against the source export. Investigate every difference and document whether it is an expected loss, a mapping error or a sync gap. Teams should work in Plane for new items during this period while monday.com remains read-only for reference. The output is a reconciliation report that shows, for each board, the matched counts and the signed exceptions.
Cut over and retire monday.com boards
Once the reconciliation report is signed, announce the cutover date, switch the active boards to read-only in monday.com, and redirect users, links and bookmarks to the Plane workspace. Confirm that the retained export archive is stored in a location the organization controls and that the retention period matches its records policy. Cancel or downgrade the monday.com subscription only after the archive is verified and the business owner has approved it. The output is a retired board list, a verified archive record and a closure note filed with the migration records.
How the API export, column mapping and CSV import fit together
The migration runs in three stages, and the first is an extraction script. An illustrative Python script can call the monday.com API basics through its GraphQL endpoint, page through the boards in one workspace, and write each item and its column values to a staging file, usually CSV or JSON, with one row per work item. The API authenticates with a token, so the account that issues it determines which boards the script can read. Keep the staging file as an untouched snapshot before any transformation, so the team can rerun the mapping without calling monday.com again. Confirm pagination and rate-limit behavior in the developer documentation before running the script against a large board.
The second stage is column mapping, and it is where most errors start. Each monday.com column type needs a decision. A status column will usually become the Plane work item state, a person column becomes the assignee, date columns become start and due dates, and dropdown or tag columns become labels. Some columns have no clean Plane equivalent, such as a numbers column used as a budget or a link column holding several URLs. Record each decision in a mapping sheet that lists the source column ID, the target Plane field and the transformation, such as converting a monday.com status label into a state name that already exists in the target project. Columns with no clean target can go into the work item description under a clear label, so nothing disappears silently.
The third stage is the CSV import. Plane lists its CSV importer for the Commercial Edition, and the importers overview is the place to confirm which plans and editions include it before you start. Load the file into a test project first and check the results field by field. Assignees must match existing Plane users who hold the roles needed for their seats, dates need to keep the intended values and time zone, and blank dates should stay blank. Check parent and sub-item relationships, comments and attachments, since a CSV file may not carry them across. Ask Plane which of these the importer handles, then reconcile a sample of records from each board against monday.com before sign-off.
How the migration changes by team size and starting point
A small team usually runs one Plane Community install on a single host. The Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and matches the feature set of the Plane Cloud Free tier, so no license key is needed to keep running it. The import step is where the edition question matters, because Plane lists its CSV importer for the self-hosted Commercial Edition.
- Confirm the edition first: Check which edition the install runs and ask Plane whether the Community build includes the CSV importer before you plan the import path.
- Plan the edition switch: Moving to the Commercial Edition changes the codebase and its release cycle, so treat it as a scheduled upgrade and test it on a copy of the install.
- Check the seat count: The Kubernetes guide lists a Free plan with 12 seats and no license key. Confirm the current seat limit for your edition on the pricing page before you add users.
- Stage the monday.com data: Export each board to CSV, then map monday.com columns to Plane properties in a spreadsheet so the import has one owner and one review step.
Before you export anything, confirm the edition, the seat count and whether the importer runs on your current build.
A mid-size team often runs Plane on Docker Compose, which Plane documents for small and mid-size teams. Moving to paid roles or single sign-on means changing the install, not only the plan. Paid plans require switching the Community install to the Commercial Edition, which unlocks plans with a license key and counts seats by users with paid roles.
- Switch to Commercial for paid plans: The Community install must move to the Commercial Edition before paid plans can be activated with a license key.
- Count seats by paid role: Seats are counted by users with paid roles, so the role each person holds decides the cost. Decide the role model before the import creates accounts.
- Plan SSO on Pro or above: SAML and OIDC are available on self-hosted Pro and above. If the team needs single sign-on, price the Pro plan and confirm the current rates on the Plane pricing page.
- Keep the Compose layout: The same host layout can stay in place while the edition changes, which limits the infrastructure work to the upgrade itself.
- Map external collaborators: Identify people who need read-only or occasional access and assign them roles on purpose so paid seats are not granted by default.
Before you start, confirm the plan, seat count and role model with Plane and confirm which features your identity provider setup requires.
An enterprise deployment usually runs Plane on Kubernetes with Helm, which Plane documents for high availability. The Kubernetes guide installs the Commercial Edition, so license keys and paid role counting apply from the first deployment. The Helm chart can point each dependency at an external managed service, which lets the team reuse its existing database and storage operations.
- Use external dependencies: Plane uses PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible object storage such as MinIO. The Helm chart can connect each of these to an external managed service.
- Start on the Commercial Edition: Because the Kubernetes guide installs Commercial, budget for paid roles and the license model from the outset.
- Confirm Enterprise features: LDAP support and API-enabled audit logs are listed as Enterprise features. Confirm with Plane which plan covers any directory synchronization or audit requirement.
- Sequence the cutover: Import into a staging release, review a sample of boards, then cut over. Attachments live in object storage, so validate file transfer separately from the board data.
Before you commit to a design, confirm high availability, backup and upgrade procedures with Plane and with your platform team.
What usually goes wrong when moving monday.com boards to Plane
Most failed monday.com to Plane moves fail on assumptions rather than on the importer itself. The risks below cover what the export never carries, how data changes shape on the way in, and how people and seats are counted after cutover.
Automations expected to carry over
monday.com automations, integrations and dashboards do not travel with board data. Teams often assume a status change that notifies an owner or moves an item will keep working in Plane, and it will not. List every automation on each board before export, record its trigger and action, and decide which ones Plane handles natively or which need a rebuilt workflow or a small script against Plane's API.
Column types flattening into text
Status, dropdown, people, timeline and formula columns come out of the monday.com API as typed values, but a CSV path often flattens them into plain text. A status such as Stuck can end up as an unstructured string rather than a Plane state. Map each column to a Plane property before the first run, and check a sample of items for every column type on the board.
Assignee and user identity mismatches
People columns reference monday.com user IDs, not email addresses that Plane members can match. If a board owner or guest is not invited to the Plane workspace first, assignees may be blank or attached to the wrong account. Build a user map from monday.com users to Plane members, confirm each person accepted an invite, and reassign unmatched items before anyone works in them.
Attachments left behind
Files on monday.com items are served from monday.com storage and are not always included in a structured export. Without a deliberate download step, Plane receives item text but no files, and the gap is only noticed when someone opens an old task. Inventory attachments per item, download them through the API, and record which items still need a manual check.
Date and timezone shifts
Timeline and date columns can move by a day when a value stored in one timezone is read in another, which changes due dates and cycle planning. Confirm the account and board timezone, compare a set of known dates in monday.com with the same items in Plane, and correct the offset in the mapping before loading the full board.
Seat counts under paid roles
Plane counts seats by users with paid roles on the Commercial Edition, so guests, viewers and inactive former members can change the bill after go-live. Teams that import everyone from monday.com may pay for seats they never use. Decide the role for each migrated person first, then ask for a seat count from Plane's sales team against that list.
Skipping a parallel run
Cutting over on a single weekend leaves no period to compare results and no way back if a mapping error is found late. Run both tools for a set period, reconcile item counts, owners and dates board by board, and only freeze monday.com edits once reconciliation is signed off by the project owners.
What drives the cost and duration of the Plane migration
This table lists the main factors that change the cost and effort of moving monday.com boards into Plane, split by one-time migration work and recurring operating cost. Use it to see which decisions in your scope move the quote most and where to cut effort before work starts.
| Driver | Why it changes cost or effort | How to keep it down |
|---|---|---|
| Board and item volume | Every board, item and linked record must be exported through the API, checked and loaded, so volume drives import runtime and validation time. | Archive closed boards and migrate only active projects, then import historical data in a separate batch if needed. |
| Column variety | Each monday.com column type (status, people, timeline, dependency, formula) needs a mapping decision to a Plane property, and unusual types often need manual conversion. | Inventory column types across boards first and standardize names and statuses before export. |
| Automations and dashboards to rebuild | monday.com automations, integrations and dashboards do not transfer, so each one must be redesigned in Plane or retired, which is usually the largest variable effort. | List every automation and dashboard in writing, rank them by business use and rebuild only those still needed. |
| Identity and SSO setup | Self-hosted Plane needs identity provider configuration. On the self-hosted Commercial Edition, SAML and OIDC sit on Pro and above, and LDAP is an Enterprise feature. | Confirm the identity provider and plan tier early, and reuse existing SAML or OIDC settings where possible. |
| Edition and seat planning | Moving to a paid plan requires switching from Community to Commercial with a license key, and seats are counted by users with paid roles. Plane lists per-user prices on its pricing page. | Map monday.com users to roles before import, remove inactive accounts and confirm current seat rules and prices on Plane's pricing page. |
| Hosting choice | Self-hosted Plane runs PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible storage. Docker Compose suits small deployments, while Kubernetes with Helm adds high availability work and platform staff time. | Use the simplest method that meets availability needs and reuse managed database or object storage services in your cloud account. |
| Testing depth | Reconciling record counts, attachments, user assignments and dates across a test import and a cutover import takes repeated validation cycles. | Agree a fixed set of sample boards and reconciliation checks in the written scope, so testing stays bounded. |
| One-time versus recurring work | Mapping, import, rebuilds and testing are one-time. Hosting, upgrades, backups, seats and support are recurring and continue after cutover. | Ask any quote to show both groups separately, with recurring items stated per year. |
Questions buyers ask before moving monday.com to Plane
What does a monday.com to Plane migration cost?
The cost comes from four components: the Plane edition and hosting, the export and transformation work, the people who do it, and the ongoing administration afterward. Plane's Community Edition has no license fee, but you still pay for servers, PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible storage, plus backups and upgrades. If you need features on the Commercial Edition, the plans listed on Plane's pricing page are per user per month: Pro is shown at 6 to 8 US dollars and Business at 13 to 15 US dollars per user per month, with Enterprise Grid on request. Effort rises with the number of boards, the number of column types, how many automations and integrations you need rebuilt, and how clean your monday.com data is. Ask any provider for a fixed-scope quote that separates one-time migration work from recurring hosting and support.
How long does moving monday.com boards to Plane take?
Duration depends mainly on scope and data quality, not on Plane itself. The work breaks into stages: setting up the self-hosted instance, exporting boards, items, column values, users and workspaces through the monday.com GraphQL API, mapping columns to Plane properties, loading a test workspace, validating results, and cutting over. Boards with many custom column types, linked items or formula-driven columns take longer to map. Each team's sign-off step also adds time. Plane's documentation does not give a migration duration, so ask for a timeline in writing that matches your board count, and confirm which items the importer will carry across before you agree to a date.
Can our team migrate monday.com to Plane without a partner?
A small team with one or two boards and a Git-literate administrator can often handle the work in-house, because Plane supports CSV import and Docker Compose installs for small and mid-size teams. The harder part is the data transformation. Monday.com does not map one-to-one onto Plane's work items, properties and cycles, and automations, integrations and dashboards do not transfer. Teams with many boards, regulated records or strict access rules usually need someone who can script the API export, test the mapping and document the result. Whether you proceed alone depends on your inventory of boards, your internal skills and how much rework you can absorb after cutover.
What work do our own staff need to contribute?
Your staff own the decisions that no importer can make for you. Someone from each team needs to confirm which boards are still active, which columns carry meaning, and how statuses should map to Plane states. An administrator must provision the self-hosted environment, manage accounts and keep backups running. A product owner should decide which monday.com automations to rebuild in Plane and which to retire. Plan time for user acceptance testing with real projects, and for training people on Plane's views and cycles. Ask your provider which of these tasks it performs and which it expects your team to complete.
Is the Plane Community Edition enough for our teams?
The Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and matches the feature set of the Plane Cloud Free tier, so it covers core work item tracking without a license key. It is enough when you do not need the features that sit on paid plans. To move to a paid plan on self-hosted Plane, the Community install must switch to the Commercial Edition, which uses a license key and counts seats by users with paid roles. Review the features your boards rely on, such as timeline dependencies, automations and intake forms, against Plane's editions documentation before choosing. Confirm the current feature split with Plane, since plan contents can change.
Does self-hosted Plane need the Commercial Edition for SSO or LDAP?
SAML and OIDC single sign-on on self-hosted Plane are available on the Pro plan and above, so they require the Commercial Edition with a license key. LDAP support is listed as an Enterprise feature, so it also requires a higher tier. The Community Edition does not include these paid identity features. If your organization must connect Plane to a directory, plan the identity design before cutover, and confirm the exact edition and plan with Plane before you buy. Check how your identity provider handles group and role mapping, because those settings affect seat counts on paid roles.
What breaks when we move monday.com data into Plane?
Several things do not carry over, and you should plan for them before cutover:
- Automations and integrations built inside monday.com must be rebuilt or retired.
- Dashboards and reports must be recreated using Plane's views.
- Column formulas and cross-board links may need manual mapping.
- User identities must be matched to Plane accounts, and roles reassigned.
Ask for a written inventory of what will and will not transfer, and test each board with real users before retiring the original. Keep a read-only archive of monday.com data for audit and reference needs.
What does a DeployOpen engagement cover for this migration?
DeployOpen plans, implements, integrates, hardens, backs up, documents and supports self-hosted open-source platforms inside your own cloud accounts, data centers or air-gapped networks. For a Plane migration, that can include the self-hosted deployment, the monday.com API export, column mapping, test loads, backup configuration and user guidance. Most engagements are fixed-scope, with scope, deliverables and timelines agreed in writing before work starts, and DeployOpen does not publish a price list. Ongoing support and upgrades are available as retainers. Ask for the written scope so you can compare what is included with what your team will handle.
How DeployOpen works on this
DeployOpen plans and implements self-hosted Plane inside your own cloud account, data center or air-gapped network, with the monday.com export, column mapping and import handled as a defined workstream. Engagements are fixed-scope, with scope, deliverables and timelines agreed in writing before work starts.
How we scope
- Inventory every monday.com board, column type, user group and workspace that must move into Plane
- Agree in writing which Plane edition, plan and hosting method the scope covers
- Record which automations, integrations and dashboards are out of scope for rebuilding
How we build
- Export boards, items, column values, users and workspaces through the monday.com GraphQL API into staged files
- Map each monday.com column to a Plane property and test the mapping on a sample board first
- Deploy Plane with PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible storage in your environment
How we hand over
- Document the column mapping, import runs, exceptions and reconciliation results for your review
- Provide administration notes covering seats, roles, backups and the Community or Commercial edition in use
- Hand over the environment with runbooks so your team can operate and upgrade Plane
How we support
- Offer ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing as a retainer after handover
- Confirm with your team which features on your chosen Plane plan your users actually need
- Ask for a written quote that follows from the agreed scope, since DeployOpen does not publish prices
