Project management

What is the best open-source alternative to Jira?

Plane and GitLab Issues are the strongest project management alternatives to Jira — cleaner UX, self-hostable, and $7-15/user/mo cheaper.

Published May 16, 2026

The strongest open-source alternatives to Jira are Plane and GitLab Issues.

Plane

Plane is a direct Jira replacement: issues, epics, sprints, cycles, and analytics. Self-hosted Community edition is fully featured.

Self-hosted: Docker Compose deploy in under 10 minutes
Cost: Free Community edition; Pro from $7/user/mo
Features: Issues, sprints, roadmaps, analytics, GitHub integration

GitLab Issues

If you're already on GitLab for version control, the built-in issues + milestones + boards eliminate the Jira dependency entirely.

Self-hosted: GitLab Community Edition is free
Integration: Code + issues in one tool — eliminates context switching

Cost comparison (10-person team)

Tool	Monthly cost
Jira Standard	$77.50
Plane (self-hosted)	~$15 (infra only)
GitLab CE (self-hosted)	~$20 (infra only)

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