15 Best Free Open Source Project Management Applications and Tools

Project Management Software has now become an essential part in any project. A good project management software would include many types of software, including estimation and planning, scheduling, cost control and budget management, resource allocation, collaboration software, communication, decision-making, quality management and documentation or administration systems. However most Project Management Software are expensive and costly. But there are some free and open source software also available for you. Here is a list of free and open source project management software in random order.

1. Collabtive

Collabtive is a web-based open source project management suite. A quick look inside shows that Collabtive has all the basic features: milestones, task management, time tracking, calendar. Moreover, you can import Basecamp projects and get RSS updates.

Features:

• Unlimited projects, milestones, tasklists, and tasks
• Unlimited members with user profiles
• Role-based permission management
• Messaging and instant messaging
• File management
• Timetracking
• Timetracker reports, activity logs and messages in PDF format
• Export user profiles as vCard
• RSS feeds for messages and tasks
• Synchronization of calendars via iCal task export
• Excel files from activity logs and timetracker reports
• E-mail notifications
• Fully themeable
• Available in more than 30 languages

2. eGroupWare

eGroupWare is a free open source groupware software intended for businesses from small to enterprises. Its primary functions allow users to manage contacts, appointments, projects and to-do lists. It is used either via its native web-interface, making access platform-independent, or by using different supported groupware clients, such as Kontact, Novell Evolution, or Microsoft Outlook. It can also be used by mobile phone or PDA via SyncML.

Features:

• Information sharing and CRM
• Project, task and event management
• Online file server and document management
• Data exchange and synchronization
• Incident tracking
• Website content management

3. Codendi

Codendi is an open-source collaborative development platform offered by Xerox. From only one interface, it gathers, all the needed tools for software development teams: management and versioning of code, bugs, requirements, documents, reporting, tests etc. It is mainly used for managing software project processes. Codendi is 100% Web 2.0 based. Codendi manages your projects, requirements, tasks, tests, documents and releases.

Features:

• ALM : Project Management, Requirements, Tasks, Tests, Releases
• Collaboration platform : 100 % web, multi-projects, multi-profiles
• Forge: GIT, SVN, CVS, Jenkins, document management
• Focuses teams on the important tasks
• Saves a lot of time on projects setup and tracking
• Shows an accurate and real time status of your project
• Configurable for most specific needs, processes and businesses

4. phpCollab

phpCollab is a customizable open source team-working solution. You can manage projects, set tasks, view milestones. Launched in 2002, phpCollab stands out for sufficient online collaboration tools such as discussions, notifications, support requests. It is an internet-enabled system for use in projects that require collaboration over the internet. Those organizations, such as consulting firms, that rely on a division between firm-side and client-side information will benefit most from use of phpCollab.

5. Project.net

Project.net is an enterprise-level project management software with open code. You can manage projects, collaborate, and use social sharing tools within your team. To tack projects easier, try project templates and dashboards. Besides, Project.net offers paid services like training or top-priority support so you can migrate to the new project management system smoothly. Project.net maximizes the performance of any organization tracking a single project or a portfolio of projects. Unifying the latest social media innovations within a collaborative and comprehensive project management framework, Project.net empowers every team member, enhances accountability, drives collaboration, and supports better decisions.

6. Redmine

Redmine is a flexible web-platform for project management. Redmine is based on Ruby on Rails framework and has multiple database support: Postgre SQL, SQLite and MySQL. The application is multilingual and available in more than 30 languages. Redmine provides users with Gantt chart, calendar, time tracking features which are essential for project planning.

Features:

• Multiple projects support
• Flexible role based access control
• Flexible issue tracking system
• Gantt chart and calendar
• News, documents & files management
• Feeds & email notifications
• Per project wiki
• Per project forums
• Time tracking
• Custom fields for issues, time-entries, projects and users
• SCM integration (SVN, CVS, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and Darcs)
• Issue creation via email
• Multiple LDAP authentication support
• User self-registration support
• Multilanguage support
• Multiple databases support

7. TaskJuggler Project Management Software

TaskJuggler is a modern and powerful, Free and Open Source Software project management tool. Its new approach to project planning and tracking is more flexible and superior to the commonly used Gantt chart editing tools. TaskJuggler is project management software for serious project managers. It covers the complete spectrum of project management tasks from the first idea to the completion of the project. It assists you during project scoping, resource assignment, cost and revenue planning, risk and communication management. TaskJuggler is written in Ruby and should be easily installable and usable on all popular operating systems.

Features:

• Manages tasks, resources and accounts of your project
• Powerful to-do list management
• Detailed reference manual
• Simple installation
• Runs on all Linux, Unix, Windows, MacOS and several other operating systems
• Full integration with Vim text editor
• Accounting
• Reporting
• Scaling and enterprise features
• Web publishing and groupware features

8. TeamLab

TeamLab is a multifunctional online service for business collaboration, CRM, document and project management. It has been developed by Ascensio System SIA, a Latvian company that offers IT-solutions for personal and corporate use. TeamLab combines a set of productivity tools that assists a company team to work as one organism at solving common tasks and achieving results. It has 4 modules: project management, business collaboration, documents processing and instant messaging. You can set tasks, milestones, track project activity and generate reports, share bookmarks and wiki pages with your colleagues, keep your teammates up to date with news and even create a poll. Teamlab has a fully featured document management suite. Users can edit, store and share documents right on the corporate portal.

9. WebCollab

WebCollab is a collaborative web-based system for projects and project management. It is easy to use, and encourages users to work together. The software is functionally elegant and secure without being cumbersome for users, or graphically intensive. The software is ideally suited to tracking multiple projects and innumerable small tasks across an organisation of any size. You can make to-do lists, manage tasks via calendar, and manage projects. WebCollab supports social activity. You can post messages in forums or add new contacts or files for further team work.

Features:

• Easy to read and intuitive screen layouts. Most users can use WebCollab without training.
• Individual users are assigned rights and permissions. Users can also be put into groups with controlled rights and permissions.
• Projects and tasks progress and approaching deadlines are graphically highlighted.
• Changes are personally highlighted for other users to see.
• Changes and new items can be emailed to affected users.

10. ]project open[

]project-open[ is more than just a project management suite. It claims to cover related business areas like CRM, invoicing and payments. Standing close to ERP software, ]project-open[ performs all basic project management tasks. You can manage projects, assign tasks, generate reports and track overall results. ]project-open[ is one of the largest open-source based web applications in the world.

11. phpEasyProject

phpEasyProject is an Open Source project management system primarily focused toward middle-class businesses from independent and small businesses to the service provider. phpEasyProject is invented for small teams. Though the interface is incredibly simple and clean, all the basic collaboration features are packed. You can create projects, set up tasks and manage to-do list. Dotproject includes a report export feature and performance statistics. So you can keep track of all current team activity.

Features:

• Access restricted to project management and business management only
• Project managers can access only their own assigned projects, business managers can access all projects independent of their own participation
• Fast creation of of new projects as well as processing of existing projects through only one mouse click
• Flexible selection of projects, for example selecting only active vs. inactive projects or restricting by search key(filter)
• Sorting in ascending or descending order
• Direct overview of all participant in certain projects and easy administration with a few mouse-click
• Export of project data as HTML or XML format (with matching XSL) – using different criteria and organization
• List representation of projects (and sub-projects) in tree-structure
• User management
• Activity Manager
• ToDo list

12. GanttProject

GanttProject is a cross-platform desktop tool for project scheduling and management. It runs on Windows, Linux and MacOSX, it is free and its code is opensource. If you are a Gantt chart addict, than give a try to GanttProject. You can set milestones, plan resources, measure results, make reports and share projects.

Features:

• Gantt chart : Create work breakdown structure, draw dependencies, define milestones.
• Resources : Assign human resources to work on tasks, see their allocation on the Resource Load chart.
• PERT chart : Generate PERT chart from Gantt chart.
• Export : Save charts as PNG images, generate PDF and HTML reports.
• Interoperate : Import projects from and export them to Microsoft Project formats. Export to spreadsheets with CSV.
• Collaborate : Share projects with your colleagues using WebDAV.

13. ClockingIT

ClockingIT is a free Project Management solution, which helps your team stay focused and on top of things. It is a free hosted application, keeping track of all your tasks and the time you spend on them. Extensive features like Project Management, Collaboration and Time Tracking makes this application very useful for our project.

Features:

• no restrictions or limits
• one-click time tracking
• clean and out of the way interface
• interactive gantt chart & scheduling
• flexible reporting
• multiple ways to communicate
• tracks and indexes all changes
• notifications via email, rss & ical
• ajax, comet & drag and drop
• translated to 14 languages

14. Project HQ

Project HQ is a collaborative open source project management tool, similar to Basecamp and activeCollab. Project HQ is built on open source technologies like Python, Pylons and SQLAlchemy and is fully database independent. Project HQ uses a structured workflow to assist you in managing your projects. Project HQ aims to be a buzz word compliant application, making use of Web 2.0 design and technologies like AJAX. Project HQ attempts to use AJAX in appropriate places, to help the user work efficiently, rather than simply providing flash and getting in the way of usability.

Features:

• Companies
• Members
• Projects
• Milestones
• Task Lists & Tasks
• Themeable using CSS

15. ProjectPier – easy online collaboration

ProjectPier is a Free, Open-Source, self-hosted PHP application for managing tasks, projects and teams through an intuitive web interface. ProjectPier will help your organization communicate, collaborate and get things done Its function is similar to commercial groupware/project management products, but allows the freedom and scalability of self-hosting.

Features:

• Easy; Web-based; Organized
• Notification system
• Extendable
• User Management
• Multi-client capability
• Manage tasks, milestones, tickets,
• Project Hierarchy
• File Management
• Search feature
• Privacy options
• Form generator to create task