OpenProject vs Planview

OpenProject is an open-source project management tool with Gantt charts and agile boards, publishing exact per-user pricing and offering a genuinely free,…

Best for OpenProject: Teams wanting an open-source, self-hostable project management tool with Gantt charts, agile boards, and a Team Planner at a transparent, published per-user price, including organizations that need a genuinely free Community Edition.
Best for Planview: Large enterprises needing to connect corporate strategy, project and product portfolios, and resource capacity across many concurrent initiatives, with integrations into delivery tools like Jira, Azure DevOps, and Power BI.

At a Glance

 OpenProjectPlanview
Primary categoryProject ManagementProject Management
RatingNot documentedNot documented
Pricing modelFreemiumCustom
Starting priceFree (Community edition); paid plans from about EUR 5.95/user/monthCustom (contact sales)
Free planYesNot documented
Free trialYesNot documented
PlatformsWebWeb
Team collaborationNot documentedNot documented
AI featuresNot documentedYes
Public APIYesYes

Key Differences

Pricing Transparency

OpenProject: OpenProject publishes exact pricing: Community free, Basic €5.95/user/month, Professional €10.95/user/month, Premium €15.95/user/month, and custom Corporate pricing.

Planview: Planview publishes no pricing at all; Team, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus tiers are all listed as 'Contact for pricing.'

Published per-user pricing lets buyers budget without a sales call, while fully quote-based pricing requires direct engagement before any cost estimate.

Free / Open-Source Tier

OpenProject: OpenProject's Community Edition is free, open source under GPL v3, self-hostable, with no minimum user count.

Planview: Planview has no documented free tier; all listed plans require contacting sales.

A genuinely free, unlimited-user open-source option removes cost as a barrier to adoption entirely.

Strategic Portfolio Scope

OpenProject: OpenProject's features operate at the project/task level: Gantt charts, agile boards, a Team Planner, and time/cost reporting, without a documented strategic-portfolio layer.

Planview: Planview includes Strategic Portfolio Management and Product Portfolio Management to connect corporate strategy and investment decisions to funded initiatives.

Enterprises managing dozens of initiatives need visibility into how work maps to business strategy, not just individual project schedules.

Resource & Capacity Management

OpenProject: OpenProject documents a Team Planner for visualizing workload and time/cost tracking, but no dedicated capacity-management feature.

Planview: Planview has dedicated Resource & Capacity Management to spot over- or under-utilization of people across many concurrent projects.

Formal capacity management prevents overallocation across a large portfolio of simultaneous initiatives.

Minimum Team Size & Scale Fit

OpenProject: OpenProject's paid tiers require a minimum of 25 users (Basic/Professional) or 100+ (Premium), with a €1/user surcharge on monthly Cloud Basic billing, while Community has no minimum at all.

Planview: Planview's own FAQ states it is built for large and midsize enterprises with complex portfolios, and that small teams needing simple task tracking are usually better served by lighter tools.

Neither tool is optimized for very small teams on its paid tiers, but the free OpenProject Community Edition gives small teams a genuine entry point Planview doesn't offer.

Feature-by-Feature

Project & Portfolio Management

FeatureOpenProjectPlanview
Gantt chartsAvailableNot documented
Agile/Kanban boardsAvailableAvailable
Strategic portfolio managementUnavailableAvailable
Resource & capacity managementLimitedAvailable
Product portfolio managementUnavailableAvailable
Time tracking & cost reportingAvailableNot documented

Pricing & Deployment

FeatureOpenProjectPlanview
Free tierAvailableUnavailable
Published per-user pricingAvailableUnavailable
Self-hosted optionAvailableNot documented
Free trialAvailableNot documented

Enterprise & AI Features

FeatureOpenProjectPlanview
AI-assisted insightsUnavailableAvailable
Jira / Azure DevOps integrationsUnavailableAvailable
Executive roll-up reporting/dashboardsNot documentedAvailable

Pricing Compared

Starting price reflects the lowest paid tier, not the full cost for every team size or usage level.

OpenProject

Community — Free N/A
Basic — About EUR 5.95/user/month Monthly or annual (25-user minimum)
Professional — About EUR 10.95/user/month Monthly or annual (25-user minimum)
Premium — About EUR 15.95/user/month Annual or multi-year (100-user minimum)
Corporate — Custom pricing Annual or multi-year (250-user minimum)

Planview

Planview Enterprise Suite — Custom (contact sales) Annual enterprise contract

Pros & Cons

OpenProject

Pros

  • Free, fully-featured open-source Community edition
  • Can be fully self-hosted for data sovereignty and compliance
  • Native BIM support unusual among mainstream project management tools
  • Strong fit for government and EU-regulated organizations
  • Combines classic Gantt planning with agile Scrum and Kanban in one tool

Cons

  • Interface feels less polished than modern SaaS competitors like Asana or Monday.com
  • Paid tiers require a 25-user minimum
  • Premium and Corporate tiers require large minimum user counts of 100 to 250
  • Self-hosting requires IT resources to maintain
  • Smaller third-party integration ecosystem than Jira

Planview

Pros

  • Extremely broad functional coverage spanning strategy, portfolio, program and delivery-level management
  • Long track record and deep enterprise PPM experience dating back to 1989
  • Strong value stream management and toolchain integration capabilities via the Tasktop acquisition
  • Suited to complex, multi-team, multi-tool enterprise environments

Cons

  • No public pricing, requiring a sales conversation for even a rough cost estimate
  • Complexity and breadth can be overkill for small or mid-sized teams
  • Product line assembled through many acquisitions can feel fragmented across modules
  • Steeper implementation and onboarding effort compared to lightweight PM tools

Use Cases

Choose OpenProject: Teams wanting an open-source, self-hostable project management tool with Gantt charts, agile boards, and a Team Planner at a transparent, published per-user price, including organizations that need a genuinely free Community Edition.
Choose Planview: Large enterprises needing to connect corporate strategy, project and product portfolios, and resource capacity across many concurrent initiatives, with integrations into delivery tools like Jira, Azure DevOps, and Power BI.
Need both: A large enterprise could run Planview at the strategic-portfolio level to prioritize and fund initiatives and manage resource capacity across the organization, while individual delivery teams execute day-to-day tasks and Gantt schedules in self-hosted OpenProject, with status rolling up into Planview's executive reporting.

OpenProject

  • Software team running agile sprints — A development team uses Scrum boards and backlogs to plan and track sprints.
  • Construction firm needing BIM scheduling — An engineering firm uses OpenProject's BIM integration alongside Gantt charts to schedule construction phases.
  • Government agency needing self-hosted project management — A public-sector agency self-hosts OpenProject to keep project data within national infrastructure for compliance.

Planview

  • Enterprise portfolio prioritization — PMOs use Planview to align strategic objectives with funded projects and track portfolio-level investment.
  • Software delivery value stream visibility — IT leaders connect Jira, Azure DevOps and other tools through Planview to see flow and bottlenecks across delivery pipelines.
  • Resource capacity planning across programs — Program managers track resource allocation across multiple concurrent projects to prevent overcommitment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is OpenProject free to use?

Yes, the Community Edition is free and open source under GPL v3, with no minimum user count and self-hosting support.

Does Planview publish its pricing?

No, all of Planview's tiers (Team, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus) are listed as 'Contact for pricing' with no published rates.

Which tool handles enterprise strategic portfolio planning?

Planview, through its Strategic Portfolio Management and Product Portfolio Management features, which connect corporate strategy and investment decisions to funded initiatives. OpenProject does not document a comparable strategic-portfolio layer.

Does OpenProject integrate with Jira or Azure DevOps like Planview?

This is not documented. OpenProject's listed integrations are Nextcloud, GitHub, GitLab, OneDrive/SharePoint, and XWiki, while Planview explicitly connects with Jira, Azure DevOps, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Power BI.

Does either tool offer AI features?

Planview does, under the Planview Copilot branding, to surface portfolio insights and reduce manual reporting. OpenProject does not document any AI features.

Is OpenProject or Planview better for a small team?

OpenProject's free Community Edition has no user minimum, making it more accessible to small teams. Planview's own FAQ states it's built for large and midsize enterprises, and that small teams needing simple task tracking are usually better served by lighter tools.

Read the full OpenProject review · Read the full Planview review