Project management
Open-source alternatives to Asana, priced
2 open-source tools that can replace Asana, each shown with what it would actually cost to run for a team of 10 people. Asana on the Starter tier costs $135 a month at that size.
The cheapest way to replace Asana here is Vikunja, at $42.30 a month against $135, with your own time already counted.
Start here
Asana's Personal plan is free for up to 2 seats. Beyond that, the Starter tier below applies.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs Asana | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vikunja | $4.80 | $42.30 | +$3,184 | easy | AGPL-3.0 |
| Plane | $12.07 | $237 | -$4,878 | hard | AGPL-3.0 |
The final column is the 36-month difference: positive means self-hosting is cheaper.
Which one to pick
Vikunja 5,364 stars
A single Go binary with SQLite, PostgreSQL or MySQL. Kanban, list and Gantt views without the operational weight of Plane.
At 10 people it needs 0.7 GB of memory and 6 GB of disk, which fits the Basic at Kamatera for $4.00 a month. Setting it up is roughly 2 hours of work, then 0.5 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Asana versus Vikunja breakdown · Vikunja at every team size
Plane 59,255 stars
Django API, web and space frontends, PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ and MinIO. A genuine Jira substitute and priced like one in RAM terms.
At 10 people it needs 5.2 GB of memory and 27 GB of disk, which fits the CX33 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $10.06 a month. Setting it up is roughly 16 hours of work, then 3 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full Asana versus Plane breakdown · Plane at every team size
How the pricing was established
Asana pricing was read from its own pricing page on 2026-09-14. Server prices come from the providers listed on the hosting page. The sizing model and the cost of your time are set out in full on the methodology page.
Related
- All project management compared
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- Alternatives to Linear
- Alternatives to monday.com
- Alternatives to Trello
- Where to host it
What you would be running
| Tool | Licence | Written in | Setup | Upkeep | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vikunja | GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 | Go | 2 h | 0.5 h a month | 5,364 |
| Plane | GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 | TypeScript | 16 h | 3 h a month | 59,255 |
Questions people actually ask
Is there a free open-source alternative to Asana?
There are 2 on this page, and every one of them is free of licence cost: they are published under AGPL-3.0. Running one is not free, though. The cheapest of them, Vikunja, costs $42.30 a month at 10 people once the server, backups and the time to look after it are counted.
How much does Asana cost?
Asana Starter costs $135 a month at 10 people: USD 13.49 per seat per month; free for up to 2 users. That figure was read from the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-09-14.
What does it cost to self-host Vikunja?
$42.30 a month at 10 people. That is $4.00 for the Basic at Kamatera, plus backups, plus 0.5 hours a month of your own time priced at the published hourly rate.
How long before Vikunja is cheaper than Asana?
About a month, counting $150 of first-time setup. Over 36 months the difference is $3,184.
Which Asana alternative is the easiest to run?
Vikunja, rated easy: about 2 hours to set up and 0.5 hours afterwards.