OpenProject · Project management
Self-hosting OpenProject for 1 person: the cost
At 1 user, OpenProject needs 5.0 GB of memory and 25.2 GB of disk. That fits the CX33 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $10.06 a month. Add backups and the time it takes to look after and the real figure is $237 a month.
- Server
- $10.06CX33 (cost-optimized), 4 vCPU
- Backups
- $2.01provider snapshots
- Your time
- $2253 h a month at $75
- All in
- $237per month
- First-time setup
- $1,200about 16 hours, once
How 5.0 GB was arrived at
4 GB covers the stack at rest, every container the project ships included. 1 user at 25 MB each adds 0.0 GB, giving 4.0 GB. Adding 25% headroom so the machine is not run at its ceiling gives 5.0 GB, and the smallest plan at or above that is the CX33 (cost-optimized) with 8 GB.
Disk works the same way: 25 GB to begin with, plus 0.2 GB per user, so 25.2 GB against the 80 GB the plan includes.
Rails monolith with PostgreSQL and Memcached. Carries classical project management, including baselines and earned value, which the newer tools omit.
Over three years
| Period | Server and backups | Your time | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup, once | — | $1,200 | $1,200 |
| Per month | $12.07 | $225 | $237 |
| First year | $145 | $3,900 | $4,045 |
| 36 months | $435 | $9,300 | $9,735 |
If you do not price your own time, the 36-month figure is $435 instead. Both numbers are real; which one applies depends on whether the hours would otherwise have been billable.
What you would be paying instead at this size
| Commercial product | Tier | Per month | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| monday.com | Standard | $40.29 | -$197 | breakdown |
| Jira | Standard | $0.00 | -$237 | breakdown |
A positive difference means self-hosting is cheaper at this size, with your time already counted.
Where to put OpenProject
5.0 GB of memory and 25.2 GB of disk is what this needs at solo. The cheapest plan that fits, among the providers whose prices we have read ourselves, is the CX33 (cost-optimized) at Hetzner Cloud for $10.06 a month.
Go to Hetzner Cloud Compare hosts
We are not claiming this is the cheapest server on the internet. It is the cheapest one we can honestly quote. Vultr and PikaPods publish prices we could not read programmatically, and may well undercut it. Price them yourself before you commit.
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