OpenProject vs Taiga

At a Glance

European teams looking for an open-source alternative to Jira face a genuinely good problem: there are two strong EU-built options. OpenProject, headquartered in Berlin, has spent over a decade building a hybrid project management platform that handles Gantt charts and agile boards in a single tool. Taiga, developed by Kaleidos in Madrid, takes the opposite approach — it focuses on agile workflows with a clean, modern interface that makes Jira feel cluttered by comparison.

Both are open-source, both can be self-hosted, and both store cloud data in the EU. But they reflect fundamentally different philosophies about what project management software should do.

| | OpenProject | Taiga | |---|---|---| | HQ | Berlin, Germany | Madrid, Spain | | Founded | 2012 | 2014 | | License | GPL v3 | AGPL v3 | | Pricing | Free (Community), from EUR 6/user/mo (Cloud) | Free (Cloud), $7/user/mo (Premium) | | Employees | 51–200 | 11–50 | | Key Strength | Hybrid PM (Gantt + agile in one tool) | Beautiful agile-first UI |

Pricing and Value

Both tools offer genuinely usable free tiers, which already sets them apart from Jira's increasingly restrictive pricing.

OpenProject's Community edition is self-hosted and completely free for unlimited users. It includes work packages, Gantt charts, agile boards, time tracking, wiki, and documents — a substantial feature set at zero cost. Cloud plans start at EUR 6 per user per month (Basic), rising to EUR 10 (Professional) and EUR 14 (Premium) as you add team planning, baseline comparisons, automations, and enterprise features like SSO/SAML.

Taiga's free cloud tier allows one public project and one private project with unlimited users and 10 MB of storage. The Premium cloud plan is $7 per user per month and removes project limits with expanded storage and priority support. Self-hosted Taiga is completely free under AGPL-3.0 with no feature restrictions — every capability is available at zero cost. For teams willing to manage their own infrastructure, Taiga's self-hosted offering is arguably the best value in open-source project management.

The pricing models reflect different strategies. OpenProject reserves some features (team planner, baseline comparisons, custom automations) for paid tiers. Taiga gives you everything in the self-hosted version and charges only for cloud convenience and support.

Edge: Taiga for self-hosted value (all features free). OpenProject for cloud users who need the richer feature set despite per-user costs.

Project Management Approach

This is where the two tools diverge most sharply, and it is the single most important factor in choosing between them.

OpenProject is a hybrid project management platform. It handles traditional waterfall-style planning with Gantt charts, dependency tracking, and critical path analysis alongside agile boards for Scrum and Kanban. You can manage a construction project with detailed timelines and milestones in the same tool where a software team runs sprints. Work packages — OpenProject's universal unit of work — can appear on a Gantt chart, an agile board, and a team planner simultaneously. For organisations that blend methodologies across departments, this flexibility is rare and valuable.

Taiga is agile-first and unapologetically so. It supports both Scrum and Kanban natively, with sprint planning, backlogs, user stories, estimation, epics, and burndown charts. You can use either methodology or both within a single project. But there are no Gantt charts, no waterfall timelines, and no critical path analysis. Taiga assumes your team has already committed to agile and builds every feature around that assumption.

If your organisation runs a mix of traditional and agile projects — common in construction, government, or large enterprises — OpenProject is the only option here. If you are a software team running Scrum or Kanban and have no use for Gantt charts, Taiga delivers a more focused and pleasant experience.

Edge: OpenProject for hybrid/waterfall needs. Taiga for pure agile teams.

Features

OpenProject's feature set is broader. Beyond Gantt charts and agile boards, it includes built-in time tracking with cost reporting, budgeting, multi-project management with cross-project reporting, document management, meeting coordination with agendas and minutes, a wiki, news feeds, and even a BIM (Building Information Modelling) module for construction projects. Baseline comparisons let you track schedule changes over time — a feature that project managers migrating from Microsoft Project will appreciate. Custom fields, custom work package types, and configurable workflows round out what is one of the most feature-complete open-source PM tools available.

Taiga's feature set is narrower but purposeful. Scrum boards with sprint planning and burndown charts, Kanban boards with WIP limits and swimlanes, backlog management with user stories and estimation points, epics for cross-project tracking, issue tracking, a wiki, and customizable roles and permissions. It also provides importers from Jira, Trello, GitHub, and Asana — useful for teams migrating from those platforms. What Taiga lacks is notable: no built-in time tracking, no Gantt charts, no resource management, no budgeting, and no meeting tools. If you need those, you will be reaching for third-party integrations.

OpenProject scores 8.5 for feature depth in our ratings; Taiga scores 7.0. That gap accurately reflects the difference.

Edge: OpenProject for feature breadth. Taiga wins on focus — it does less, but what it does, it does well.

Ease of Use

Taiga's strongest card is its interface. The design is clean, modern, and visually appealing in a way that is uncommon for open-source software. Navigation is intuitive, boards are easy to configure, and new team members can be productive within minutes. Our ease-of-use rating for Taiga is 8.0 out of 10 — on par with many commercial tools.

OpenProject's interface carries the weight of its feature depth. There are more menus, more configuration options, and more concepts to learn. The UI is functional and well-organised, but it feels heavier than tools like Linear, Notion, or Taiga itself. New users — especially those accustomed to simpler project tools — face a steeper learning curve. Our ease-of-use rating for OpenProject is 6.5, reflecting a capable tool that demands more investment to master.

For small agile teams that want to set up a board and start working immediately, Taiga's learning curve is noticeably flatter. For larger organisations with complex project structures, OpenProject's complexity is justified — but it is complexity nonetheless.

Edge: Taiga for onboarding speed and UI polish.

EU Compliance

Both tools are strong here, which is expected given that both are EU-headquartered and both offer self-hosting.

OpenProject GmbH is a German company. The cloud edition hosts data on servers in Germany. The Community edition is self-hosted with no telemetry, giving complete data sovereignty. OpenProject is used by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Siemens, and various EU institutions — a track record that speaks volumes about its compliance credentials. It holds GDPR compliance and benefits from the strong data protection culture of its German home.

Taiga's cloud infrastructure is hosted at the Interxion MAD3 datacenter in Madrid. Kaleidos provides a Data Processing Addendum, encrypts all data in transit via SSL, and maintains off-site encrypted backups. Self-hosted Taiga under AGPL-3.0 offers full data sovereignty. While Taiga's compliance profile is solid, it does not have the same high-profile public sector adoption as OpenProject.

Both tools score well in our EU compliance ratings: OpenProject at 9.5, Taiga at 8.5. The difference comes down to OpenProject's documented use by government agencies and its more established public sector track record.

Edge: OpenProject for compliance depth and public sector credentials.

Integrations

Neither tool matches Jira's sprawling marketplace, but both cover the essentials.

OpenProject integrates with Nextcloud, Git/SVN repositories, GitHub, GitLab, LDAP/Active Directory, SAML/SSO providers, and Mattermost. It offers a REST API (v3) and webhook support. The focus is on infrastructure and identity integrations rather than SaaS tool connectors.

Taiga integrates with GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Slack, Mattermost, n8n, and Zapier (via webhooks). It also provides a REST API and webhook support. The importers from Jira, Trello, GitHub, and Asana are a practical advantage for teams migrating from other platforms.

Both score 6.0 for integration ecosystem in our ratings. The integrations are adequate for most workflows but limited compared to Jira's marketplace or Monday.com's app directory.

Edge: Draw. Both cover version control and chat integrations. OpenProject adds LDAP/SSO; Taiga adds importers and Zapier via webhooks.

When to Choose OpenProject

OpenProject is the right choice when your organisation needs more than agile boards. If any of these describe your situation, OpenProject is likely the better fit:

• You manage projects using Gantt charts, timelines, dependencies, and milestones alongside or instead of agile sprints
• You need built-in time tracking, cost reporting, or budgeting — and do not want to manage separate tools for those functions
• You work in the public sector, government, or a regulated industry where OpenProject's documented adoption by EU institutions carries weight
• You manage multiple projects across departments with different methodologies and need a single tool that handles all of them
• You need baseline comparisons, resource management, or meeting coordination

Choose OpenProject if you want a comprehensive project management platform that bridges traditional and agile methods.

When to Choose Taiga

Taiga is the right choice for agile teams that value simplicity and design. If these describe your team, Taiga is likely the better fit:

• You run Scrum or Kanban (or both) and have no need for Gantt charts or waterfall project management
• You want a tool that your team can learn in an afternoon, not a week
• You are migrating from Jira, Trello, or Asana and want built-in importers to ease the transition
• You want full-feature self-hosting at zero licensing cost with no artificial feature gates
• You are a startup or small team where per-user pricing matters and a clean UI boosts team adoption

Choose Taiga if you want a focused agile tool with a modern interface and zero barriers to self-hosting.

The Verdict

OpenProject and Taiga represent two valid answers to the same question: can European open-source software replace Jira?

OpenProject says yes — and then goes further, replacing Microsoft Project, time-tracking tools, and meeting software along the way. It is the Swiss Army knife of open-source project management: comprehensive, capable, and occasionally overwhelming. Its hybrid approach to methodology, built-in time tracking, Gantt charts with critical path analysis, and adoption by EU government institutions make it the heavier-duty choice. Teams that need breadth will not outgrow it quickly.

Taiga says yes — but only the parts that matter to agile teams. It strips away the complexity, delivers a beautiful interface, and lets developers and product teams focus on sprints, backlogs, and boards without distraction. Its self-hosted edition ships every feature at zero cost, and its design quality sets a standard that most open-source tools cannot match.

For agile software teams that want a clean, focused tool with zero licensing overhead, Taiga is the more enjoyable daily experience. For organisations that need hybrid project management, built-in tracking, and compliance credentials that satisfy a procurement department, OpenProject is the more complete platform. Both prove that European open-source project management is not just viable — it is genuinely competitive.