Plane review

Plane ranks first because it pairs a clean, keyboard-first tracker with a genuinely free self-hosted edition and the cheapest paid tier on this list. The Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and covers work items with custom states, cycles and modules for timeboxed work, five layout views, project pages and an intake queue for incoming requests. Teams can install it with one Docker Compose command or run it on Kubernetes with Helm charts. If you would rather not run servers, Plane Cloud is free for up to 12 users, and Pro costs $6 per seat a month on annual billing, adding a workspace wiki, time tracking, dashboards, initiatives and teamspaces. Business at $13 adds project templates, recurring work items and email intake. The limits are in governance: SAML, OIDC and LDAP sign-in, audit trails and approval gates belong to the paid Commercial Edition, so regulated teams should budget for it.

Who it is for

product and engineering teams that want a modern Jira-style tracker they can self-host

Price

Free cloud plan for up to 12 users; Pro $6 per seat per month billed annually, Business $13; Community Edition free to self-host.

Plan Pro Price $6 seat per month
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 12, 2026.

Key features

• Community Edition under AGPL-3.0, deployable with Docker Compose or Kubernetes Helm charts
• Work items with custom states, labels and priorities, plus cycles and modules for sprint planning
• Five layout views, project pages for docs and an intake queue for triage
• Pro adds a workspace wiki, time tracking and work logs, dashboards, initiatives and teamspaces
• Commercial Edition adds SSO with SAML, OIDC and LDAP, audit trails and approval workflows

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Free cloud plan covers 12 users, so teams can try it before self-hosting
• Strength: Pro costs $6 per seat a month on annual billing, below most SaaS trackers
• Strength: Full REST API and webhooks for every event, per Plane's open source page
• Weakness: SSO, LDAP and audit logs sit in the paid Commercial Edition, not the free Community Edition
• Weakness: Wiki, time tracking and dashboards need Pro or higher
• Weakness: AGPL-3.0 terms apply if you modify and offer the software to others

Key facts

• License: AGPL-3.0 (Community Edition)
• Free plan: Cloud Free for up to 12 users
• Paid plans: Pro $6, Business $13 per seat per month
• Self-host options: Docker Compose, Kubernetes with Helm

Where it ranks

Plane is No. 1 in our Best Open Source Project Management Software verdict.