Redmine review

Redmine is the long-standing free option for teams that want full control and do not mind running a Ruby on Rails application. It is released under the GNU General Public License v2 with no paid edition, so the only costs are hosting and admin time. The feature list covers what most technical teams need: multiple projects with role-based access, configurable issue tracking with custom fields, Gantt charts and calendars, per-project wikis and forums, time tracking, and integration with Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and CVS. Issues can be created by email and users can sign in through several LDAP directories. Plugins and themes extend it further. The project is still maintained, with versions 6.0.12, 6.1.6 and 7.0.3 released on November 1, 2026. The drawbacks are support and polish: help comes from volunteers in forums and chat, and the default interface takes more training than Plane or Taiga.

Who it is for

technical teams that want a free, highly configurable issue and project tracker

Price

Free and open source; no paid plan.

Redmine is open source and released under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2 (GPL).
Quoted from the vendor pricing page on November 12, 2026.

Key features

• Multiple projects with flexible role-based access control
• Issue tracking with custom fields for issues, time entries, projects and users
• Gantt chart and calendar views
• Per-project wiki and forums, plus news, documents and files
• SCM integration with Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar and CVS

Strengths and weaknesses

• Strength: Completely free under GPL v2, with no paid edition
• Strength: Issue creation by email and multiple LDAP authentication support
• Strength: Active releases: 6.0.12, 6.1.6 and 7.0.3 shipped on 2026-11-01
• Weakness: You install, host and maintain it yourself on Ruby on Rails
• Weakness: No official vendor support; help comes from forums, IRC and an unofficial Slack
• Weakness: The default interface looks dated next to newer tools such as Plane

Key facts

• License: GNU GPL v2
• Price: Free
• Framework: Ruby on Rails, cross-platform and cross-database
• Latest releases: 6.0.12, 6.1.6 and 7.0.3 (2026-11-01)

Where it ranks

Redmine is No. 8 in our Best Open Source Project Management Software verdict.