Best Open Source Task Trackers 2026 for Teams in Kazakhstan

The best open source task tracker for an IT team in 2026 is most often Plane: it has a modern interface, cycles and modules, built-in documentation, AI features and the most active development in the category. OpenProject is stronger when you need Gantt charts, budgets and classic project management. Redmine remains a workhorse for those who already run it. Taiga, Leantime and WeKan cover narrower scenarios.

This article is for IT company executives, team leads and IT department heads in Kazakhstan looking for a free tracker to run on their own server. We compare six tools by the same criteria, summarize them in tables and separately look at what a “free” tracker actually costs in practice.

Comparison criteria

We look at trackers the same way we do during client diagnostics:

• Work model. Sprints and backlog, kanban, classic projects with Gantt charts.
• Documentation. Is there a built-in wiki, or will you need a separate tool.
• Deployment. How easy it is to install and update: Docker, ready-made packages, manual build.
• License. Can it be used for free without restrictions, and what goes into paid editions.
• Development activity. Are releases coming out, are bugs being addressed, is the community alive.
• Learning curve. How long a new employee needs to start working.
• Interface language. Is there a Russian interface, and how complete is it.

The last point matters in Kazakhstan: teams are bilingual, and an English-only interface lowers adoption outside IT.

Development activity can be checked in ten minutes, and it is worth doing before the pilot. Open the project repository and look at the date of the last release, commit frequency over the past six months, how many open bugs are sitting unanswered and whether there is a section for security advisories. A tracker is a system for years. If the project goes quiet, in two or three years you will be left with an unsupported version and will have to migrate in a hurry.

Comparing six trackers

Tracker	Work model	License	Documentation	Strength	Weakness
Plane	Projects, cycles, modules, task types	AGPL-3.0 for Community Edition	Pages and Wiki	Modern interface, active development, Jira import	Some features in paid editions, community-made Russian translation
OpenProject	Classic projects and Agile	GPL	Wiki	Gantt, budgets, time tracking	Harder to configure, interface overloaded for small teams
Taiga	Scrum and kanban	Open	Wiki	Simple Scrum for one team	Development has slowed noticeably
Redmine	Issue trackers, projects	GPL	Wiki	Reliability, plugins, time-tested	Dated interface
Leantime	Projects for non-technical teams	Open	Basic	Easy for people outside IT	Fewer capabilities for software development
WeKan	Kanban boards	MIT	None	Simplicity, easy installation	Boards only, no processes

The licenses of Taiga and Leantime and the terms of their paid editions have changed over time, so check the current license text in the project repository before implementing.

Plane: the default choice for product teams

Plane is written in Python (Django) and React; the Community Edition is distributed under AGPL-3.0, is free and does not limit the number of users. It installs via Docker or Kubernetes, and there is Plane Compose for installation.

The work model is close to Jira: projects, tasks (Work items), cycles instead of sprints, modules for features, task types and epics. Views include list, board, calendar, spreadsheet and Gantt. Documentation lives next to tasks in Pages and Wiki. There is the PQL query language, dashboards, time tracking, request intake via Intake, automations and AI agents.

An important detail: Community Edition is free, but SSO, LDAP and granular access permissions are in the paid editions. Self-hosted Pro and higher plans cover these features, and there is an Airgapped edition for fully closed environments. For teams leaving Jira, there is a built-in importer from Jira Cloud and Jira Server/Data Center. It transfers projects, tasks, comments, attachments, statuses, links, sprints and users. Automations, dashboards, JQL filters and Marketplace app data are not transferred and have to be rebuilt. AI features also work in the self-hosted version, and Airgapped provides a local model for them.

We covered how to install Plane on your own server in detail in our Docker guide to installing Plane.

OpenProject: when you need Gantt charts and budgets

OpenProject is suited to classic project management: Gantt charts with dependencies, budgets, time tracking and milestones. Where a project office reports on deadlines and money, it is a strong candidate.

Limitations: the interface is dense and overkill for a small product team. Some features belong to the paid Enterprise edition, so check the feature list of the free version before choosing. It works well for construction, engineering and implementation projects where the Gantt chart is the main language for talking to the client.

Who OpenProject does not suit: a product team that works in short iterations and wants to move tasks across a board quickly. Such a team needs a lightweight tracker with cycles, not a project office system. The reverse also happens: a company picks a trendy tracker for projects with hard deadlines and contractors, and then builds its Gantt chart in a separate spreadsheet.

Taiga and Redmine: proven, but with caveats

Taiga was long a popular choice for Scrum teams: backlog, sprints, user stories and kanban. The interface is simple and pleasant. But the project’s authors have shifted to other products, and development has slowed noticeably. For a new long-term installation this is a risk: security updates and compatibility with new environment versions may lag behind.

Redmine has been developed since the mid-2000s and still runs in many companies. It is reliable, flexible thanks to plugins, and has a wiki, time tracking and a Russian interface. The main downside is the dated interface, which new employees and people outside IT find hard to get used to. If Redmine already works and does the job, there is no need to replace it for the sake of trends. For a new implementation, look at Plane or OpenProject first.

Leantime and WeKan: narrow scenarios

Leantime is aimed at teams where projects are managed by people who are not professional project managers: marketing, operations departments, small agencies. The interface is simpler, with an emphasis on goals and clear boards. It has fewer capabilities for software development than Plane.

WeKan is an open source Trello-style kanban board. It is MIT-licensed, installs quickly and can be learned in an hour. It suits small teams and personal boards, but not processes with statuses, sprints, SLAs and reports.

Both tools are good as a first step away from chats and spreadsheets. Signs that a team has outgrown them: tasks need to be linked to each other, sprints or releases have appeared, the manager asks for a deadline report, and clients want to see status without access to the whole board. At that point, moving to Plane or OpenProject costs less than trying to bolt on the missing pieces with plugins and workarounds. Tasks from simple boards are usually migrated with an export and a script rather than a built-in importer, so it is better to migrate while you have hundreds of tasks, not thousands.

Which tracker for which job

Team’s job	What to choose	Why
Product development with sprints	Plane	Cycles, modules, task types, GitHub and GitLab integrations
Replacing Jira with data migration	Plane	Built-in importer from Jira Cloud and Data Center
Project office with Gantt and budgets	OpenProject	Classic project management
Tasks and documentation in one system	Plane	Pages and Wiki next to tasks
A simple kanban board for a small team	WeKan	Minimal configuration
Projects in non-technical departments	Leantime or Plane	Simple interface
A working Redmine with no complaints	Keep Redmine	Migrating without a reason wastes time
Closed environment without internet	Plane Airgapped or OpenProject	Installation inside the perimeter

A detailed comparison of a broader list, including YouTrack and other options, is in our article on self-hosted Jira alternatives.

Free does not mean zero cost

The license of an open source tracker is free. Ownership is not. Before choosing, work out who will be responsible for what:

1. Server. A virtual machine at a hosting provider or resources in your own data center. A team of a few dozen people needs only a small machine, but it is needed permanently, not just for the pilot.
2. Backups. Backups of the database and files, storing copies separately from the server, and regular recovery tests. A backup that nobody has ever restored is not a backup.
3. Updates. New versions, security fixes, testing on a staging copy. Skipped updates pile up, and a year later an update turns into a project.
4. Monitoring. Who will find out that the tracker went down on a Saturday, and who will bring it back up.
5. Single sign-on and permissions. In several trackers, SSO and granular permissions are only in paid editions. If your security team requires login via the corporate directory, the free version may not fit.
6. Migration and setup. Moving tasks from the old system, configuring statuses, task types and automations. This is one-time but significant work.
7. User training and support. Who answers questions like “where do I find” and “why doesn’t it work”.

A simple way to calculate: add up the annual server cost, the engineer’s maintenance time in hours multiplied by their rate, and the one-time migration and setup work. Compare this total with the price of a cloud plan for the same team. For a small team, the cloud is sometimes cheaper. For a team of a few dozen people with data storage requirements, self-hosted usually wins.

If the company has a DevOps engineer, they will cover most of this as part of their main job. If not, budget for maintenance as a contractor service. In our experience, projects where this was thought through in advance run for years, while projects where the server was “set up and forgotten” end with lost data or a return to spreadsheets.

Kazakhstan context. An open source tracker on a Kazakhstani server solves two local problems at once. The first is data storage: employees’ names, emails and attachments stay in the country if that matters to the company. The second is payment: foreign clouds charge dollars to a corporate card without closing documents that meet local standards, while hosting in Kazakhstan is paid in tenge under a contract. Check the language separately: most trackers have a Russian interface, but translation completeness varies, and Kazakh is rare.

How we do it

We start with a diagnostic: how many people will work in the tracker, which processes need to be supported, whether there are data storage requirements and who will maintain the server. Based on the results, we recommend one or two tools, not six. Then we install the chosen tracker on a server in Kazakhstan and run a two- to four-week pilot with one team. After the pilot, we migrate data from the old system and onboard the remaining teams.

If you want to choose and implement a tracker without unnecessary experiments, see our Jira and Plane task tracker implementation page: it describes the process, timelines and what is included in the result.

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Sources. Plane repository and license: github.com/makeplane/plane. Plane editions and pricing: plane.so/pricing. Feature and license information as of October 2026.

Terms in plain words

Open source

Software with open source code that you can install on your own server for free. The company pays not for a license but for the server and the engineer's work.

Self-hosted

Installing the tracker on your own or a rented server instead of using the vendor's cloud. This keeps employee data in Kazakhstan.

AGPL, GPL and MIT

Types of open source licenses. All three allow free use; GPL and AGPL require you to publish modified code when distributing it (AGPL even when access is over a network), while MIT requires almost nothing.

Sprint and cycle

A short period of work, usually one or two weeks, for which the team commits to a fixed set of tasks. In Plane these periods are called cycles.

Gantt chart

A project schedule in which tasks are shown as bars on a timeline with dependencies between them. The usual language for talking to the client on projects with hard deadlines.

Kanban

A board with columns by status ('to do', 'in progress', 'done') on which task cards move. A simple way to see who is working on what.

SSO (Single Sign-On)

Single sign-on with a corporate account. In several open source trackers, including Plane, it is available only in paid editions, so check this in advance.

Airgapped

An installation option in a network without internet access, for companies with strict security requirements. Plane offers it as a separate edition.