At a glance — how these 3 alternatives compare
Our read on each project's adoption, maintenance activity and commercial-use risk, derived from GitHub signals and SPDX license terms rather than star count alone. Sorted by stars. How we score.
| Project | Adoption | Maintenance | Commercial use |
|---|---|---|---|
| ★ 60,522 · TypeScript AGPL-3.0 | Flagship | Active | High risk Even a hosted/modified deployment can trigger source release |
| ★ 11,766 · PHP AGPL-3.0 | Mainstream | Active | High risk Even a hosted/modified deployment can trigger source release |
| ★ 10,899 · Python MIT | Mainstream | Active | Low risk Embed in a proprietary product with no copyleft obligation |
The alternatives
plane
🔥🔥🔥 Open-source Jira, Linear, Monday, and ClickUp alternative. Plane is a modern project management platform to manage tasks, sprints, docs, and triage.
makeplane/plane Updated 2026-10-07 leantime
Leantime is a goals focused project management system for non-project managers. Building with ADHD, Autism, and dyslexia in mind.
Leantime/leantime Updated 2026-10-07 frappe
Low code web framework for real world applications, in Python and Javascript
frappe/frappe Updated 2026-10-08 Editor's take
Yusuke Morinaga · last revisited · star counts quoted in the text (≈) are as of that date; the cards above are refreshed daily
Only one of these is actually an Asana replacement — the other two solve a different problem, and the trap is your automations, which don't export at all.
The most useful thing I can say about the Asana shortlist is that it is not a shortlist of three equivalents. Of the candidates, exactly one — Plane (≈58.9k★, AGPL-3.0) — is trying to be a direct Asana-shaped tool, with issues, cycles (sprints), modules, and an interface that will feel familiar to an Asana team. The other two are adjacent, not equivalent, and reading them as interchangeable is how migrations go sideways.
Leantime (≈11.5k★, AGPL-3.0) is deliberately built around ADHD, autism, and dyslexia, with a goals-focused, focus-oriented UX. That makes it different rather than a like-for-like swap — a genuinely good fit if your team’s pain is attention and prioritization, a poor one if you simply want Asana’s board and timeline somewhere you control. Frappe (≈10k★, MIT) is a low-code framework with the ERPNext ecosystem behind it; it can become a project tracker but it is a platform you build on, not a product you adopt. I would only reach for it if project management is one module of a larger internal system you were going to build anyway. Note also that Frappe’s MIT license is the most permissive of the three — relevant if you plan to modify and redistribute, where Plane’s and Leantime’s AGPL would pull you into its network clause.
On the gaps that bite: Asana’s timeline Gantt is more mature than Plane’s current implementation, and Asana’s Portfolio view for cross-project visibility has no real OSS counterpart. If leadership lives in Portfolio, that is a conversation to have before the migration, not after. The native integration breadth — Slack, Salesforce, Google Workspace — also thins out considerably.
But the failure mode I would warn about most is automations. Asana rules have no export format. None. Task data exports cleanly to CSV per project; your carefully built rules do not come with it. Before touching anything, I would document every rule manually and plan to rebuild each one in the target tool. The other quiet pitfall is guest access — guest permission models differ between tools, so reassign Asana guests to internal accounts first. Then pilot one team’s live projects for a few weeks. Custom-field type mismatches and missing automations surface in week one of real use, not in the export.
Comparison notes
Plane lines up most directly against Asana, bringing issues, cycles (its term for sprints), modules, and a self-hosted deployment wrapped in a familiar interface. Two caveats follow it, though: Asana's timeline Gantt chart is further along than Plane's, and Asana's Portfolio view for cross-project rollups simply has no open-source counterpart. The other two options here aren't really like-for-like swaps — Leantime builds around ADHD-friendly, focus-first UX, and Frappe (with the ERPNext ecosystem behind it) is a sprawling low-code platform rather than a dedicated tracker. Across the board, expect to lose Asana's native depth of integration with Slack, Salesforce, and Google Workspace.
Migration tips
- Export Asana projects as CSV (task name, assignee, due date, description, custom fields) from each project individually
- Map Asana custom fields to your OSS tool's custom properties before importing — field types must match
- Asana rules (automations) have no export format; manually document each rule and recreate them in your target tool
- Reassign Asana guest access to internal accounts before migration — guest permission models differ between tools
- Pilot with one team's active projects for 2-4 weeks before full migration to catch workflow gaps
Which alternative should you pick?
Replacing Asana isn't a single call — it's a trade between license terms, team size, and how much early-stage roughness you can absorb. The 3 projects above split along those lines:
- You want the project with the most GitHub stars in this list → plane. 60,522★ — the most of the 3 projects here. Stars measure attention, not quality or maintenance; check the last-push date and the Editor's take before reading more into it.
- You ship commercial software and need to ship modified code without releasing source → frappe. MIT licensed — modify and embed without copyleft obligations.
- You want the project with the most recent push activity → frappe. Last push 2026-10-08 — the freshest activity in this list.
License & commercial-use notes
When replacing Asana, the license usually decides more than the feature list — whether you can modify it, ship it inside a product, or host it as a service. The 3 projects here fall into:
- Permissive (frappe) — MIT / Apache / BSD / ISC — modify and embed inside a commercial product with no copyleft obligation. The safest bucket for shipping in a proprietary codebase.
- Network copyleft (plane, leantime) — AGPL / SSPL — the copyleft trigger extends to offering the software over a network, so a hosted deployment of a modified version can oblige you to publish your changes. Read the exact terms before building a paid hosted product on these.
License fields come from the GitHub API's SPDX classification and can lag a relicense. The repository linked on each card is authoritative — confirm its LICENSE file before any license-sensitive deployment.
Maintenance health of these 3 projects
Of the 3 projects listed, 3 shipped at least one commit in the last 12 months. See how we rank for the full criteria and our self-hosting cost reality check, which apply across every comparison on this site.
Frequently asked questions
How do these 3 alternatives compare on maintenance health?
3 of 3 have shipped a commit in the last 12 months. At least one project here has 5,000+ GitHub stars. Always check the last-pushed date in the cards above and read the latest closed issues — those two signals are the fastest public check we know of.
How this page was compiled
- Repository facts (stars, license, language, last push) come straight from the GitHub public API and are linked on each card as the primary source.
- Editorial analysis (the intro, comparison notes and migration tips) is Claude-drafted from Asana's use case and the alternatives' repository metadata — in Claude Code sessions or scheduled routines run under the operator's account. Samples are spot-checked against the upstream repositories; entries are not individually reviewed unless they carry a signature. See what Claude drafts and what the operator writes.
- Editor's take is signed by Yusuke Morinaga. It was drafted in a Claude Code session the operator ran, then read and confirmed by Yusuke Morinaga before publication, and carries the date it was last revised. It is written from each project's README, LICENSE, release history and issue tracker — not from running the project in production; where that distinction matters, the take says so.
- Maintenance signal: 3 of 3 projects shipped a commit in the last 12 months as of the latest rebuild (most recent activity: ).
- Last editorial review: by Yusuke Morinaga.
- Spotted an error? Email [email protected] with the page URL (subject prefix
[correction]) — we ship corrections within 14 days.