Project management on a small budget
What this situation needs
Most free plans in this category are two-seat trials. A few are not, and those are the ones worth knowing when the budget is zero. The ranking below reads the published user, project and storage ceilings of each free plan.
Suitability scores follow a published rubric: 40 points when the free plan holds more than five users, 25 points when it holds unlimited projects or boards, 20 points when the first paid step is under US$10 a user, and 15 points when nothing important is time-limited.
Ranked for Project management on a small budget
Suitability is an editorial score out of 100; facts on each row are verified- Rank 1No preview yet
Jira
Issue tracker and planning tool, free for ten users and US$7.91 per user a month above that.
Free plan, paid from $7.91/mo
Suitability 92 of 100. Free forever for ten users with unlimited projects and tasks, then US$7.91 per user.
Not yet scored - Rank 2No preview yet
Wrike
Work management with a free tier for unlimited users and paid plans at US$10 and US$25 per user, sold in user bands.
Free plan, paid from $10/mo
Suitability 86 of 100. Free plan with unlimited users, though limited to essential task management.
Not yet scoredCompare with Jira - Rank 3
OpenProject
Open-source project management with a free self-hosted community edition and paid editions from €5.95 per user a month.
Free plan, paid from €5.95/mo
Suitability 78 of 100. Free community edition with no user ceiling, if you can host it yourself.
Not yet scoredCompare with Jira - Rank 4No preview yet
Redmine
Self-hosted project management released under the GNU General Public License v2, with no licence fee.
Free
Suitability 74 of 100. No licence fee at any size, under the GNU General Public License v2.
Not yet scoredCompare with Jira - Rank 5No preview yet
Trello
Board-first task tool with a free plan of 10 boards per workspace and paid tiers from US$5 per user a month.
Free plan, paid from $5/mo
Suitability 70 of 100. Ten boards and ten collaborators free; US$5 per user removes the board limit.
Not yet scoredCompare with Jira - Rank 6No preview yet
Teamwork.com
Client-work platform with billing built in, free for five users and US$9.99 per user a month above that.
Free plan, paid from $9.99/mo
Suitability 62 of 100. Five users and five projects free, then US$9.99 per user.
Not yet scoredCompare with Jira - Rank 7No preview yet
Todoist
Task manager with a free tier of five projects, Pro at US$5 per user a month and a team plan at US$8.
Free plan, paid from $5/mo
Suitability 58 of 100. Five personal projects free, and Pro is US$5 per user a month.
Not yet scoredCompare with Jira