Open Source Project Management Software

Question

We're looking to start using a project management tool at work. I've used Unfuddle (and trac through assembla) on personal projects. I'd use either of these but the business won't be too happy with anything that's hosted externally.

I would just go with trac but there may be some hoops to jump through to get Python installed. Ideally, the business would be happiest adding a program that works with our current setup. We have SQL-Server and MySQL, along with ASP.NET / PHP to choose from.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

This is a pretty comprehensive list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_project_management_software

You might also consider:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_issue_tracking_systems

There's a breadth of solutions that might fit you.

Answer 2

With the given ressources I'd suggest .Project

dotProject

Answer 3

If you're not doing any form of Project Management currently, you need to figure out a plan or policy first. A tool is not a plan or policy and shouldn't be expected to solve all your problems.

First, define what your goals are. Are you trying to have better reporting? Get costs under control? Figure out who is available when and for how long? Compare your estimates vs your actuals?

Then, figure out information and practices you need to attain your goal. Timetracking can help you track (not manage) costs and compare estimates vs actuals but has little to do with resource planning. Project planning and scheduling is great for rough availability tracking but doesn't tell you how good your estimates are.

Finally, start collecting the information for one project/group. Figure out what does/doesn't work for them, adjust, and then expand to other projects/groups using the lessons and practices learned.. If you roll it our organization wide on the first shot, no one will know how to use it or what sorts of information needs to be captured.

I used to be a contributor to dotProject - look me up, I'm caseydk - and was one of the group that split into web2project a couple years back. If you're seriously considering dotProject, web2project might be a better choice for the security, improved performance, overall cleanliness of the code, and active development. We've already had our 1.0 release (June) and are going for v1.1 this coming week. Depending on when others find this, check out our Release Notes.

Answer 4

I have two tools, info can be found at: http://itprojectguide.org/main/products/Home both open source.

Most of the open source PM tools are weak (including mine) if you're really looking for a bug tracker try bugzilla or track (there is a difference between project management and issue management tools)...

I would also recommend considering using google docs/spreadsheet - it fits 90% of the needs for most projects

Answer 5

I would also recommend taking a look at OpenAtrium.

Answer 6

It's not open source, but I've been very impressed with Pivotal Tracker.

It integrates well with scrum and has great dynamic velocity / story point allocation that I've not seen elsewhere.

Limiting yourself to open-source does cut out some really great tools: scrumy.com & github to name two.