In simple English
Leantime helps you organize projects, tasks, and goals on your own server. It is designed to be as simple as Trello but packed with features like Jira. The interface focuses on clear layouts and goals, keeping things easy to read for people who get distracted easily. You run it yourself, so it costs nothing in monthly fees beyond the cost of your server. Setting it up takes some technical knowledge, and you will need to handle updates and backups yourself.
What it is
Leantime is a project management web application written in PHP (a programming language used to build websites). It combines kanban boards (visual columns where task cards move from left to right as work gets done), timelines, and goal tracking into a single self-hosted dashboard.
What it is good for
Solo builders who want a private place to track tasks, plan product milestones, and write internal notes without paying a monthly fee to commercial project tools.
- Combines task boards, timelines, wikis, and time tracking in one tool.
- Designed with accessible layouts that avoid visual clutter.
- Free to use and self-host under an open-source licence.
- Requires a PHP server, a MySQL database (a system for storing data in tables), and regular manual maintenance.
- Setup is complex for non-programmers.
- The AGPL-3.0 licence (a legal agreement that requires you to share your code if you modify the software and let others use it over a network) may not suit every project.
Jira, Trello, or Asana
MySQL
- go-gitea/gitea59k stars
Gitea is a self-hosted code collaboration tool, whereas Leantime focuses on general project management and task boards.
- usememos/memos64k stars
Memos is a lightweight self-hosted note-taking tool, whereas Leantime provides a full suite of project planning features.
docker run -d --restart unless-stopped -p 8080:8080 --network leantime-net \ -e LEAN_DB_HOST=mysql_leantime \ -e LEAN_DB_USER=admin \ -e LEAN_DB_PASSWORD=321.qwerty \ -e LEAN_DB_DATABASE=leantime \ -e LEAN_EMAIL_RETURN=changeme@local.local \ --name leantime leantime/leantime:latest