Update May 2025: Internal comments have been released with version 16.0, and are included in our Enterprise professional plan.
With OpenProject 16.0, scheduled for May 21, 2025, we will introduce a new way to communicate with your team: internal comments in the work package Activity tab. This blog post will talk about why we developed this feature, how you can use it and how it might evolve in the future.
Why do we need internal comments?
OpenProject is as much a tool for team communication as it is for project management. In public offices, hospitals, universities and small and large companies, teams use OpenProject to manage the exchange of information.
Most of this information is contained within individual projects and our users sometimes work across multiple projects, each with a limited set of users with different roles. Each of these roles comes with a different set of permissions. For example, project admins generally have full, unrestricted access to the project, project members might have the ability to create only certain types of work packages or execute certain status changes, while external (non-project) collaborators might only be able to read and write comments. This approach allows for fine-grained access control.
In version 13.1 of OpenProject, we introduced work package sharing. This made it possible to invite users who are not project members to individual work packages in a limited capacity, with rights to only view, view and comment, or even modify the shared work package.
Sharing is especially useful when you need to involve people in very specific, small scopes. They might be external collaborators, clients, suppliers or observers. However, until now, anyone who could view a work package could also view all the comments in the Activity tab. This might not always be ideal. There might be times when a core team might want to discuss things related to a work package confidentially amongst themselves and keep that conversation separate from what is visible to all other stakeholders.
That’s where internal comments come in.
Internal communication
Internal comments lets core project members limit the visibility of certain comments to a select group that is a smaller subset of project members.
To use this feature, a project admin will be able to enable internal comments for their project. By default, these internal comments are only visible to the project admin role. To expand who can view these comments, instance administrators can grant a new set of permissions (to view, write and edit internal comments) to any number of roles.
Users who have these roles within their project will then see a checkbox under the comment box labeled “Internal comment”:
Checking this will turn that comment into an internal comment. The background color of the comment box will change to indicate this.
Once posted, the comment will also be marked in the same color, along with a lock icon, to distinguish it from regular comments.
Users without the necessary permissions will not be able to see these comments, nor that new comments were posted. They will not be visible in neither the Activity tab nor the other places where user activity is reported, like the user activity and project activity pages.
A project can include a number of different stakeholders and not all stakeholders should be privy to all information. Ideally, all discussion around a single topic or work package should happen in the same place but because there are currently no visibility controls, confidential conversations need to currently happen elsewhere. This is often a separate work package (in a different project), a Matrix chat room or email. All of these introduce inefficiencies by introducing information duplication and blind spots.
With internal comments, all information and stakeholders can be gathered in one work package that is considered the single source of truth and core project members are nevertheless able to communicate amongst only themselves.
Collaborate with an external client or supplier
Projects often involve external clients or suppliers. They can be invited to a project or an individual work package with specific, limited roles. This reduces the need to organize outside the project context using different incompatible tools.
However, the core project team might want to keep some of their conversation private and limited to a smaller group, for example when discussing rates, negotiations, sensitive financial information or contextual information. With restricted visibility comments, the core team can have a meta-level conversation within work packages that external clients or suppliers cannot access.
Use OpenProject as a helpdesk tool
Implementing internal comments is also a step towards making OpenProject a capable helpdesk tool. Customer support teams can write internal notes only they can view, along with public comments and responses the customer can read and react to.
This will be supplemented in the future with other important helpdesk features such as the ability to set up OpenProject to automatically create work packages based on incoming emails to certain addresses and allow responding to comments via email.
Your feedback
We are excited to release internal comments this May with version 16.0.
As an open source software company, we value the ideas and feedback of our user Community. If you have opinions about these changes or have feature requests, feel free to join our Community instance and share your thoughts.
We would like to thank ZenDiS for sponsoring this feature. We hope you are looking forward to this update as much as we are looking forward to releasing it.
How to choose the best project management software?
Finding the best project management software suited for your organization is a challenging task. We have put together the important criteria to help you make that choice. As an open source software, we of course advocate for choosing an open source project management software.
We prepared a latest overview of the top 5 open source project management software in 2025 for you to compare and see which one could enable you to tackle your challenges best. Take a look at the feature sets, hosting options, prices, security of the open source project management solutions to make an informed decision for your organization.
Please also make sure to check your potential project management software provider’s privacy policy and data security strategy in detail. In a project management software, confidential data is being processed so you have to make sure your data is in the right hands and being protected.
Here are our 5 best open source project management tools in 2025 with different advantages:
OpenProject is the leading open source project management software, licensed under GNU GPL v3.
Free and open source software
The software code is freely available on GitHub and the changes to the source code are transparently traceable any time. With OpenProject there is no vendor lock-in.
As self-hosted versions, the Community and Enterprise on-premises editions provide users with data sovereignty. You will benefit from a set-up with ultimate control over your data and with your preferred technical set up.
If you don’t have the capacity or knowledge to host OpenProject in your environment, we offer the Enterprise cloud edition with secure hosting in the EU or on request in Germany. With the OpenProject Enterprise cloud, you will benefit from a data center and network architecture built to meet the requirements of the most security-sensitive organizations. You can rely on hosting in a high security data center and redundant infrastructure, built for high availability and performance. Continuous encrypted data backups in separate locations, regular data privacy assessment and certification by external auditor are part of the security strategy.
Extensive project management features
OpenProject maps the entire project lifecycle, from project planning, execution and project controlling, to project closure. The software supports classic, agile and hybrid project management. The software includes extensive project management functions, such as project and milestone planning (Gantt charts), task recording, agile boards, project wiki, pre- and post-processing of deadlines, forums, time and cost recording, budgets.
Also, UX and UI play an important role at OpenProject. We invest heavily into our interface design team so that the use of OpenProject is as intuitive as possible and users don’t need much training or a documentation quest before jumping right in.
Configuration
The software is flexibly configurable, can be adapted to individual requirements and is suitable for the respective company processes. With a powerful API, additional systems can be connected if required.
Part of openDesk
OpenProject is one of the software solutions that are used for openDesk – the Sovereign Workplace. The vision of the Sovereign Workplace is to offer a true open source alternative to Microsoft and Google throughout Europe. And OpenProject is ‘openDesk’ ready, which means the current version (and upwards, of course) can be used as part of openDesk.
Active maintenance and development
OpenProject is continuously developed and maintained by an active developer community. New functions, improvements and updates are released regularly. This also allows a quick reaction to possible security gaps.
Professional support and training
OpenProject offers professional support and training. This ensures that users receive both technical and functional support in order to work with the software in the best possible way.
Pricing
The OpenProject Community edition covers a wide range of features and plugins and is free of charge. This is an on-premises version that requires you to host it in your own environment.
The Enterprise cloud and on-premises editions offer you professional support as well as additional premium and security features. Consequently, these are paid plans. Pricing starts from €5.95 per month per user, long-term subscriptions though are cheaper.
OpenProject offers a 14 days free trial which you can extend on request.
GitLab
GitLab is a source code management and DevOps platform that can also be used for project management, licensed under MIT open source license. It has a clear focus on software development. The users benefit from fast deployments, standardization, automation and increased security of the software development process.
GitLab has a vast feature set to allow the mapping of the entire software delivery lifecycle. It offers many specific features targeted at software developers, such as DevOps Reports. Both agile and traditional project management methodologies are supported by GitLab as it also includes timelines, task management and workflows. However, time tracking or budget and costs are features missing in GitLab’s offer.
Overall, one can say that GitLab has a more technical user interface due to the fact that the main target group is software engineers. It might not be as intuitive as other open source project management software in 2025.
Exciting: If you are not entirely convinced by the GitLab offering in terms of project management, but like its feature set, you can use OpenProject with its GitLab integration.
GitLab is available in the cloud and on-premises. The self-installed version provides full data control. GitLab’s cloud version, the GitLab.com core infrastructure, is primarily hosted in Google Cloud Platform’s (GCP) US-East1 region.
The location where your data is stored is important as it determines which regulations and data privacy measures apply (in the EU e.g. the providers have to adhere to GDPR). Feel free to read up more about cloud security.
GitLab Pricing
While there is a free version available (with limited storage, users and features), the paid versions start from $19 per user per month. To test the paid version, GitLab offers a 30 days free trial.
Tuleap
Tuleap is an open source project management software for agile project management, licensed under GNU GPL.
Tuleap comprises all agile project management features like task board, backlog, Kanban boards, burnup and burndown charts, dashboard. It allows you to execute software development, test management, project tracking and agile planning in specific.
If you are an agile or software development team, Tuleap’s clear focus on the agile methodology might work very well for you. For a broader project management approach, you might miss traditional project management features like a Gantt chart or a Wiki, and options to track time, budget and costs. Working in Tuleap, its interface seems very intuitive.
Tuleap is available in the cloud and on-premises. The premium cloud version gives you a hosting choice among providers in France, Switzerland, USA, UK, Korea. There is no information on the basic cloud hosting.
Tuleap Pricing
There is no free version of Tuleap available. The cheapest option is the basic cloud version that starts from 6€ per user per month. However, Tuleap offers a free trial if you contact them.
Taiga
Taiga is an open source project management software whose beginnings date back to a Kaleidos hackathon in 2013. It is licensed under MPL 2.0.
Taiga’s vision was to create an intuitive and visually appealing agile project management tool for developers and designers. Accordingly, Taiga offers a comprehensive feature set for agile project management. It includes Kanban boards, backlog, estimation tool, issue tracking, dashboard and more.
Consequently, classic project management features are not part of Taiga, limiting its use cases to agile methodologies only. Taiga has a very intuitive interface, which makes it easy for users to start working with the software.
Taiga is available in the cloud and on-premises. The cloud version is hosted in the EU by AWS, which means it complies with GDPR in this regard.
Taiga Pricing
There is a free cloud and free on-premises version available. The paid Taiga cloud edition comes with premium support and is at $70 per month (unlimited users).
Orangescrum offers classic as well as agile project management features. Resource management, schedule management (Gantt charts), budget and cost management, issue tracking, time tracking, workflow management as well as backlogs are available.
The on-premises and cloud version include even more features (burndown chart, project overview, task labels, custom task types, recurring tasks, invoicing etc.). Those are premium features and are part of paid plans.
Orangescrum is available in the cloud and self-hosted. The cloud version is hosted with AWS (location not mentioned).
Orangescrum’s privacy policy states that they are taking many steps across the entire company to ensure they will be ready for the GDPR.
Orangescrum Pricing
The Orangescrum open source edition can be downloaded for free. You can add paid support plans to it, from $299 per month. You can try Orangescrum for 15 days for free.
There is a free Orangescrum cloud edition for 3 users and limited storage, paid plans are starting from $8 per user per month. The on-premises version with premium features and support is charged as a once-off (from $4,425), with potential support subscriptions for following years.
Compare the top 5 open source project management software
Choosing the best project management software that fits your organization depends on a variety of criteria, including the features and use cases you want, the size of your team, and hosting preferences. All listed top 5 open source project management software have their advantages.
If you are looking for an open source project management software in 2025, we recommend to have a look at OpenProject, GitLab, Tuleap, Taiga, and Orangescrum.
To give you a quick summary:
OpenProject offers traditional, classic and hybrid project management features with a very intuitive interface. It is available in the cloud and on-premises and focuses on data security and privacy, protecting your confidential data. Therefore, the cloud version is securely hosted in the EU or on request in Germany. The OpenProject Community edition (on-premises) includes a comprehensive feature set and is free of charge.
GitLab has an elaborate feature set that is mainly targeted at software development teams and has a more techy interface. It is available in the cloud and on-premises. The cloud is hosted in the US. They offer a free on-premises version for a maximum of 5 users with limited storage and essential features only.
Tuleap is only for agile project management teams. It offers an intuitive interface. It comes both as on-premises and cloud version. Only for the premium cloud version you can choose the location of the host provider. Tuleap does not offer a free version.
Taiga also only offers agile project management features, though with a very appealing interface. It is available as cloud and on-premises version and the cloud version is hosted in the EU. Taiga offers a free cloud and free on-premises version.
Orangescrum has a big feature set for traditional as well as agile project management with an intuitive interface. There are on-premises and cloud versions, the latter is hosted by AWS but it seems Orangescrum might not comply fully with GDPR. The open source version with reduced feature set is free of charge and there is a free cloud version for a maximum of 3 users.
Regarding the pricing of all top 5 open source project management software, we recommend you visit the individual websites to input your team size and other requirements to find out the detailed pricing as there are many variables that may change the pricing.
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