All-in-one open source project management for teams who want full control — plan projects, track tasks, manage resources, and monitor finances without the SaaS lock-in.
Worklenz is a fully-featured, open source project management platform built for teams that need complete ownership of their project data. It packages the core capabilities of enterprise project management tools into a self-hostable application: task management across multiple views, resource allocation, time tracking, financial monitoring, and real-time collaboration — all in a single unified interface.
Unlike many open source project tools that cover only basic task boards, Worklenz targets the full project lifecycle. Teams can plan work with Gantt charts, execute with Kanban boards or list views, track time directly on tasks, and then review performance through analytics dashboards that surface workload distribution and project health. A dedicated resource scheduler shows team capacity at a glance to prevent overallocation.
The platform is built on a React frontend with Ant Design components, backed by a TypeScript Express.js API and PostgreSQL database. It supports Docker-based deployment with a production-ready setup including nginx reverse proxy, Redis caching, MinIO object storage, automated Let’s Encrypt SSL, and one-command setup scripts — making self-hosting genuinely accessible. Storage is pluggable, supporting AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, and MinIO interchangeably.
Worklenz ships with project templates, client portals for external stakeholder access, multi-workspace support, and financial insights that track budget and profitability per project. For teams migrating off tools like Asana, ClickUp, or Monday.com, Worklenz provides a comparable feature surface without recurring SaaS fees — and keeps sensitive project data entirely within the organization’s own infrastructure.
Worklenz is a monorepo containing two separate applications: a TypeScript Express.js backend (worklenz-backend) and a React frontend (worklenz-frontend). The backend follows an MVC pattern with clearly separated controllers, services, routes, and middleware layers — with over 60 controllers covering task management, project reporting, scheduling, billing, notifications, and more. Database interaction is handled directly via the pg PostgreSQL driver using parameterized queries with stored procedures and triggers in SQL files rather than an ORM, which keeps query performance predictable but requires developers to work directly in SQL.
The frontend is a Vite-powered React 18 application using Redux Toolkit for global state management and Ant Design 5 as the primary component library. For performance, the frontend combines react-virtual and react-window for virtualized list rendering, dnd-kit for drag-and-drop interactions, and Chart.js with react-chartjs-2 for analytics visualizations. The Gantt view is powered by gantt-task-react. Socket.IO handles real-time bidirectional communication between the frontend and backend for live collaboration features.
The production infrastructure stack is fully defined via Docker Compose and includes PostgreSQL 15, Redis (session and application cache), MinIO (S3-compatible object storage), and nginx (reverse proxy with automatic Let’s Encrypt SSL via Certbot). Management shell scripts (quick-setup.sh, manage.sh) automate environment configuration, SSL provisioning, database backups, and service lifecycle operations — reducing DevOps burden for self-hosters. The backend supports two deployment modes: Express (all-in-one bundled services) and Advanced (external managed services for PostgreSQL, S3, etc.).
What makes Worklenz distinctive is its breadth at the feature level combined with a straightforward, teachable architecture. It avoids framework-level abstractions like ORMs or GraphQL in favor of direct SQL and REST, which makes the codebase easier to audit and extend. The financial monitoring module — tracking project budgets, costs, and profitability — is uncommon in open source PM tools and reflects a genuine attempt to match what paid enterprise tools offer. With 15 releases since launch and an active Discord community, the project is evolving, though commit activity has slowed in recent months.
Worklenz is licensed under AGPL-3.0, which requires organizations distributing modified versions to publish their changes under the same license. A commercial SaaS version is available at worklenz.com for teams that prefer managed hosting with no infrastructure overhead. The self-hosted version has no artificial feature restrictions — all capabilities including client portals, financial monitoring, and resource scheduling are available to self-hosters.
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