When it comes to project management tools, Jira is probably the first one that pops up in many people's minds. Yes, Jira is powerful, but... it's also a bit too powerful. It's also a bit too powerful, complex, expensive, and no longer available in a private deployment version.
Flybook, as the light of China, does a good job of collaboration. But when you really want to properly manage a complex project, you will find that it is like a Swiss army knife -- everything can be done, but unfortunately, everything is not good. And Flying Book also charges for more entries.
Imagine a tool that combines the power of Jira, the ease of collaboration of Flybook, and the simplicity and intuitiveness of Trello.
In this article, we recommend an open source alternative solution to Jira, Plane.
Introduction to Plane
Plane is an open source project management tool, developed in Python, designed to help teams track issues, run iteration cycles, and manage product roadmaps while avoiding getting bogged down in the chaos of the management tool itself.
Plane was born out of the developers' dissatisfaction with existing project management tools. The founding team realized that an ideal tool should be able to meet the needs of complex projects while remaining flexible and easy to use.
Plane's core philosophy is to provide a clean, flexible, and powerful project management solution that covers a wide range of project management needs, from basic to advanced, while remaining open source and transparent, allowing teams to take full control and customize their own project management tools.
Plane currently has close to 27,000 stars on GitHub.
Features of Plane
Plane offers a powerful set of features covering all aspects of modern project management:
Issue Tracking
- Quickly create and describe issues in detail: rich text editor support, ability to add file attachments.
- Sub-tasks and associations: Sub-properties and references can be added for better organization and tracking.
- Custom Fields: customize issue attributes based on project needs.
cycle management
- Iterative Planning: Planning and tracking of short-term goals through the Cycles feature.
- Progress Visualization: Tools such as burndown charts provide intuitive insights into project progress.
- Review and analysis: a review at the end of the cycle to continuously improve team effectiveness.
modularization
- Project Splitting: Break down large projects into manageable modules.
- Cross-team collaboration: Assign modules across teams for better collaboration.
- Progress Tracking: Easily monitor the completion of each module.
Customized Views
- Flexible Filtering: Create custom filters to display only key information.
- One-Click Save & Share: Easily save and share customized views.
- Multiple display modes: Supports multiple view modes such as Kanban, List, Gantt Chart and so on.
Page Functions
- AI-assisted editing: Integrated AI features to assist in content creation.
- Instant collaboration: team members can collaborate on editing pages in real time.
- Task Association: Easily transform page content into actionable tasks.
real time analysis
- Data Visualization: Visualize project progress, team efficiency and other key indicators.
- Trend analysis: Identify potential problems and reorient projects in a timely manner.
- Customized Reports: Generate customized project reports on demand.
Upcoming Drive Features
- Document Management: Centralized storage and management of project-related documents.
- Version Control: Track document change history.
- Permission Management: Fine control of file access permissions.
Plane's Technical Architecture
Plane's base framework is Django, the front-end is , the database is PostgreSQL, while the backend tasks also use Redis caching.
Plane is a microservice architecture with several components, including an object store. The business components include Web, Space, Admin, API, Worker, Beat-Worker, which seems to be more complicated.
Plane vs. other project management tools
To better understand the benefits of Plane, let's compare it to some popular project management tools:
| characterization | Plane | Jira | obscure or illegible writing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open source and free | ✅ Completely open source and free to use | ❌ Closed source, paid subscription required | ❌ Closed source, some features are chargeable |
| Functional comprehensiveness | ✅ Provide comprehensive project management functionality | ✅ Powerful, but can be overly complex | ❌ Strong collaboration function, weak project management |
| Difficulty of use | ✅ Simple, intuitive and easy to use | ❌ Steeper learning curve, not easy to master | ✅ User friendly and easy to use |
| Customizability | ✅ Open source code, customizable according to needs | ❌ Limited customization options, not modifiable | ❌ Limited customization options |
| performances | ✅ Lightweight and responsive | ❌ Large projects may have performance issues | ✅ Better performance |
| Community Support | ✅ Active open source community, rapid iteration | ❌ Closed source, relies on official support | ❌ Closed source, dependent on official support |
Plane Installation
Plane offers a variety of installation options, including deployment using Docker and Kubernetes. For most users, a Docker installation is the easiest way to go, but it's not really that easy - there are too many components and too many environment variables.
For those of you who don't have a technical background, you don't have to worry about installation.Sealos App StoreOne-click deployment application templates are provided, and deployment is silky smooth with a click of the mouse.
If you want to deploy a Plane quickly but don't want to get bogged down in the tedious process of installation and configurationYou can try Sealos.
Open directlyPlane Application Templates, then click "Go to Sealos Deployment" in the upper right corner.
If this is your first time usingSealosIf you want to deploy a template, you need to register and log in to your Sealos public cloud account, and you will be redirected to the template's deployment page immediately after logging in.
You don't need to fill in anything, just click "Deploy Application" in the upper right corner to start the deployment. As there are a lot of components, you need to wait for a while after the deployment is completed, after all the components become Running, click "Details" of the web application to enter the details page of the application.
Clicking on the extranet address opens the Plane web interface.
In addition to this, there is another way to open it, by first refreshing the Sealos desktop (i.e., in the interface refreshes the browser), then you'll notice an additional icon on the Sealos desktop:
Click on this icon to open the Plane web interface. Click "Get started" to initialize the settings.
Isn't it a bit of déjà vu? Yes, it does.Windows shortcuts!
If a stand-alone operating system can do it, Sealos Cloud OS can do it too.
Basic use of Plane
After initializing your account, you need to create a workspace:
After creating a workspace, you can invite your coworkers to join the space, or you can choose to invite them later:
Once in the workspace, you need to create a project:
When you are done, you can see the Dashboard interface.
The next step is to create an Issue in the project. An Issue is similar to a block in Notion, and all activities on the Plane are associated with the Issue to ensure that members are able to complete their assigned tasks.
For more features you can explore on your own, you can refer to thePlane's official documentationUnderstand its core concepts, which will not be covered here.
summarize
More than just a tool, Plane represents a new way of thinking about project management. By simplifying complexity, Plane allows teams to focus on creating value instead of being tied to a tool. Of course, there are still some bugs in Plane, so if you have the ability and energy, you can try contributing code directly.