Last week I installed and configured Openproject (https://www.openproject.org/). It looks like an amazingly good product. The installation instructions were nice and clear (especially for a non-ruby/rails guy), configuration was quite straight forward.

It's essentially a web based alternative to Microsoft Project, things I like:

  • It looks beautiful - the web interface is simple, quick and extremely intuitive
  • It has extension modules (I've taken a look at the backlog plugin for Agile/Scrum support)
  • It allows you to have hierarchical projects
  • Great looking reports (including Gantt charts)
  • Strong user/group/role creation
  • Extremely customisable workflow - it was built to allow people to customise it to their needs
  • Open Source license (the price is right!)
  • Apache integration (using passenger), really easy to set up
  • Great looking email notifications (with backlinks in to Openproject)

Things I don't like about it:

  • No support for mercurial in the SCM module (currently only supports subversion and git)
  • I couldn't get the LDAP module working against AD
  • Would be nice if they bundled a binary distribution (eg. an RPM for linux or a DMG for mac), I think you need some development experience to get up and running.

This blog post will be a rolling review as I spend more time with it, but it looks very stable from what I've seen.