Leantime Review
Leantime is a great project management platform with a passionate user base, and for good reason. Thanks to many tools and a unique plan structure, many project managers are giving it the eye. As such, we have decided to conduct a full Leantime review.
Leantime is one of the best open-source project management software, and it’s definitely worth a look for those managing projects regularly. As our project management experts will show you in this Leantime review, it incorporates Lean and Kanban methodologies, which makes it ideal for Agile teams who want to plan, organize, execute and nail their deliverables.
Key Takeaways: Leantime Project Management
- Leantime offers a great mix of idea creation and job management tools that work together seamlessly.
- Because you pay per project or per member and not for the tools, you’ll find that all the features are available in every plan. The first team member or project is free.
- Leantime can be self-hosted on your servers, or you can choose to have Leantime host your data on its servers.
Stick around to see what makes this all-in-one project management software tick. We tested the service on everything from features to security, collaboration tools and user-friendliness, so you can see if the platform is right for you and your team. You can also read our list of the best project management software afterward, to see how Leantime compares.
Leantime is an open-source project management system with enough features and tools to support individuals to small teams working on simple and complex projects.
If you self-host Leantime, the platform is free. There are also two free hosted plans and several paid plans to suit your working style.
Leantime Project Management Alternatives
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- 4$15 / month(All Plans)
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Leantime Review: Strengths & Weaknesses
Pros:
- User friendly
- Plenty of tools
- Self-hosting option
- Free plan with all features
- Open source
- Excellent support
Cons:
- Few integrations
- Not the best security
- Lacking team management tools
- Few customizations
Features
Leantime is chock full of useful tools and features that help make project management more straightforward, and that can provide valuable insights into your projects and teams. There is enough here for individuals, small business owners and even corporations.
Open Source
Leantime is an open-source platform, meaning its source code is hosted on a repository like GitHub and is readily available for community members to look at and modify. Open-source software has many benefits, including rapid bug detection, faster updates, quicker feature implementation and lower pricing.
Same Features for All Plans
Almost all the features Leantime offers are standard in every plan. It doesn’t matter if you self-host, choose the hosted free version or opt for a paid tier. This is part of Leantime’s effort to simplify project management. However, when chatting with Leantime on its Discord channel, we were told that there might be plan-specific features in the form of add-ons in the future.
What can users of Leantime expect to find? You’ll find kanban boards, a Gantt chart, tables, lists, calendars and project dashboards. There’s also time-tracking, project portfolios and reporting. Research boards, project blueprints, role management and admin tools, support for milestone progress and document sharing round out a solid offering.
We think it’s great that you don’t pay for the tools. Instead, you pay per user or per project. The only differences that we could find between the plans are that the Enterprise and Per User Pricing plans offer custom setups and either on-premise or private cloud instances. They also support LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) and auditing.
Workflow and Collaboration Tools
Leantime is a collaborative platform with communication, roadmap planning and task management tools that help take an idea from inception to completion. The software’s approach to project management is different from monday.com’s (here’s our monday.com review) and Asana’s (our Asana review), and is more akin to Basecamp’s approach (our Basecamp review).
Leantime has idea boards where you can share images and discuss ideas. There are blueprints that help you focus on your customers, problems, risk analysis and solutions. There are also retrospective boards where you can see what worked, what didn’t work and what can be done differently. All of these tools encourage communication and teamwork, which is great to see.
Information about file and document sharing was hard to come by. However, after a quick discussion on the company’s Discord channel, we learned that there are no storage limits and that files up to 32MB can be uploaded. The upper file size limit can also be increased on a per-customer basis.
Regarding task management tools, you’ll find pretty kanban boards, tables and list views in the to-dos section. The tools are simple and cannot be altered with custom fields, but they’re effective and easy to use. When you click on a task, you can add due dates, assign a team member, leave comments, track time and set the task as a milestone or part of a sprint.
There are also roadmaps that use Gantt charts. The charts help you track dates and milestones. The project dashboard is a powerful tool that lets you see where you and your team stand. We also liked seeing RACI charts within the blueprints, which provide more accountability and ownership — always good things for your business.
The workflow, idea manager and collaboration tools in Leantime work together seamlessly. The tools make it easy for teams to communicate, plan, organize and deliver projects on time. It’s clear that a lot of effort went into making Leantime a cohesive project management system that encourages teamwork.
Automations and Integrations
Unfortunately, Leantime offers very little in the way of native integrations and automations. You’ll find support for Slack, Zulip, Discord and Mattermost, but that’s it.
The lack of integrations and automations is surprising because, being open source, we would have expected to see many webhooks that can link to other platforms. Still, we get that Leantime is trying to be an all-in-one project management solution. If you need a platform that can integrate with many services, Leantime may not be for you.
Admin Tools
One weak point of Leantime is the lack of robust administration tools. Project managers will find basic features such as role and team management tools. You can also manage your subscription, adjust email frequency, upload a company logo and generate API keys, but not much more.
There’s no doubt that Leantime is powerful software with the potential to help many people manage projects. However, the lack of admin and team management options makes it hard to see this software used outside of small team environments. On the plus side, Leantime is constantly evolving, so this could change in the future.
Reports
If you’re a research manager or just like to dabble with reports, Leantime might underwhelm. The reports page houses one report containing milestone information, planned hours, logged hours, a line graph that can be filtered by the number of to-dos, effort and hours, and a cumulative flow chart that can be filtered in the same ways. There is also a pie chart.
The reports screen does have a nice design and the information is easy to take in, but it’s overall lacking. We hope that Leantime takes a more granular approach to reports in the future so that we can hone in on key metrics. Alas, for now, you’ll have to be OK with a very generalized overview of key numbers and data.
Leantime Features Overview
 | |
|---|---|
| Management Views | |
| Kanban board | |
| List | |
| Calendar | |
| Timeline | |
| Spreadsheet view | |
| Gantt charts | |
| Workload planning | |
| Long-term planning | |
| Management Features | |
| Multiple project management | |
| Dependency management | |
| Native scrum management | |
| Set user permissions | |
| File storage | |
| Time-tracking | |
| Built-in integrations | |
| Reporting features | |
| General Features | |
| Free plan | |
| Free Trial | |
| Web app | |
| Windows | |
| MacOS | |
| Android | |
| iOS | |
| Support | |
| Ticket-based support | |
| Tutorials | |
| Knowledgebase | |
| Forum | |
| Live chat | |
| Phone support |
Pricing
The great thing about Leantime is that you can host the software on your server for free. If you don’t want to do that, several free and paid hosted plans exist. The free Solopreneur plan is for one user who wants unlimited projects, while the One Project Wonder plan allows unlimited users to work on one project.
At $7 per user per month (the first user is free), The Team plan comes with unlimited project support, while the Business plan charges $14.99 per project per month but supports unlimited users.
Enterprise and Per User Pricing plans also exist, but you must contact Leantime for a quote. Overall, Leantime is fairly affordable and offers a decent amount of plan flexibility.
- One project, Unlimited users
- Price per user; First user free; Unlimited projects
- Price per project, First project free, Unlimited users
- Adds custom setup, On-premise & cloud instance, LDAP & auditing
- Adds custom setup, On-premise & cloud instance, LDAP & auditing
User-Friendliness
Leantime offers a fuss-free user experience and supplies plenty of documentation for when you find yourself in a pickle. While it isn’t our favorite software in terms of design, we still enjoyed our time with it and would have no problem using the software daily. From signing up for an account to managing tasks, Leantime is pleasant to use.
User Interface
Leantime’s interface is not as pretty as monday.com’s or Asana’s, nor does it match the cutesy levels of MeisterTask (read our MeisterTask review), but it is still quite decent.
Leantime has a clean interface, but it’s a little sterile. It reminds us of Wrike (see our Wrike review), which is not a bad thing, as Wrike is one of the most functional pieces of project management software around.
For the most part, Leantime offers a lag-free experience. We did have a slowdown when uploading images to the ideas board, but otherwise, we had no problems. Kanban boards, lists and tables are intuitive. The timesheets aren’t complex and make time tracking simple. The menus are easy to navigate, the text is clean and the icons for various functions make sense.
Unfortunately, there are no native desktop or mobile apps. We did try to log in to our account on an iPhone, but our workspace wouldn’t load. Overall, if you’re looking for a well designed web-based project management system, Leantime is an option that will give you a headache-free experience when managing business tasks and teams.
Tutorials and Learning Curve
The training materials for Leantime are sufficient, but the knowledgebase — while easy to navigate — can be overwhelming. You’ll find no fancy graphics or videos here. Instead, you’ll find a series of well-written articles that do an excellent job of describing the features and functions of the platform.
The good news is that the tools within Leantime are self-explanatory and have helpful descriptions attached to them. They’re also easy to use, so even if you’re new to project management software, you’ll find your way around fairly quickly. Still, should you need guidance, you can find the help you need in the knowledgebase.
Security & Privacy
Leantime can be self-hosted. If you follow the path of hosting on your servers, it will only be as secure as your network. As for hosted plans, information about security, encryption and hosting was hard to find. To get the answers, we jumped back into Discord for a chat.
Your data will be hosted on Amazon Web Services servers with encrypted Aurora databases and Amazon S3 services. All communications use SSL for encryption, which is less secure than TLS, but should still be OK. We were also informed that every customer gets their own database schema and credentials, and that there’s no need to worry about commingling data.
Leantime’s privacy policy gives us no cause for concern. If you self-host, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Leantime does collect hosted users’ information — including location, device info and other run-of-the-mill data — but it does not sell or share this information; user data is only used to enhance the platform. Leantime is also GDPR compliant and follows CCPA regulations.
Customer Support
We’ve been delighted with the support received from Leantime. Support is on par with the help we received from Plaky (here’s our Plaky review), which is impressive. You can interact with the company in a few ways when you need help. There’s a classic ticket-based email system, and you can chat with Leantime via its Discord channel.
We engaged in multiple conversations via Discord and email. After entering a channel, we always received a helpful response in less than five minutes. Our emails received a reply in under 15 minutes. Discord response times may vary based on who’s online when you post your question but, wow, this is how customer support should be.
The Discord server also acts as the platform’s forum, so you’ll also receive help from other users, and you can use it to request new features, which Leantime is very receptive to. Thanks to Discord, you’re only a quick message away from receiving top-notch help from a thriving community and cheerful support staff. You’ll be happy with the levels of support from Leantime.
The Verdict
Leantime is a powerful piece of project management software that offers a good mix of idea generation and job management tools. The tools are robust and intuitive, the user interface is pleasant, and the thriving community and quick customer service will help you get the most out of this software. We also love the fact that you can self-host Leantime and all of its features.
Should you opt for a hosted free or paid plan, you’ll find a good deal of flexibility on offer. Overall, the software would be a good choice for individuals and small teams. We stop short of saying it’s suitable for medium to large teams due to the lack of team management options and good, but not great, security features.
There’s no free trial to sign up for, but you can create a free account and use all the tools to your heart’s content. Have you considered taking Leantime for a spin? What’s your favorite open-source software? Let us know in the comments, and as always, thanks for reading.
