Asana vs Leantime®
Self-hosted for $4/mo on hetzner CAX11, versus $11-$25/user/mo on Asana.
Side-by-side
| Asana | Leantime® (self-hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $11-$25/user/mo | $4.13/mo flat (any team size) |
| Hosting | Asana's servers | Your VPS (hetzner CAX11) |
| Data ownership | Asana controls the data | Your disk, your encryption |
| Source code | Closed | Open (AGPL-3.0) |
| Customization | API + integrations only | Full source access; modify freely |
| Maintenance burden | Zero | Backups + updates (Docker available) |
| Health score (ossreplace) | — | 76 / 100 |
Why teams leave Asana
- Per-user pricing punishes teams that scale
- Cloud-only, no self-hosting option
- Goal/portfolio features paywalled to Advanced tier
- API rate limits on free tier
Leantime® answers this by: Plane, Leantime, and Focalboard give the same task/board/timeline experience without per-seat fees.
The cost math
Assumes 5-person team using Asana at the midpoint price ($18/user/mo).
| Period | Asana | Leantime® on hetzner | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $90 | $4.13 | $85.87 |
| Yearly | $1080 | $49.56 | $1030.44 |
| 3 years | $3,240 | $149 | $3,091 |
Deploy Leantime® now
One-click deploys at the cheapest provider for this workload:
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Common questions
Is Leantime® a good alternative to Asana?
Leantime® is an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Asana with an ossreplace health score of 76/100 — a composite of project activity, maturity, community, security, and adoption. It runs on your own hetzner VPS from $4.13/mo with full source access under the AGPL-3.0 license, versus Asana's $11–25/user/mo hosted plans.
How much cheaper is Leantime® than Asana?
A 5-person team pays about $90/mo on Asana. Self-hosting Leantime® on hetzner CAX11 costs a flat $4.13/mo regardless of team size — roughly $3,091 less over three years (95% lower).
Is Leantime® hard to self-host?
Leantime® ships a Docker setup, so deployment is usually a single docker-compose command on a $4.13/mo VPS. You own the backups and updates, and there are no per-seat fees.
Do you keep control of your data with Leantime® vs Asana?
Yes. Because Leantime® runs on your own server, the data lives on your disk under your encryption. With Asana, Asana controls the hosting, storage, and access.