Jira vs Leantime®
Self-hosted for $4/mo on hetzner CAX11, versus $8-$16/user/mo on Jira.
Side-by-side
| Jira | Leantime® (self-hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $8-$16/user/mo | $4.13/mo flat (any team size) |
| Hosting | Jira's servers | Your VPS (hetzner CAX11) |
| Data ownership | Jira 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 Jira
- Per-seat pricing scales painfully past 10 users
- Atlassian Cloud-only, Jira Server end-of-life since 2024
- Slow page loads vs lightweight competitors
- Workflows lock to Atlassian ecosystem (Confluence, Bitbucket)
Leantime® answers this by: Plane, OpenProject, and Leantime give kanban + issues + sprints + roadmaps for unlimited users on a single VPS.
The cost math
Assumes 5-person team using Jira at the midpoint price ($12/user/mo).
| Period | Jira | Leantime® on hetzner | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $60 | $4.13 | $55.87 |
| Yearly | $720 | $49.56 | $670.44 |
| 3 years | $2,160 | $149 | $2,011 |
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 Jira?
Leantime® is an open-source, self-hostable alternative to Jira 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 Jira's $8–16/user/mo hosted plans.
How much cheaper is Leantime® than Jira?
A 5-person team pays about $60/mo on Jira. Self-hosting Leantime® on hetzner CAX11 costs a flat $4.13/mo regardless of team size — roughly $2,011 less over three years (93% 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 Jira?
Yes. Because Leantime® runs on your own server, the data lives on your disk under your encryption. With Jira, Jira controls the hosting, storage, and access.