Free Microsoft Project Alternatives (2026): The Honest List

Microsoft Project has no free edition. On Microsoft's Planner plans page on October 1, 2026, the cheapest subscription that includes the Project desktop app, Planner and Project Plan 3, costs $30.00 per user per month, paid yearly: $3,600 a year for a team of ten. The genuinely free Microsoft Project alternatives in 2026 are two open-source desktop apps (ProjectLibre and GanttProject), one web tool you host yourself (OpenProject Community), and two cloud tools (Onplana Free, for up to 2 projects and 5 members, and the Planner that comes with Microsoft 365, for task tracking without a schedule). The list is grouped by where each tool runs, not ranked: each one runs out in a different place, and that is the part most lists skip. Here is the pattern that repeats across every free Microsoft Project alternative evaluation. A team finds a free project management tool, migrates two months of project history into it, trains the team on the interface, and builds report templates. Six months in, they hit the one feature they actually need: more than a couple of active projects, a dependency type other than finish-to-start, or a resource utilization view that goes beyond a single sheet. That feature is locked behind a paid tier that costs more than they expected.

The frustration is not that paid tiers exist. It is that "free" is used to describe everything from "free forever with real features" to "free trial for 14 days" to "free as in you can read the brochure without signing up." The differences are material, and they are almost never explained in the comparison articles that dominate Google's results for this query.

This post breaks down five tools that legitimately qualify as free Microsoft Project alternatives, explains exactly what each free tier includes and where it stops, and tells you which one fits which situation. The goal is to help you pick the right tool before you commit months of project data to it.

Head-to-head comparison: see the head-to-head Onplana vs Plane comparison for a direct feature-by-feature breakdown.

Onplana positioning: the comprehensive why Onplana covers this topic end-to-end; this post zooms in on one aspect.

TL;DR. Microsoft Project has no free edition: Planner and Project Plan 3 is $30.00 per user per month on Microsoft's page (October 1, 2026). The free alternatives, by situation. To keep working in .mpp files on one desktop: ProjectLibre (open source, Windows, macOS and Linux). To open and edit a .mpp someone sent you, on Windows or Mac, with no Microsoft Project licence: Onplana Schedule, our free desktop app, which saves the plan as Project XML. For a simple desktop Gantt: GanttProject (open source). For a web tool with no user limit, on a server you run: OpenProject Community. For a browser Gantt with critical path and .mpp import, for a small team: Onplana Free (2 projects, 5 members, no credit card). For basic task tracking inside Microsoft 365: Planner Free. None of these is free Microsoft Project at scale, and this post explains exactly where each one runs out.

Is Microsoft Project Free?

No. Microsoft Project has no free edition. On Microsoft's US pricing pages on September 29, 2026, the desktop app is a one-time purchase of $679.99 for Project Standard 2024 or $1,129.99 for Project Professional 2024, each licensed for one user on one PC, and the subscription that includes the desktop app, Planner and Project Plan 3, is $30.00 per user per month, paid yearly. Project Plan 3 vs Plan 5 sets out every Microsoft tier and what each one costs.

What Microsoft does give away is narrower than the question suggests:

• A one-month free trial of Planner Plan 1 and of Planner and Project Plan 3. It needs a credit card and converts to a paid subscription unless you cancel it during the month.
• Microsoft Planner, which comes included in Microsoft 365 subscriptions. It is a task tool with board, grid and schedule views; the timeline (Gantt) view starts at Planner Plan 1, and baselines and critical path start at Plan 3.

Once a trial ends, opening a .mpp file someone has sent you needs a paid Microsoft licence or a third-party reader. Onplana Schedule is one, free on Windows and Mac. The rest of this post covers the free tools that stand in for Microsoft Project, and where each one runs out.

Microsoft Project Replacement: What Actually Has to Carry Over

Replacing Microsoft Project is not really a feature comparison. It is a question of what survives the export: a .mpp file carries your tasks, dates, durations and dependencies into almost any tool on this list, and leaves your custom fields, your working calendars and your baselines behind.

That last one deserves a number. When we audited 500 real project schedules in April 2026, only 27% had a baseline set at all, and 41% of those were more than 90 days old. For most teams the thing that does not survive the move was already missing before they started, and the migration is simply when they find out.

What comes across. Task names and the outline structure, durations, start and finish dates, predecessors with their type and lag, constraints, percent complete, resource names and milestones. That is the schedule as a schedule. How much of it a given tool actually reads varies widely across this list, and it is the first thing to check rather than the last.

What does not, in roughly the order teams hit it:

Enterprise custom fields, lookup tables and calculated fields. The export covers the headline data; the metadata your reports are built on does not travel with it, so dashboards arrive looking right and reading wrong. Which ones transfer, which need mapping and which you rebuild is covered field by field.

Calendars, which run three layers deep: enterprise, project-specific and resource. Miss one layer and the schedule math breaks quietly, with a task that should start the Monday after a bank holiday opening on the Friday before it instead and nobody able to say why. All three layers, and how to check each one.

Baselines and resource calendars, which most tools treat as optional and most PMOs discover are not.

Where the free options separate. Reading a .mpp at all is the first filter, and it is a real one. Onplana Schedule opens .mpp and MSPDI .xml files on Windows and Mac, free, with no Microsoft Project licence, and saves back to MSPDI XML that Project itself reads. It draws baseline bars when the file carries them, which is how you find out whether yours does. One detail stated in full rather than glossed, and it turns on the contents of the file rather than its extension: if the contents are Microsoft Project XML, Onplana Schedule reads them on your own machine and nothing is uploaded. Everything else, a binary .mpp and a Primavera P6 or Planner XML export alike, is converted on Onplana's servers and the uploaded copy is deleted within 24 hours. If you only need to read the file once, you can open it without installing anything.

What the switch actually costs. The schedule itself imports in one pass. Rebuilding what did not come with it, the fields, the calendars and the baselines, is the long part, and it is worth sequencing on purpose instead of discovering in order. A 90-day plan for exactly that.

What "Free Forever" Actually Means

If you are comparing general-purpose free project management tools rather than Microsoft Project replacements, the free project management tools comparison lines up five SaaS free tiers side by side.

Free tools fall into three categories, and conflating them is how teams end up committing to the wrong one.

Free tier of a commercial SaaS product. The product exists primarily as a paid service. The free tier is a real product with real limits designed to convert users to paid plans. Onplana Free and Microsoft Planner Free fall here. You get a working product with genuine features, but you will eventually need paid tiers for larger usage. The trade-off: you get maintained cloud infrastructure, zero hosting cost, and ongoing product development. You give up: control over when features change or disappear, data portability if the company pivots pricing, and the ability to self-host for compliance reasons.

Open-source desktop or server software. The product is developed under an open-source license. You install it yourself, own your data, and pay nothing for the license indefinitely. GanttProject, ProjectLibre, and OpenProject Community fall here. The trade-off: you bear the installation and maintenance cost (hosting for server tools, compatibility issues for desktop tools), and open-source tools usually lag commercial products on polish, mobile access, and integrations.

Freemium tools with severe limits. Some tools label themselves free but provide so few features in the free tier that the label is misleading. These are not covered here because they do not genuinely substitute for Microsoft Project at any realistic usage level.

The five tools below all pass a basic test: a team could use them for real project work, at no cost, indefinitely, within their stated limits.

GanttProject: Open-Source Desktop Gantt

GanttProject is a free, open-source (GPL3) desktop application that has been developed since 2003 and remains actively maintained, with the v3.3 release in January 2025 and a beta v3.4 release in February 2026.

GanttProject does what it says: it creates Gantt charts with task dependencies, resource assignments, and milestones. It generates PDF and PNG exports. It has basic resource load charts. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Limitations that matter for teams moving off Microsoft Project: durations are whole days, and the import can move tasks. GanttProject's own Microsoft Project import notes say why: by default it removes lag where it can, and a task that starts on the day its predecessor finishes has to be fixed by hand with a negative lag. Dependencies are not the limit: its scheduler documentation lists finish-to-start, finish-to-finish, start-to-start and start-to-finish, each with positive or negative lag. The desktop app has no cloud sync, no mobile app, and no web-based access: it is a file-based desktop tool.

GanttProject is the right free tool for: solo project managers or small teams that want a Gantt chart application on their desktop at no cost, do not need cloud collaboration, and are not migrating a complex Project Online schedule. Its scheduler works in whole days, which suits plans measured in days rather than hours.

For how it lines up against the other two desktop options, there is a side-by-side comparison of ProjectLibre, GanttProject and Onplana Schedule.

Pros

• Free and open source.
• Windows, macOS and Linux.
• All four dependency types, with positive or negative lag.
• Imports Microsoft Project files and exports Project XML.

Cons

• Durations are whole days, so imported tasks can move.
• Desktop and file-based: sharing a plan means sending the file, or using its optional cloud.
• Saves in its own .gan format.

ProjectLibre: The Closest Open-Source Match for MS Project Users

ProjectLibre is the most direct open-source equivalent to Microsoft Project's desktop interface. It is free (CPAL license), open-source, and runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. ProjectLibre's own site counts more than 8.7 million downloads (projectlibre.com, October 1, 2026).

ProjectLibre opens .mpp files from Microsoft Project, and its site lists dependencies, constraints, calendars, baselines, milestones, critical path, float and resource management, in a UI that Microsoft Project users will recognize. For a team whose primary need is "keep working on our existing .mpp files without paying a Microsoft license," ProjectLibre is the most direct open-source answer, and of the two desktop options here it is the only one that runs on Linux and ships its source under an open licence.

Onplana Schedule reaches the same place from a different direction: free, Windows and Mac, it opens .mpp without a Microsoft licence, shows the critical path and float, and saves edits back as Project XML that Microsoft Project reads. It is our own app and it is not open source, so where that is the requirement ProjectLibre is the answer and this is not. If the need is narrower still, just opening a single file someone sent you rather than adopting a desktop tool at all, see how to open an .mpp file without Microsoft Project, which covers the browser route alongside both desktop apps.

The trade-offs: the free desktop application has no cloud sync, no mobile access, and no collaboration features; ProjectLibre sells those as a cloud edition, from $9.99 per user per month billed annually (projectlibre.com, September 29, 2026). Schedules live in local files. If two PMs need to update the same project, they work sequentially and merge manually. The UI has not changed significantly in years and it shows: it is functional but not modern. There is no AI, no automated risk detection, and no executive dashboard.

ProjectLibre is the right free tool for: individual PMs who need to keep working with .mpp file formats at no cost, teams with a single PM per project who do not need cloud collaboration, and organizations that need an air-gapped scheduling tool for compliance reasons.

The same side-by-side comparison covers where ProjectLibre wins against GanttProject and where it does not.

Pros

• Free and open source (CPAL).
• Windows, macOS and Linux.
• Opens .mpp files on your own machine.
• An interface Microsoft Project users recognize.

Cons

• Desktop and file-based: one person edits a file at a time.
• Saves in its own .pod format.
• Working on a plan together needs the paid cloud edition.

OpenProject Community: Free Self-Hosted Project Management

OpenProject Community edition is the free, open-source (GPL3) version of OpenProject, a full-featured web-based project management platform. It is free to self-host with no per-seat cost and no project or user limit.

OpenProject Community supports Gantt charts, task dependencies (predecessor and successor links, which are finish-to-start, with lag counted in working days, per OpenProject's documentation), work packages, boards, sprints, and basic reporting. It has a genuinely full feature set for a free tool. The community edition is a real server application, not a demo.

The trade-offs: you have to run a server. OpenProject's installation is not trivial: it uses a Debian/Ubuntu package or Docker, requires a server with adequate RAM (recommended 4+ GB), and needs ongoing maintenance for updates and security patches. For organizations without internal IT capacity to run a server, the "free" label understates the real cost. OpenProject's cloud plans start at €5.95 per user per month on a yearly term, with a five-user minimum (OpenProject's pricing page, October 1, 2026).

OpenProject does not import .mpp files. Its documentation describes two ways in: an Excel synchronization workbook that uploads rows through its API, including predecessor and successor relations, and a CSV importer that it marks as on its development branch. A Microsoft Project schedule therefore goes through a spreadsheet first (OpenProject's documentation, October 1, 2026).

OpenProject Community is the right free tool for: organizations with IT infrastructure and the technical capacity to self-host a server application, teams that need an unlimited-user web-based project management tool at zero license cost, and organizations with data-residency requirements that prevent using commercial SaaS products.

Pros

• Free and open source, with no user limit.
• A web tool, with Gantt charts and boards.
• The data stays on a server you control.

Cons

• You install, update and patch the server.
• One scheduling link type: finish-to-start, with lag.
• No .mpp import: a Microsoft Project schedule goes through a spreadsheet first.
• The cloud plans that take the server off your hands are paid.

Onplana Free: All Four Dependency Types, .mpp Import, and AI

Onplana Free is the cloud option on this list built around getting Microsoft Project data into a browser. Here is what is included: 2 active projects, up to 5 members, 300 MB storage, unlimited tasks per project, all four dependency types (FS/SS/FF/SF with lag), milestones, Kanban and calendar views, native .mpp, MSPDI XML, Primavera .xer and Excel import, AI chat (a one-time 100,000-token-per-seat bonus), and no time limit. No credit card required to sign up.

One thing to be clear about, because it is the reason many readers land on this page: the Gantt timeline and critical path are on the free tier. Every Onplana plan, Free included, carries the Gantt chart with critical path and baseline overlay. Your dependency logic is fully preserved on Free, and an imported .mpp keeps its FS/SS/FF/SF links and lag values, so you work that schedule on the Gantt as well as in list, board, and calendar views. If a free visual Gantt is the hard requirement, Onplana Free meets it in the browser, and GanttProject or ProjectLibre meet it on the desktop.

What the free tier does not include: more than 2 projects or 5 members (Professional, at $12 per user per month, raises them to 200 projects and 100 members), and project templates, sprints, resource capacity planning, timesheets, custom fields and AI risk detection (Pro), portfolios and OKRs (Business), the governance pipeline (Enterprise), and a dedicated deployment in your own Azure subscription (Enterprise+). AI chat, plan generation, status reports and earned value are on every plan, Free included; AI draws from Free's one-time token bonus or a paid plan's monthly allowance, and earned value takes its actual cost from approved timesheets, which start at Pro.

The line between Onplana and the desktop tools above is who works the plan. Onplana fits when more than one person has to work the schedule at once, with their comments and hours in the same place; when one scheduler runs the plan alone, offline or on VBA macros, ProjectLibre, GanttProject or Microsoft Project itself fits better.

For a team moving off the Microsoft Project desktop app that wants to see what replacing Microsoft Project with Onplana involves before committing, the free tier provides enough room to run a real pilot. Import a few .mpp files, validate that dependency types and schedule logic survive the import, and run the free Migration Preview tool to see exactly what migrates before touching production data.

The two-project cap is the constraint to plan around, and it is tight enough to be honest about. A solo PM tracking one live project alongside a personal one, a startup managing a single product roadmap, or a team piloting a move off Microsoft Project all fit inside it with no paid upgrade. A consulting firm juggling three or four client engagements at once does not, and neither does a PMO with a portfolio. Those cases need Professional at $12 per user per month, which raises the caps to 200 projects and 100 members.

Pros

• The Gantt with critical path and baseline overlay is on the free plan.
• All four dependency types, with lag.
• Imports .mpp, Project XML, Primavera .xer, Excel and CSV.
• Runs in a browser, with nothing to install or host.
• AI chat, plan generation and status reports, from a one-time bonus of 100,000 tokens per seat.

Cons

• Two projects and five members, and no free guest seats.
• 300 MB of storage.
• Sprints, resource capacity planning, timesheets and custom fields start at Pro.
• Not open source. A dedicated deployment in your own Azure subscription is Enterprise+ only.
• An imported plan takes your organization's working calendar, not the file's.

Microsoft Planner Free: The In-the-Box Option

Microsoft Planner's free tier is available to anyone with a Microsoft 365 subscription (which most organizations already have). It provides task boards, basic scheduling, and Microsoft 365 integration (Teams, Outlook, SharePoint).

The free tier is limited. On Microsoft's Planner plans page, the tier included in Microsoft 365 has no timeline (Gantt) view, and lets you view task dependencies but not create them; both start at Planner Plan 1 ($10.00 per user per month), and baselines and critical path at Plan 3. It is a task management tool, not a project scheduling tool.

If you are evaluating Planner as a Microsoft Project Online replacement specifically, it is worth reading the Microsoft Planner Premium limitations post, which covers what even the paid Planner Premium tier does not provide for enterprise PMOs. The free tier's limitations are even more severe.

Planner Free is the right option for: teams that already have Microsoft 365, need basic task tracking within the Microsoft ecosystem, and do not need any form of scheduling precision. For actual project scheduling, Planner Free is not a realistic free Microsoft Project alternative.

Pros

• Included in Microsoft 365, with no user limit.
• Real-time collaboration on task lists.
• Works inside Teams.

Cons

• No timeline (Gantt) view until Planner Plan 1, $10.00 per user per month.
• Dependencies can be viewed but not created until Plan 1.
• No baselines or critical path until Plan 3, $30.00 per user per month.

Free Cloud-Based Microsoft Project Alternatives

Two tools on this list run in a browser with nothing to install or host: Onplana Free and the Planner that comes with Microsoft 365. They are not like for like.

Planner's included tier has board, grid, schedule and chart views, and lets you view task dependencies. Creating dependencies and the timeline (Gantt) view start at Planner Plan 1, $10.00 per user per month, and baselines and critical path at Plan 3 (Microsoft's Planner plans page, October 1, 2026). Onplana Free has the Gantt with critical path, all four dependency types with lag, and .mpp import, and stops at two projects and five members.

The other three reach the cloud by paying or by hosting. ProjectLibre's cloud edition is paid, from $9.99 per user per month billed annually, and GanttProject offers an optional pay-as-you-go cloud (both from their own sites, September 29, 2026). OpenProject Community is free to run on a server you host, which can sit in your own cloud account; OpenProject's own cloud plans start at €5.95 per user per month on a yearly term, with a five-user minimum (OpenProject's pricing page, October 1, 2026).

Free Microsoft Project Alternatives for Teams

A team changes the question from "can it open the file" to "can more than one person work in it at once".

• ProjectLibre and GanttProject are file-based desktop apps. One person edits a file, and sharing it means sending it on. Working on one plan together needs ProjectLibre's paid cloud edition or GanttProject's optional cloud.
• OpenProject Community has no user limit, which makes it the free option for a large team, as long as someone on that team runs the server.
• Planner in Microsoft 365 has no user limit either, and real-time collaboration on task lists (Microsoft's Planner plans page). On the included tier you can view dependencies but not create them.
• Onplana Free allows five members and two projects, with comments, an activity feed and real-time notifications. It has no free guest seats; Professional, at $12 per user per month, raises the caps to 100 members and 200 projects and adds two free guest seats.

Free Microsoft Project Alternative for Mac

Microsoft Project's desktop application runs on Windows, not macOS, so a Mac needs a different tool that will read the file; Onplana Schedule is free and opens .mpp on macOS 13 or later, and ProjectLibre and GanttProject also run on macOS as Java applications. The Microsoft Project alternative for Mac page sets the Mac options out side by side.

Comparing the Free MS Project Alternatives: Six Dimensions

The diagram below shows where each free tier stands on the capabilities that matter most for teams migrating from Microsoft Project.

Check your own schedule before you pick A table is a summary, and your file is the real test. Upload a .mpp or Project XML file to the free Schedule Health Check for an audit of its critical path, resources and baselines, with no account and no credit card. If it reads cleanly and a browser Gantt is what your team needs, import the same file into a free Onplana account: 2 projects, 5 members, no time limit. → Run the Schedule Health Check · Create a free Onplana account

How to Pick the Right Free Microsoft Project Alternative

The decision reduces to three questions.

Do you need to migrate existing .mpp files with full dependency fidelity? If yes, use ProjectLibre if the work stays on one desktop, or Onplana Free for a cloud pilot (native .mpp import, FS/SS/FF/SF preserved). Run the free Migration Preview tool before committing data to any tool; it shows exactly what your .mpp file will look like after import.

Do you need more than two active projects at zero cost? If yes, the cloud options run out fast. OpenProject Community (self-hosted, unlimited) is the most capable free option beyond that limit if you have infrastructure to run it. ProjectLibre or GanttProject cover unlimited local files for desktop-only use cases.

Do you need cloud collaboration and a Gantt in the browser? Onplana Free and the Planner in Microsoft 365 are the two that run in a browser with nothing to host. Of the two, only Onplana Free has a Gantt, all four dependency types and .mpp import; Planner's included tier has no timeline view and lets you view dependencies but not create them (Microsoft's Planner plans page). Two Onplana limits bind early, and you should plan around both: two active projects and five members. For a team importing a couple of real .mpp schedules to see how faithfully they land before committing budget, that is enough to run a genuine test.

One thing the free tools cannot tell you: whether the tool will handle your full project portfolio at scale. The free tier is a proof-of-concept window, not a long-term plan for a 40-project PMO. Before committing to any platform, run a representative sample of your most complex projects through it and verify that the scheduling logic, resource model, and reporting structure survive the transition.

The best Microsoft Project alternatives 2026 guide covers the broader paid-tier landscape for teams whose requirements go beyond what any free tier can handle. The best project management software for small teams covers tools optimized for teams under 20 people, where free tiers are often sufficient for the full workload. If you are exploring the free Gantt chart tools specifically, that page covers the Gantt-specific comparison in more depth. And if the project does not need a scheduling tool yet, the project management templates for Excel are free plans with phases, tasks, durations and milestones as CSV files, which Excel opens and Google Sheets imports.

Run the free Migration Preview tool Upload a .mpp file and see exactly what your project data looks like after import: tasks, dependencies and resources. No signup required. Takes about two minutes. When the preview looks right, the free plan imports the same file with the Gantt and critical path included, and asks for no credit card. → Open the Migration Preview · Create a free Onplana account

Microsoft Project Online™ is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Onplana is not affiliated with Microsoft.