Project and task management decision
Orchestra
A competent developer or small team can reproduce Orchestra's core (white-labeled portal, Stripe subscriptions, task boards, docs) within reasonable effort; the vendor's managed hosting, support and polish are the main reasons to keep paying.
Visit website↗$25/mo
$300/yr
Read off the official pricing page.
$100one-off56 h to build
$20/mo6 h/mo upkeep
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 2 seats.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Orchestra alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Onboard a client, accept subscription payments, create and manage tasks (kanban), collaborate via comments and share documents through a branded client portal.
What it still won’t have
- Managed hosting, uptime guarantees and platform-level backups
- Vendor-run security updates, incident response and compliance work
- Dedicated support, onboarding help and migration assistance
- Polished integrations and built-in Slack/dedicated support channels
- Ongoing product improvements and roadmap delivered by vendor
What remains hard
- Brand trust
Trusted by agencies like and 700 + others.
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 2 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal white-labeled agency client portal using Next.js (React) + Node (Express) API, Postgres (hosted), Prisma ORM, Stripe for subscriptions, SendGrid for email, and Docker + DigitalOcean (or Railway) for hosting. Core features in scope: multi-tenant accounts with custom domain and branding per tenant, Stripe subscription flow and webhook-driven automatic onboarding, Kanban task boards with task CRUD, comments, simple notion-like documents (Markdown editor + file uploads to S3-compatible storage), email notifications and real-time task updates via WebSocket, basic analytics (MRR, active customers). Out of scope: Slack channel support, advanced granular permissions, migration tools from Orchestra. Include input validation, retry/error handling for webhooks and payments, unit tests for API routes, basic E2E tests for signup/payment/kanban flows, CI pipeline, and Docker deployment scripts.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 5 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Evidence score67
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 5
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productOrchestra - Create, manage and grow digital agencies
- official pricingOrchestra Pricing
- official docsWhite labeled client portal - Orchestra
- open sourcemakeplane/plane
- open sourcehcengineering/platform
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
