Project and task management decision
ProofHub
A small, narrow project-management workflow (tasks, boards, comments, basic Gantt, file storage) is realistic to build and self-host given existing open-source prior art (OpenProject), but reproducing ProofHub's full, polished feature set, integrations, SLA, and support is costly and best avoided unless you need complete control or customization.
Visit website↗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 ProofHub alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- Create and manage projects and tasks, collaborate on tasks via comments/proofing, organize work with board/table/Gantt/calendar views, share files and versions, and track time spent.
What it still won’t have
- Polished enterprise UI and UX refinements
- White-labeling, IP-restriction and SLA-backed uptime claims
- Priority support and account management
- Existing integrations catalogue and marketplace
- Proprietary improvements and continuous product polish
What remains hard
- Brand trust
Trusted by businesses and teams around the globe
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 1 seat.
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 self-hosted project-management app in Node.js (Express) + PostgreSQL + React. In scope: user auth and role-based access, project and task CRUD with custom statuses and simple dependencies, kanban board and table views, basic Gantt timeline generation, threaded comments with @mentions, file upload to S3-compatible storage with file versioning, manual time-entry timer and CSV report export, REST API and a single-page React frontend. Out of scope: advanced proofing/inline annotation editor, enterprise white-labeling, multi-tenant billing, and deep third-party integrations. Include input validation, RBAC checks, API tests (unit + integration), basic UI tests, and error handling/logging. Provide Docker compose for local dev and a one-command deploy to a single small cloud VM (NGINX, Node, Postgres, MinIO).
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 productProofHub product page
- official pricingProofHub pricing
- official docsProofHub collaboration features
- open sourceopf/openproject
- open sourcemakeplane/plane
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
