Should I self-host Asana?
OpenProject is the heavyweight that genuinely covers Asana-and-beyond (Gantt, agile boards, time). Its all-in-one container seeds a full Postgres on first boot — this is a real ops commitment for a team tool your whole team depends on. Worth it for seat counts where the invoice stings.
Asana's lightness — OpenProject is powerful, not nimble
Native mobile apps and the integrations directory
task & project tracking · boards & timelines · assignees & due dates · status reporting
* Percent of the subscription price. Your time is priced at the slider's rate — $0/h ("my homelab time is free and I love it") is a legitimate position. Every number is derived from the record, never hand-written. Price source, checked 2026-08-06.
Runs comfortably on a real VPS (2 GB+).
Boot to healthy measured at 116s on the 2GB reference env
# OpenProject — heavyweight PM; all-in-one image (slow first boot, seeds its DB)
services:
openproject:
image: openproject/openproject:16
container_name: openproject
restart: unless-stopped
environment:
OPENPROJECT_HOST__NAME: localhost:8110
OPENPROJECT_HTTPS: "false"
OPENPROJECT_SECRET_KEY_BASE: 0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef
ports:
- "8110:80"
volumes:
- openproject-data:/var/openproject/assets
- openproject-db:/var/openproject/pgdata
healthcheck:
test: ["CMD-SHELL", "curl -sf http://localhost:80/health_check >/dev/null || exit 1"]
interval: 15s
timeout: 15s
retries: 60
start_period: 180s
volumes:
openproject-data:
openproject-db:
Want a guided install instead? caniselfhostit.com/asana has AI-agent prompts that assume a bare machine — that's their half of the stool, and it's good.
FULL TIMED LOG
# Asana — verdict log - **Date:** 2026-08-10 - **Verdict:** KINDA — worth it if… - **Protocol:** v1 (2GB reference env, Docker preinstalled, AI assistant: claude-code) ## Setup evidence - Compose: `compose/asana-openproject.yml` - Boot to healthy: **116s** measured this session - Setup time recorded: 47 min (boot + configuration to first working workflow) ## What broke / notes - Boot to healthy measured at 116s on the 2GB reference env ## The call OpenProject is the heavyweight that genuinely covers Asana-and-beyond (Gantt, agile boards, time). Its all-in-one container seeds a full Postgres on first boot — this is a real ops commitment for a team tool your whole team depends on. Worth it for seat counts where the invoice stings.