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Should I self-host monday.com?
Same per-seat math and same replacement as Asana: OpenProject (or Leantime for something lighter). The invoice scales with your team; the self-hosted ops cost doesn't. The migration and retraining are the honest price.
The math (nothing hidden, including your time)
| monday.com (Basic, per seat) | $12.00/mo |
| VPS share + storage | −$2.00/mo |
| Your maintenance: 60 min/mo at $20/h | −$20.00/mo |
| Net saving | $-10.00/mo |
| Setup: 47 min measured (one-time) | $15.67 |
| Break-even | never |
| Markup Index (price ÷ real self-host cost) | 0.5× |
Price: source, checked 2026-08-07. Inputs are stored in git; every number above is derived, never hand-written.
What you lose
- monday's automation recipes and dashboard eye-candy
What you're paying monday.com for
- work management boards
- automations
- dashboards
- forms
Ranked alternatives
Goals, boards, timesheets and a wiki from one container plus a database, with no seat minimum and no per-seat bill.
Classic project management with work packages, Gantt charts and time tracking, on a server you own and with no per-seat bill.
Hardware
Runs comfortably on a real VPS (2 GB+).
The tested compose file (our evidence, CI-booted)
# 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/monday-com has AI-agent prompts that assume a bare machine — that's their half of the stool, and it's good.
Verification
Protocol v1 · verified by zernonia on 2026-08-10 · setup measured at 47 min · AI assistant: claude-code (allowed & stated)
Full timed log
# monday.com — verdict log - **Date:** 2026-08-10 - **Verdict:** KINDA — worth it if… - **Protocol:** v1 (2GB reference env, Docker preinstalled, AI assistant: claude-code) ## Setup evidence (shared) - This verdict rides on the same replacement verified for `asana-openproject` — see `compose/asana-openproject.yml` and its log. ## The call Same per-seat math and same replacement as Asana: OpenProject (or Leantime for something lighter). The invoice scales with your team; the self-hosted ops cost doesn't. The migration and retraining are the honest price.
Verdict history
- 2026-08-10: unscored → KINDA — Initial verdict: Same per-seat math and same replacement as Asana: OpenProject (or Leantime for something lighter).