Skip to main content
Tools
The 10 Best Open Source Product Management Software In 2023

The Best Open Source Product Management Software List

Here’s a shortlist of the best open source product management tools:

  1. 1. Akeneo PIM — Best enterprise open source product management
  2. 2. X2CRM — Best for marketing teams
  3. 3. AtroDAM — Best For Digital Asset Management (DAM)
  4. 4. smallPIM — Best for scalability
  5. 5. MATTR Enterprise — Best for design experiments and proof-of-concept
  6. 6. Elastic — Best open source application performance monitoring (APM)
  7. 7. OpenPIM — Best for small and medium businesses (SMB)
  8. 8. ownCloud — Best collaborative product management tool
  9. 9. Open vSwitch — Best for quality of service (QoS) control
  10. 10. Apache OFBiz — Best for manufacturing and MRP

Open source product management software is endlessly useful to any product team because, well, they are open. This means that your product team has much more flexibility and customizability at their fingertips. Your dev team will appreciate being able to manipulate these apps to their whim and you, as a good product manager, will relish the opportunity to create specifically tailored solutions that are unique to the needs of your end user. 

In this article, I’ll go over some of the best open source product management software and give a simple summary of each, pointing out what the tool does best and how it can work for you. 

Open Source Project App Comparison Criteria

What do I look for when I select the best open source product management apps? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria: 

  1. User Interface (UI): Product management has a lot of moving parts so it's imperative that the UI is easy to navigate. Product teams and stakeholders should easily be able to find what they need to collaborate and prioritize for all task management.
  2. Usability: Product teams work in all sorts of ways so not only do you want the tool to be intuitive and user-friendly but you want it to support whatever methodology your team members are comfortable with: Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, etc.
  3. Integrations: One of the benefits of open source tools is their ability to integrate with other tools and work across multiple platforms. Does the tool's API communicate easily with platforms like Github, Asana, Jira, Slack, Trello, Apache Subversion (SVN), and more? Does the tool work well on both Android and Mac OSs?
  4. Value for $: Many open source tools are free to use but that doesn't mean we expect them to be feature-lite. Additionally, I'll be checking if paid open-source product management software offers enough additional functionality to justify the price.

Open Source Product Manager Key Features

  1. Easy product roadmaps
  2. User-friendly collaboration tools
  3. Gantt charts and/or Kanban boards
  4. Prioritization assistance (idea boards, voting, feedback, backlog analysis)
  5. Project planning templates
  6. Iteration management and version control (Git or otherwise)
  7. BONUS: SaaS time tracking, particularly for complex software development

Overviews Of The 10 Best Open Source Product Management Software

Here’s a brief description of each of the product management software on my list showing what it does best, plus screenshots to showcase some of the features.

1

Akeneo PIM

Best enterprise open source product management

Akeneo bills itself as the #1 enterprise open source PIM—and for good reason. Akeneo is used by over 300 big name companies worldwide, like Staples, Fossil, Frankfurt Airport, and Tarkett.

Akeneo’s robust product data intelligence solutions empowers product teams to quickly and efficiently deliver relevant product content to the channels where it’s needed most by customers. They also offer plenty of free learning resources, like their “PXM for Dummies” e-book.

Akeneo PIM has a free community edition available. Enterprise level subscription pricing can be requested using their contact form and will vary depending on the number of channels needed.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.5 152

14-day free trial

Starts at $25K annually (free version available)

2

X2CRM

Best for marketing teams

X2CRM is an open source product development tool with enterprise-grade CRM, marketing automations, and a customizable sales management suite.

Marketing teams will enjoy the workflow automations that touch on customer contact across email, website, phone conversation, events, and chat. Additionally, the dashboards are clean, flexible, and easily digestible, which will empower marketing presentations to C-Suites.

X2CRM costs from $35/user/month.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4 1

From $35/user/month

3

AtroDAM

Best For Digital Asset Management (DAM)

AtroDAM is a free, open source digital asset management system for product managers, retailers, and brands. Product profiles are automatically connected to all relevant digital assets (photos, documents, vidoes, etc.) according to internal links you define yourself.

Their detail-oriented DAM system lets you assign favorite formats and sizers, perform mass uploads of assets with automatic duplicate checks, and easily export and import metadata using Excel.

AtroDAM is free to use and the team offers a free demo upon request.

4

smallPIM

Best for scalability

StrikeTru’s smallPIM is a fully hosted, customizable, and agile open source product management software powered by Akeneo PIM Community Edition.

Take advantage of free extensions like their product change reports, cloud connector for digital assets, image thumbnail previews, SKU title generator, and workflow solutions.

They have no limit on user and publishing channel counts, which is great for growing product teams that value scalability.

StrikeTru’s smallPIM costs from $800/month on a 3-year contract and comes with a 14-day free trial.

14 days free trial

From $800/month

5

MATTR Enterprise

Best for design experiments and proof-of-concept

The MATTR platform champions a verifiable data ecosystem and can be used to extend, augment, and/or drive your application product.

The MATTR CoLab Incubator provides a creative, highly collaborative workspace between product managers and partners with which to conduct design experiments and draft proofs-on-concept. This provides in-app support to translate high-level design concepts into testable artefacts.

MATTR Enterprise has a freemium version of the product available. Their sales team offers customized pricing upon request for additional need

6

Elastic

Best open source application performance monitoring (APM)

Elastic offers a whole suite of products from website and app search, APM data and metrics, and security information and event management (SIEM).

They excel in building modern search experiences in order to add pretuned search to your website, app, or workplace. Product managers will appreciate Elastic APM, which lets users monitor software services and applications in real-time to better position teams to fix any performance issues.

Elastic costs from $16/month and offers a 14-day free trial.

14 days free trial

From $16/month

7

OpenPIM

Best for small and medium businesses (SMB)

OpenPIM is a product information management system designed specifically for small to midsize businesses; they are free to use, easy to learn, and make it possible to automate routine processes that SMB owners don’t have time for.

OpenPIM is designed to store and optimize your product data and then distribute it across all channels: online stores, websites, and marketing channels (Amazon, eBay, PriceRunner), as well as printed catalogs, data sheets, and brochures.

OpenPIM is free to use and offers a free demo.

Free to use

8

ownCloud

Best collaborative product management tool

ownCloud is an open source product and project management software with features like simple file sharing, detailed version control, file lifecycle management, and document sharing with links shielded by passwords and expiration dates.

This tool particularly fosters collaboration by letting teams simultaneously work on documents and presentations, including annotation and feedback.

ownCloud has both desktop and mobile apps to connect anywhere.

ownCloud costs from $6/user/month and comes with a 30-day free trial.

They also have a freemium subscription available for a single user.

30 days free trial

From $6/user/month

9

Open vSwitch

Best for quality of service (QoS) control

Open vSwitch is used in multiple products and boasts the ability to run in many large, complex production environments. Open vSwitch is a production quality, multilayer virtual switch that empowers network automations via programmatic extension.

They support all standard management interfaces and protocols (e.g. NetFlow, sFlow, IPFIX, RSPAN, CLI, LACP, 802.1ag).

Their robust QoD control supports both traffic shaping and OVS support policing. Open vSwitch is free to use.

Free to Use

10

Apache OFBiz

Best for manufacturing and MRP

Apache OFBiz is actually a suite of business applications that can be mixed and matched to address the needs of any product team. This suite of apps is a Java based web framework with a widget based UI for faster prototype developments.

Apache OFBiz comes with a range of core modules out-of-the-box, including one specifically for manufacturing and material requirements planning (MRP) as well as another for warehousing and inventory.

Apache OFBiz is free to use.

Free to Use

Need expert help selecting the right Product Management Software?

We’ve joined up with Crozdesk.com to give all our readers (yes, you!) access to Crozdesk’s software advisors. Just use the form below to share your needs, and they will contact you at no cost or commitment. You will then be matched and connected to a shortlist of vendors that best fit your company, and you can access exclusive software discounts!

The 10 Best Open Source Product Management Software Summary

Tool Free Option Price
1
Akeneo PIM

Best enterprise open source product management

14-day free trial

Starts at $25K annually (free version available) Visit Website
2
X2CRM

Best for marketing teams

Not available

From $35/user/month Visit Website
3
AtroDAM

Best For Digital Asset Management (DAM)

Free Use

Visit Website
4
smallPIM

Best for scalability

14 days free trial

From $800/month Visit Website
5
MATTR Enterprise

Best for design experiments and proof-of-concept

Not available

Visit Website
6
Elastic

Best open source application performance monitoring (APM)

14 days free trial

From $16/month Visit Website
7
OpenPIM

Best for small and medium businesses (SMB)

Free to use

Visit Website
8
ownCloud

Best collaborative product management tool

30 days free trial

From $6/user/month Visit Website
9
Open vSwitch

Best for quality of service (QoS) control

Free to Use

Visit Website
10
Apache OFBiz

Best for manufacturing and MRP

Free to Use

Visit Website

Other Open Source Product Management Tool Options

Here’s a few more open source project management software that didn’t make the top list.

  1. Pimcore - Best for B2B digital commerce 
  2. Logz.io - Best for distributed tracing
  3. ZenTao - Best Scrum tool 
  4. ABP Commercial - Best for software developers 
  5. Percona - Best product database management 
  6. Fairwinds Insights - Best Kubernetes best practices
  7. Talend - Best customer data management 
  8. ActivePython - Best for data science and machine learning (ML)
  9. FintechOS - Best for banking and insurance products
  10. WP Project Manager - Best for WordPress platforms 
  11. Sentrifugo Open Source HRMS - Best for HR products and services management 
  12. Open Loyalty - Best for product loyalty programs 
  13. Open Social - Best for product community engagement 

What Is The Best Open Source Product Management Software For Startups?

Startups will most likely benefit from free product management software to start and then they can scale up as needed. Per our list, the following have free or freemium plans available: Apache OFBiz, MATTR Enterprise, Open vSwitch, AtroDAM, OpenPIM, and the Akeneo PIM Community Edition.

Are There Any Open Source Roadmapping Tools Available?

Many of the software solutions above will have some sort of roadmapping support, as it's a key part of the product development lifecycle. However, if you are looking for something more specific, you can try something like OpenProject. Additionally, you can check out some interactive product roadmapping tools (most are not open source, though).

What Do You Think About These Open Source Product Development Apps?

What project management platform do you prefer to use for your own product development lifecycle? Is there a project management tool that's ideal for creative product teams that you would add to this list if you could? Let us know in the comments.

Want to stay in the know with all things PXM? Subscribe to The Product Manager newsletter.

Related Read: How To Use User Story Mapping To Improve Agile Backlog Prioritization

By Ben Aston

Ben Aston is an online media entrepreneur and founder of Black & White Zebra, an indie media company on a mission to help people and organizations succeed.

Ben applies his expertise in design and strategy to enable businesses to deliver innovative products and services that delight customers. Ben is passionate about understanding customer needs through design research, identifying opportunities based on those insights, and empowering designers and technologists to create solutions. He is driven to develop and uncover new opportunities for clients, establishing strong connections with their customers through product solutions that create lasting value.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.