Leantime vs Papercups

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureLeantimePapercups
CategoryProject Management & TasksChat & Communication
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguagePHPElixir
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB1,024 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, bare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 11,271★ 6,097
First released20192020
ReplacesAsana, Trello, NotionIntercom, Drift

Why pick each one

Choose Leantime if…

  • Goal-focused approach
  • Accessible to non-techies
  • Active development
Leantime details

Choose Papercups if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 6.1k GitHub stars
  • Written in Elixir
Papercups details

Frequently asked questions

Is Leantime or Papercups better?

Neither is universally better. Leantime has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Leantime and Papercups free and open-source?

Yes. Leantime is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Papercups under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Leantime and Papercups with Docker?

Leantime: yes. Papercups: yes.

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