Leantime vs The Lounge

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

Not the right match-up?
FeatureLeantimeThe Lounge
CategoryProject Management & TasksChat & Communication
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguagePHPTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM512 MB256 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 11,271★ 6,309
First released20192014
ReplacesAsana, Trello, NotionIRCCloud, Slack

Why pick each one

Choose Leantime if…

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

Choose The Lounge if…

  • Great IRC experience in the browser
  • Multi-user support
The Lounge details

Frequently asked questions

Is Leantime or The Lounge better?

Neither is universally better. Leantime has the larger community, while The Lounge is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Leantime and The Lounge free and open-source?

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

Can I run Leantime and The Lounge with Docker?

Leantime: yes. The Lounge: yes.

Related comparisons