OpenProject vs Wrike

What OpenProject is

OpenProject is open-source project management with a free Community edition you can self-host, and paid Enterprise tiers that add feature add-ons and, crucially, a support level with published service hours. The detail that decides the real cost is not the per-user price but the minimum user count attached to each tier: the cheapest paid plan bills for at least twenty-five users whatever the size of your team, so a six-person group pays the same as a twenty-five-person one. Support hours widen tier by tier, and the Corporate tier adds a named engineer and onboarding.

What Wrike is

Wrike is work management for larger teams, with request forms, approvals, time tracking and resource planning. It is built for the administrative side of larger teams: intake forms, approval chains and resource planning across departments. That machinery is overhead for a small team, which is the usual reason it loses to lighter tools.

What OpenProject is built to do

Community edition

Full open-source project management, self-hosted, free and with no user minimum.

Enterprise add-ons

Tiered feature add-ons layered on the Community base.

Published support levels

Email, phone, remote hands and a dedicated engineer by tier, with stated hours.

What Wrike is built to do

Request forms

Routes intake requests into structured tasks with the right fields and owners.

Approval workflows

Requires named reviewers to sign off before work moves on.

Resource management

Plans capacity and workload across people and projects.

Choose OpenProject if

• Small teams and self-hosters: the Community edition is free with no user minimum at all
• Organisations of 25 or more needing a support contract — Basic is €5.95 per user per month with email support
• Teams needing phone support, which begins on Professional at €10.95 per user per month
• Construction teams, since the BIM module is a published add-on at +€1.00 per user

Skip OpenProject if

• Your team is under 25 people: the cheapest paid tier still bills a 25-user minimum
• You need installation and upgrade assistance, which starts on Premium with a 100 user minimum
• You want support outside European business hours; every tier publishes Mon-Fri CET windows
• You need openDesk or Nextcloud Hub single sign-on, which are Corporate with a 250 user minimum and a quote

Choose Wrike if

• Small teams of 2–15 who want Gantt charts and AI basics for $10/user/month
• Departments of 5–200 that need templates and advanced AI: Business at $25/user/month
• Large organisations needing resource planning and budgeting on Pinnacle or Apex

Skip Wrike if

• You are a solo user who needs paid features: Team requires at least 2 users
• You need enterprise budgeting on a self-serve plan — Pinnacle and Apex are quoted
• You only need a task list: the unlimited-user Free plan may be all you need, and paid tiers are per seat

OpenProject: pros & cons

• Community edition is free with no minimum users
• Support hours and channels are published per tier
• Self-hosted and cloud both offered, with 14-day trials
• Paid tiers carry 25, 100 and 250 user minimums
• Per-user price billed in increments of five users
• Corporate tier is quote-only

Wrike: pros & cons

• Handles complex cross-team workflows
• Request forms structure incoming work
• Strong reporting and dashboards
• Interface is dense and needs training
• Pricing tiers hide key features
• Too heavy for small teams