Plane
Plane is an AI-native project and knowledge management platform that brings projects, wiki and assignable AI agents into a single workspace. Used by 50,000+ teams, it runs on Plane Cloud, self-hosted, or fully air-gapped.
What is Plane?
Plane is a project and knowledge management platform built by Plane Software, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and designed around AI rather than bolted onto it: Plane was not retrofitted for AI, it was built around it. It gathers four products in one workspace. Projects covers the delivery side, with a hierarchy of initiatives, epics, cycles, modules and work items, customisable types and properties, five layouts (Board, Spreadsheet, List, Gantt and more) and unlimited views you can switch between instantly. Cycles are timeboxed with velocity tracking and burndown, feeding real-time dashboards. Wiki and Pages keep documentation attached to the work that produced it, with nested pages and embeds on the higher tiers. Desk, a customer support product, is announced but not shipped.
Plane AI is the differentiator. It reads across projects, cycles, pages and discussion threads without being fed context, so you can query the workspace in plain language, generate a structured project from a prompt, get one-click summaries, spot duplicates, draft and translate blocks in the editor, and auto-triage incoming requests. Agents can be assigned to work items or @-mentioned like colleagues, and their actions land in the same audit trail as human ones. An Agent Development Kit and an open-source MCP server let teams build their own. The Slack integration goes further: mentioning @Plane in a channel creates the work, assigns it and syncs the thread back.
Developers get a REST API with OAuth 2.0, HMAC-signed webhooks, typed Node.js and Python SDKs, and Plane Compose, which defines projects as YAML versioned in Git and deployed from the terminal. A Marketplace of 18 apps covers integrations, importers and agents.
The deployment story is unusually broad: Plane Cloud, a self-hosted Commercial edition installed via Prime CLI, Docker or Kubernetes with Helm charts, and an Airgapped edition, with feature parity claimed between cloud and self-hosted. Self-hosters bring their own Postgres, Redis, S3-compatible storage and OpenAI or Anthropic keys, so Plane never sees a token. Security covers AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.3 in transit, two-factor by default, SSO, RBAC and granular access control, with SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and CCPA claimed and a 99.99% API uptime SLA. Plane shipped through GitHub in late 2022 and now claims 50,000+ teams.
What it does
- Turn a plain-language description into a fully structured project, complete with epics, cycles and work items
- Ask questions of the whole workspace in natural language and get answers drawn from live project data
- Assign an AI agent to a work item exactly as you would a teammate, or @-mention it in a comment
- Summarise the state of a cycle, project or initiative in a single click
- Catch duplicate work items in the backlog before they are created, and auto-triage incoming requests by classifying, labelling, assigning and routing them
- Migrate projects, issues, users and workflows in from Jira, Linear, Asana, ClickUp, Confluence or Notion
- Deploy your own instance on Docker or Kubernetes, or fully air-gapped, and define projects as YAML versioned in Git
When to use Plane / When not to
A quick filter to help you decide if Plane is the right fit.
When to use Plane
- Teams leaving Jira, Linear, ClickUp, Asana or Monday.com who need to move projects, issues, users and workflows across without losing history
- Regulated, defence and government organisations with data-residency constraints, thanks to the self-hosted and air-gapped editions
- Engineering teams that want a REST API, signed webhooks, an open-source MCP server and AI agents they can assign to work items
- Product and delivery teams who would rather keep projects and documentation in one place than pay for Jira and Confluence separately
- Small teams, startups and side projects that fit inside the permanent free plan of up to 12 users
When not to use Plane
- Non-English-speaking teams who need a localised interface: Plane publishes no list of supported UI languages
- Customer support organisations looking for a help desk today, since the Desk product is still announced as coming soon
- Microsoft Teams-first companies, because only the Slack integration is live and Teams is still marked as coming soon
- Heavy AI users on a budget: credits are capped per seat per month (500 on Free, 1,000 on Pro, 2,000 on Business) and never roll over
- Organisations handling health records, GDPR Article 9 special-category data or PCI DSS cardholder data, which the terms forbid without a separate signed agreement
How to use Plane
A typical end-to-end flow, from setup to results.
- Create a free account at app.plane.so/sign-up; no card is needed for the Free plan, and you can sign in with a one-time email code, a magic link, or a Google or GitHub account
- Set up your workspace, then create projects inside it and break the work into work items grouped by module, feature or release
- Bring existing work across using the Marketplace importers for Jira, Jira Server, Linear, Asana, ClickUp, Confluence or Notion
- Connect the tools you already use from the Marketplace, including GitHub, GitLab, Slack, Sentry, Raycast and Draw.io
- Pick the layout that fits the moment: Board, Spreadsheet, List or Gantt, and save unlimited views on top
- Start with the safe AI surfaces such as natural-language search and one-click summaries; AI features are opt-in and can be switched off
- Assign an AI agent to a work item or @-mention it in a comment when you want it to act rather than answer
- Start the two-week free trial from the pricing page when you need the Pro or Business capabilities
- For developers, plug into the REST API with OAuth 2.0, subscribe to HMAC-signed webhooks, use the Node.js or Python SDK, or connect the MCP server to Claude, Cursor or VS Code
- To self-host, run a single Prime CLI command for the Commercial edition, buy the licence on the Prime portal, paste the key into your instance, then tune SMTP, authentication, SSO and telemetry from God Mode
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Feature parity claimed between the cloud and self-hosted editions, which is rare in this market, with an air-gapped build for environments cut off from the internet
- AI is included in every tier, free plan included, as monthly per-seat credits rather than a per-seat surcharge
- Low paid entry point at 6 USD per seat per month billed annually, on top of a permanent free plan for up to 12 users
- Projects and documentation share one workspace, removing the need for a separate Confluence subscription
- Official importers for Jira, Jira Server, Linear, Asana, ClickUp, Confluence and Notion, backed by a structured three-week migration programme
- A clear no-training commitment: no Customer Data is used to train general-purpose models, alongside SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and CCPA claims
- Full developer surface (REST API, webhooks, SDKs, open-source MCP server, ADK), open source on GitHub, with web, desktop and mobile clients on both deployment modes
Cons
- Desk and the Microsoft Teams integration are advertised but not shipped, so the support and Teams stories are promises rather than features
- AI credits are capped per seat per month with no rollover; going over means buying paid top-ups
- Several governance features (LDAP, multiple workflows, granular access control, audit logs over API) are locked to the quote-only Enterprise Grid tier
- No list of interface languages is published anywhere on the site
- No GDPR Article 27 representative is named: European entities have to ask for the details in writing
- No product demo page exists; the only commercial entry point is a JavaScript-rendered /talk-to-sales form
- No hosting region is named, and self-hosting hands the customer the load of Postgres, Redis, S3 storage and backups, while wiki, dashboards, teamspaces and integrations sit outside the free plan
Pricing & Plans
A permanent free plan is available at 0 USD for up to 12 users, including 500 AI credits per seat per month. The lowest paid entry point is Pro at 6.00 USD per seat per month billed annually (8.00 USD on monthly billing), followed by Business at 13.00 USD per seat per month annually (15.00 USD monthly), and a quote-only Enterprise Grid tier. A two-week free trial is offered on Pro and Business. The same four tiers apply to cloud and self-hosted deployments, with AI credits included in each tier and paid top-ups available; self-hosters pay their AI provider directly. Refunds are pro rata and limited to termination for Plane's breach.
- projects and work items
- cycles and modules
- layouts and views
- intake
- estimates and project pages
- work item types and properties
- workspace wiki
- time tracking and work logs
- templates
- dashboards
- initiatives
- teamspaces
- integrations and Marketplace
- project templates
- recurring work items
- intake by email and forms
- nested pages and embeds
- a single workflow
- the Customers module and advanced widget dashboards
- flexible AI credits
- private and managed deployments
- granular access control
- multiple workflows with approvals
- LDAP
- audit logs over API
- plus migration and implementation services
- Self-hosted — the same four tiers
- with the licence bought on the Prime portal and the key pasted into the instance
Data, GDPR & hosting
A consolidated view of how Plane handles your data.
GDPR overview
GDPR compliance is claimed explicitly and documented rather than merely asserted. Plane advertises SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and CCPA compliance, independently audited and continuously monitored. The privacy policy, last updated on 9 April 2026, sets out legal bases for the EEA, the UK and Switzerland: contract performance, legitimate interest, consent and legal obligation. It lists data-subject rights to access, rectification, erasure, portability, restriction, objection, consent withdrawal and complaint to a supervisory authority. A Data Processing Addendum is published at plane.so/legals/dpa and incorporated into the terms by reference; transfers out of the EEA rely on Standard Contractual Clauses Module Two, with a UK Addendum and Swiss FADP coverage. Sub-processor changes are notified 30 days ahead and audit information is available once every twelve months. One gap: no Article 27 representative is named, only provided upon request via legal@plane.so.
Who owns the data?
The customer owns the content. Plane's terms state that as between the parties, the customer retains all rights, title and interest in and to Customer Data (Section 4.1). In exchange, the customer grants Plane a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence limited to five listed purposes: running and improving the service, handling technical, security or fraud incidents, answering support requests, meeting legal obligations, and anything else the customer authorises in writing. Plane and its licensors keep ownership of the service, documentation and underlying technology (Section 6.1). Plane also retains all rights in Usage Data, shared only in de-identified or aggregated form (Section 6.3), and takes a perpetual, irrevocable worldwide licence over any feedback, with no attribution owed (Section 6.2).
Reuse rights
Customers can export and reuse their own content freely; no permission from Plane is required. Plane's own use is fenced to the five contractual purposes above. On the cloud, the customer is the data controller and Plane the processor (Section 4.5); on self-hosted and air-gapped instances the data never leaves the customer's environment, and no Customer Data is collected by default, with minimal telemetry only if it is switched on. Plane collects account details (name, email, company, job title, avatar, preferences), billing information (full card data stays with Stripe, never stored by Plane), and automatic technical data such as IP address, device and browser identifiers, pages visited, clickstream, session length, server logs and error reports. Signing in through Google or GitHub passes across a name and email. Thirteen sub-processors are named, including OpenAI L.L.C. for AI features. Plane states plainly that it does not use Customer Data to train, fine-tune, or improve general-purpose AI models, its own or a third party's, and AI outputs are generated for the requesting customer only.
Data retention & training
Hosting summary
Plane Software, Inc. is established in the United States, and data may be transferred to and processed there. On the cloud, infrastructure hosting runs on Amazon Web Services, Inc. (United States) with application hosting on Vercel, Inc. (United States), and Cloudflare, Inc. handles delivery and security with a Global footprint. Monitoring uses Datadog and Sentry (Functional Software Inc.), analytics uses PostHog, Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity, support runs on Pylon, email on Mailmodo, payments on Stripe and AI features on OpenAI L.L.C. Internal communications use Slack Technologies, LLC. All of these are listed as United States entities, in a public list of thirteen sub-processors last updated on 9 April 2026. The security page mentions multi-region reliability on the cloud and region-locked private deployments for enterprises, but names no specific region. Transfers out of Europe rely on Standard Contractual Clauses and the other recognised mechanisms. With the self-hosted or air-gapped editions, the picture changes entirely: data stays inside the customer's own environment and no Customer Data is collected by default.
Where Plane works
Country-level availability.
Not available in
Things to keep in mind
Risks and trade-offs to weigh before adopting Plane.
- AI credits are allocated per seat per month and never carry over, so measure real consumption on a trial project before you size a tier and get caught buying top-ups
- Advertised prices default to annual commitment: monthly billing costs 33% more on Pro and 15% more on Business, and the per-seat model means cost grows in a straight line with headcount, with guests capped at one per five seats
- The free plan is genuinely useful but excludes wiki, dashboards, teamspaces and integrations, so the features you demo may not be the ones you keep
- Governance essentials such as LDAP, multiple workflows, granular access control and API audit logs require the quote-only Enterprise Grid, which can turn a cheap pilot into an expensive rollout
- The terms forbid submitting GDPR Article 9 special-category data, health data without a signed BAA, or PCI DSS cardholder data; teams that paste anything into a work item are the ones most likely to breach this
- On exit, you have only 30 days to export your data before deletion within 60 days, and refunds are pro rata and limited to termination for Plane's breach
- Treat AI output as a draft, not a decision: one-click summaries, auto-triage and agent actions are convenient enough that teams stop reading the underlying work items, and no Article 27 representative is named for European entities who need one
Setup & Integrations
Technical difficulty
Two very different levels. On the cloud it is trivial: sign up free with no card, authenticate by email code or Google/GitHub, and Plane claims setup in minutes, with AI ready out of the box. Large migrations get a guided three-week programme with discovery and mapping scripts. Self-hosting is a sysadmin job: one Prime CLI command installs the Commercial edition and Docker gets you started quickly, but production means Kubernetes with Helm charts, plus your own Postgres, Redis and S3-compatible storage. One-click deploys exist for AWS, DigitalOcean, Coolify and Portainer. Plane Compose additionally assumes YAML and Git fluency.
Deployment
Apps stores
Integrations
Behind Plane
Fundraising
Social
Resources
All the official URLs gathered for verification and reference.
Alternatives
Tools that compete with or complement Plane.
Frequently asked questions
What is Plane?
Does Plane train AI models on my data?
Can I self-host Plane?
How much does Plane cost?
Is there a free trial?
What does Plane integrate with?
How do I migrate from Jira or Linear?
What security certifications does Plane hold?
Is there a minimum age to use Plane?
What happens to my data if I stop using Plane?
Should you pick Plane?
Plane makes a coherent bet: replace the Jira-plus-Confluence pairing with one workspace where delivery, documentation and AI share the same data, and let customers choose how much of that stack they host themselves. The bet mostly pays off. Feature parity between cloud and self-hosted is genuinely uncommon, the air-gapped edition opens doors that most SaaS competitors cannot reach, and the 6 USD per seat entry price undercuts the incumbents it targets. Including AI credits in every tier, free plan included, is a more honest posture than charging a per-seat AI surcharge, and the explicit no-training commitment removes a real objection for security teams.
The reservations are equally concrete. Desk and the Microsoft Teams integration are still promises. AI credits are capped per seat and never roll over, so heavy usage means paid top-ups. Governance features that a larger organisation will consider mandatory (LDAP, multiple approval workflows, granular access control, audit logs over API) sit behind the quote-only Enterprise Grid tier. No interface languages are published, no hosting region is named, and no GDPR Article 27 representative is identified without a written request.
The teams best served are product and engineering groups leaving a legacy tracker, and organisations whose data-residency rules make self-hosting or air-gapping non-negotiable. Plane is young, founded in late 2022, with 4 million USD raised from a single investor, but it claims 50,000+ teams and four compliance frameworks, and its open-source origin gives an exit route that closed platforms do not. Run the two-week trial with a real project and measure your actual AI credit consumption before committing to a tier.
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