Teambox: An Excellent Open Source Collaborative Project Management Solution


While there are approximately 3 million project management apps (I’m guessing. I lost count around 102,463), TeamBox manages to stand out from the crowd by being both open source and focusing heavily on collaboration.

While many hosted web-based project management apps focus on collaboration, few of them are open source. And while there are quite a few open source project management apps, few focus heavily on collaboration in a way that’s designed for virtual teams.

Teambox has both of those covered.

Dashboard

When you first log in, the main focus is on all recent activity and comments made by other team members. Teambox allows you to ask questions, make comments, attach files, and delegate tasks all from the Dashboard — making it easy to see an overview of not only what’s happening but also everyone’s and every task’s status.

 

Task Management

Teambox’s Task Management page is very “social network-inspired” (think Facebook and Twitter). Teambox makes it easy to assign tasks to people, assign due dates and (of course) leave comments.

 

Charts, Reports, and Calendars

Teambox makes it easy to view what’s due when, along with who’s responsible for what in whatever form is easiest for you to visualize — either Gnatt charts, reports, or on a calendar. You can either view the calendar straight in Teambox, or sync it to your personal calendar or smartphone. In addition, you can log time tracking on the calendar.

 

Whiteboards

Whiteboards are great for collaborating with a team. You can post useful links, information you constantly need to reference back to, or start sketching out a formal document (such as a proposal). Teambox’s Whiteboards are incredibly intuitive — I rarely had to reference the formatting help section my first time using them.

 

Conversations

In addition to being able to comment on tasks and collaborate on Whiteboard, Teambox also allows you to have “Facebook-style” chats to brainstorm and discuss ideas that aren’t specifically task-related.

 

Email Intergration

Teambox allows you to both respond to comments through email, along with creating or updating the status of a task using project “short codes.” Very handy if you live in your email inbox.

Mobile

Mobile is a huge consideration when it comes to project management apps and Teambox has you covered. Simply go to the Teambox website using an iPhone, Android device, or Blackberry and you’ll see a mobile-optimized version.

Pricing

Teambox offers a free plan, but it’s pretty limited: 3 projects and 50 MB of storage. In addition, Teambox also offers a few additional features for companies with over 100 employees, such as unlimited projects and company branding starting at $3/user.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a complete, open source, project management solution with heavy collaboration features that can work for a single freelancer environment all the way up to a corporate setting, Teambox is definitely worth checking out.

For more on Teambox:


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Leslie A. Joy is a marketing assistant, process manager, analytics geek, and blogger, along with being a social media strategist for DSGNR Unlimited. You can find out more at her site, Social Media Mercenary.

Discussion

  1. Japh on the 9th April

    Great review, thanks for the good read. Can you please explain in what way this is “open source” though? I can’t find any reference to “open source” anywhere on the TeamBox website.

  2. Oladipo Ademola on the 9th April

    That solution is free, not open source

  3. Pablo on the 9th April

    Thanks for the deep review!
    But isn’t it missing a link to the site?

  4. Teambox Team on the 9th April

    Thanks for writing about Teambox!
    Our mission is to change the way people work by making it easier and more fun to get things done .Get more info about us in our Twitter account (@teambox_app) and our fanpage (http://www.facebook.com/teamboxapp ).

    Our motto: Be AWSUM ; )

  5. GitHub on the 9th April

    The Teambox source code is indeed open source and available on GitHub here: https://github.com/teambox/teambox

    • Ken on the 23rd February

      Teambox Team,

      Is the source code for the Teambox iPhone app available as open source as well?

  6. Shiblee Mehdi on the 10th April

    As this interface is derived from facebook & twitter, it would be easier to use and definitely I would like to give a try with teambox. I think, I also liked the calendar view.

    I’ve one question about attachment vs embedded image. I can see little attachment clip in the very 1st image in dashboard. Does it simply attach a file OR it also takes embedded image? OR I the question can be asked in different way. Can I comment OR start conversation the way this blog is written (I want to put embedded image in my comment.)?

  7. Steven Forbes on the 11th April

    Great App, interesting that they are charging for a hosted solution but also making it available for local install if you want.

  8. Steven Forbes on the 11th April

    Also, Agreed – The article is missing a link to the TeamBox website: http://teambox.com/

  9. Julien Dimas on the 26th May

    The great apps, such as CRM, PM, HRMS, Accounting and Finance , and many others You will find at Workforcetrack.com . NJoy =)

  10. steve on the 25th January

    Will TeamBox have any discount offers for Non-governmental organisations as do many other applications?

  11. gorged on the 7th May

    teambox is fake opensource. They started off as open source to gain public exposure. Now, that they have reached a stable state, they have discontinued their open source version. In fact, they claim that the system is too complex and costly for anyone except them to implement. Of course, their claim is far from the truth. They are afraid that they will lose money and potential customers by releasing the new version as open source. Many companies have realized that by going open source they will gain exposure, ideas, and have use of the open source community. Teambox left the open source community that has relied on their software to rot. The best proof is on github where their last commit was over 6 months ago (https://github.com/teambox/teambox). Companies like teambox are on my shitlist as are the developers that worked for them.

    • J. Blake Coco on the 5th June

      i can’t agree with you more. most of their support links for Teambox 3 are dead as well. it makes inheriting a local/open source install in an institution a galactic pain in the a**. i hopefully their developers will die poor.

    • Andre on the 15th August

      I completely agree too. This has just been a nasty way to exploit the open source community to contribute to their code, only to screw those people later.

      I would like to setup a project to continue the open source development. Does anyone know whether such a project already exists, or any discussion board where opensource teambox users are gathering?

  12. Rakesh Luthra on the 6th December

    @gorged et J. Blake,

    I totally agree with you guys. If there are any developers who like a open source project management platform and beat companies like teambox in their game by developing and giving out for free things better than what team box v4 offers at the moment, I would like to hear from you.

    Like you and many others, I too feel frustrated that companies like teambox are a slap on the face of open-source community and it’s ethics.

    I am keen and willing to put my effort, resources and finances in developing a truly “OPEN SOURCE” and innovative project management platform.

    Would be great to hear from like minded people.

    rakesh [at] easyorange [dot] co [dot] uk

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