How the open source Community drives OpenProject

A unique part of an open source software like OpenProject is the open source Community. It is a global community of users, developers, advocates and anyone else interested in and engaged with the use of the software, development and growth. Collaboration within the community can happen in different ways. Let us show you how.

Connect and exchange within the open source Community

Open source projects benefit from an active Community. Dedicated platforms support this exchange. For example, an open source community forum can be used as a place for exchange of thoughts, ideas and help. Everyone is invited to post or start a conversation and connect with each other. Members can ask each other for support in technical matters, e.g. if they have a question regarding the use of a certain feature. They can also share best practices, discuss possible developments and further topics. As all discussions are saved and open to everyone, your question might already have been answered and you can find the answer directly in the forum.

OpenProject has a global, active Community that is in constant exchange with the internal OpenProject team as well. In the forum people can discuss along different categories as development, installation support and much more. That is how we make sure that the right people can connect with each other based on the topic they want to discuss and feedback can be provided quickly. Especially for the users of the free OpenProject Community edition, the forum can serve as a support channel as professional support is part of our Enterprise edition.

Collaboration with open source partners

The demand for open source software is high in every field. And building it is a team sport! OpenProject is part of a network of open source companies and software providers, our key partners include Nextcloud, XWiki and many more. Especially as part of openDesk, we share core values and goals: Above all, the aspiration for digital sovereignty and the commitment to putting the user first. We also share our learnings, knowledge and software. And it doesn’t stop here: We also integrate our tools to ensure they work seamlessly together and create an open source environment.

Consejo

Have you tried our Nextcloud integration yet? Benefit from the strength of open source software while maintaining complete control over your data.

Whenever possible, we meet up. For example at events such as FOSDEM, Nextcloud Enterprise Day or the Univention Summit. This is also an opportunity for us to meet with our (shared) Community, so please come and speak to us! You can find details of all the events we attend on our social media channels.

Image: Anna Mohn from OpenProject and Clément Aubin from XWiki, on stage at Univention Summit 2026.

Collaboration on the open source software

Beyond the exchange in a forum, the open source Community also actively collaborates to further develop the open source software and drive its continued growth. There are various ways in which everyone can contribute to the project in their own way, according to their knowledge and skills:

Feature requests

At the heart of an open source software is the user. The software should fulfil the user’s needs and solve their problems, which is why it is essential to involve the Community in the development. You can contribute by submitting feature requests or expressing their needs that they would like to be addressed by the developers.

OpenProject invites its Community to submit feature requests and ideas for improvement. We keep track of how many users want a certain feature and consequently prioritize these requests and see how we can fit them into our roadmap. This is a transparent process that can be tracked in our public OpenProject project.

Bug reporting and fixing

Software is never complete and never error-free. That is why our Community is so important for identifying, reporting and fixing bugs. Fixing bugs is, of course, mostly reserved for developers. However, identifying and reporting bugs can be done by anyone. In general, a diverse global community can report more bugs than an internal team working on a proprietary solution. As a result, open source solutions can achieve higher quality.

If you find any bugs in OpenProject, please report them, we really appreciate it. Then our internal OpenProject team can prioritize and work on them to improve the quality of our application. You will find a guide on how to report a bug when creating a new work package of type Bug in our Community instance.

Probando

Software needs constant testing, ensuring that both existing and new features work as intended. This is where the Community can also come in and help with testing to make sure the solution is robust. As everyone has access to the open source software code, it can be more thoroughly reviewed by the Community and errors spotted earlier and issues solved faster and more diligently.

OpenProject uses automated tests throughout the stack. If you want to start working with the OpenProject test suite, you would need to use the testing setup with Github Actions. You will find all further details on our testing guide.

Contributions to the documentation

The documentation is an important part of OpenProject. It offers a wide range of free material covering a glossary of key terms, user guides for different cases, release notes and more. It ensures that everyone can access reliable resources to understand and work with OpenProject, whether they are a user or an administrator. People can contribute to it by clarifying content and explanations, fixing spelling errors and improveing accessibility. Please also take a look at our documentation contribution guidelines.

Translating

To make OpenProject accessible to as many people as possible, we translate the application and documentation. The software itself is available in more than 30 languages. Our Community can contribute by translating from English into their native language; helping to expand the software’s usage across different language regions. We use CrowdIn as a platform for the translation. Get an overview of the process and join us in translating OpenProject to your language.

Contributions to the code

Another aspect of the open source community is contributing to software development. OpenProject is continuously developed and maintained by the OpenProject team together with an active international Community. As a result, the development process also centers on the users themselves, giving them the chance to bring their ideas to life.

We follow a structured requirements and product development process, so if you are interested, please first take a look at our development guidelines and processes.

Spread the word

Beyond coding and translation, supporting a project also means raising awareness and reaching a wider audience. Share your experiences with OpenProject (online and offline), follow us on our social media channels and spread the word about open source alternatives! Explore your possibilities, there are many ways to be a part of OpenProject and our open source Community.

We look forward to your contribution!