Master OpenProject with Docker: Quick Setup and Real-World Workflow

Introduction

OpenProject is a leading open‑source project management tool with over 10k+ stars on GitHub. It lets you manage projects, tasks, and goals through work packages.

Key Features

Project planning and progress visualization via work packages and Gantt charts.

Task management with clear assignment and status tracking.

Agile/Scrum support for rapid iteration.

Time tracking and cost reporting.

Web‑based real‑time team collaboration.

Below is a screenshot of OpenProject in action:

Installation

Deploy OpenProject conveniently with Docker:

docker pull openproject/openproject:15

docker run -p 8080:80 --name openproject \
  -e OPENPROJECT_SECRET_KEY_BASE=secret \
  -e OPENPROJECT_HOST__NAME=192.168.3.101:8080 \
  -e OPENPROJECT_HTTPS=false \
  -e OPENPROJECT_DEFAULT__LANGUAGE=en \
  -d openproject/openproject:15

The default web login is admin:admin at http://192.168.3.101:8080. You can change the language to Chinese in Account Settings → Settings.

Practical Project

The mall project is an open‑source e‑commerce system built with SpringBoot3 + Vue (60K stars) and follows the latest 2024 microservice architecture, deployed with Docker and Kubernetes. It includes a front‑end store and a back‑end admin system covering products, orders, carts, permissions, coupons, members, payments, and more.

Boot project: https://github.com/macrozheng/mall

Cloud project: https://github.com/macrozheng/mall-swarm

Tutorial site: https://www.macrozheng.com

Project demo:

Usage Walkthrough

We illustrate a simplified project management flow:

Project manager assigns tasks → Developers complete tasks → Testers submit bugs → Developers fix bugs

Add three users (project manager, developer, tester) under Management → Users and Permissions → Users.

Create a new project via the plus button, set name and description.

Add project members in the project overview.

As the project manager, assign tasks in Work Packages, setting hours, dates, and priority.

Developers find their tasks under Work Packages → Assigned to me, see notifications, log hours, and close tasks.

Testers submit bugs in work packages; administrators must enable bug work packages in Project Settings.

View project progress with the Gantt chart in the official Scrum project example, and explore the Agile board.

Conclusion

Through this simplified workflow we demonstrated OpenProject’s practical features; it is a powerful tool worth trying for anyone interested in efficient project collaboration.

Project Repository

GitHub: https://github.com/opf/openproject (11K stars)

For a complete microservice practice, see the mall‑swarm project with a 26‑hour video tutorial covering the latest microservice stack, Spring Cloud components, and Kubernetes deployment.