Gantt chart makers: free online options and what they leave out
A search for a gantt diagram creator usually produces two very different kinds of product wearing the same label. One draws a chart. The other runs a project and happens to show it as a chart. Both are called gantt chart makers, both offer something free, and the difference between them only becomes obvious about three weeks in, when the plan needs updating and nobody knows where the current version is.
This is a look at what the free options actually give, what they hold back, and how to tell in advance which category a tool belongs to.
The two kinds of gantt chart maker
The distinction is worth naming clearly, because it predicts almost everything else.
A chart drawer takes a list of tasks and dates and produces a picture. The output is the point. These tools are quick, often genuinely free, and produce something presentable in twenty minutes. They are the right choice for a proposal, a client deck, or a schedule that will be agreed once and not renegotiated.
A project tool with a gantt view stores tasks as records that people work on. The chart is one way of looking at those records, alongside a board, a list, or a calendar. Updating the chart and updating the work are the same action. These take longer to set up and they keep being correct.
The trap is that both categories advertise the same things: drag and drop bars, dependencies, milestones, export. On a feature list they look similar. The question that separates them is simple. When the person doing the work marks a task finished, does the chart change by itself? If the answer is no, the tool is a chart drawer, whatever its feature list says.
What the free options include
Free means several different things across this category, and the differences matter more than the word.
Free because it runs on your own machine
GanttProject is a free desktop application for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It runs offline, keeps data on the computer, and has been in active development since 2003. The site describes it as built for small and medium businesses in fields such as construction, architecture, engineering, and media production, and notes an optional cloud service for sharing and co-editing, offered as pay as you go rather than a monthly subscription.
What this leaves out is collaboration by default. One file, one editor. Sharing means sending the file or adding the optional service. For a planner who produces schedules and distributes them, that is not a limitation, it is the design.
Self hosted open source sits in the same bracket. OpenProject's pricing page lists a Community edition at no cost with no minimum number of users, supported through community forums and user guides rather than a support desk. The cost has not disappeared, it has moved to a server and to whoever keeps it running.
Free because it is tied to another product
Instagantt's pricing page describes a free tier that connects up to 3 Asana projects with gantt charts, dependencies, milestones, and public snapshots. Its paid plans are Individual at $10 per month billed annually, or $12 monthly, and Teams at $20 per month billed annually with 3 collaborators included and $8 per month for each additional collaborator. The comparison table on that page lists the free tier at 1 user and shows PDF and image export as a paid feature.
This model is common and reasonable. The free tier is a bridge for people who already pay for something else. It is not a free project tool, it is a free view onto a paid one.
Free because the chart is the upgrade
The largest group is project tools with generous free tiers where the gantt view specifically is not included. Asana's pricing page lists list, board, and calendar views on the free Personal plan, which covers 2 users, and puts Timeline and Gantt views on Starter at $10.99 per user per month billed annually. Atlassian's Timeline view documentation states that Trello's Timeline view is available only for boards and Workspaces on Premium and Enterprise, that there are no current plans to make it available on free Workspaces, and that the view is no longer accessible on mobile devices.
Notion takes a third position again. Its timeline documentation describes the timeline as a database view rather than a separate product, available on any plan, with a note that timelines only plot items when the database has a date property containing a range of dates. The constraint on Notion's free tier is elsewhere: its pricing page explains that a free workspace used alone has no block limit, while a free workspace with multiple members allows a limited number of blocks before an upgrade is needed, after which existing content can be read and edited but new blocks cannot be added.
Not free at all
Some dedicated gantt services have moved away from free tiers entirely. TeamGantt's pricing page lists a 14 day free trial and a Basic plan starting at $24 per month, with 2 projects included, 1 manager, 10 collaborators, 150 tasks per project, and additional projects charged at $12 per month each. The pricing is per project rather than per seat, which is unusual in this category and can work out either cheaper or more expensive depending on the shape of the team.
Comparing what is actually on offer
| Option | What the free access is | Users on free | Notable limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| GanttProject | Full desktop application | Single editor per file | Offline by design, sharing needs the optional cloud service |
| OpenProject Community | Full self hosted edition | No minimum stated | Requires hosting and community support |
| Instagantt | Free tier tied to Asana | 1 | Up to 3 Asana projects, export on paid plans |
| Asana | Free Personal plan | 2 | Timeline and Gantt views start on Starter |
| Trello | Free Workspace | Up to 10 collaborators | Timeline on Premium and Enterprise, not on mobile |
| Notion | Free plan, timeline is a view | Multiple, with a block limit | Needs a date property with a range to plot anything |
| TeamGantt | 14 day trial only | 1 manager on Basic | Basic from $24 per month, 150 tasks per project |
Read down the "notable limit" column rather than the price column. The price is a number that can be approved. The limit is what the team will run into on a Tuesday.
What free gantt makers usually leave out
Across the free options, the same four things are missing often enough to be worth checking for specifically.
Export and printing. The chart exists to be shown to someone. Several tools put PDF and image export on the paid tier, which is a rational place to put it and an unpleasant surprise when the client meeting is on Thursday.
More than a handful of people. Free tiers cap collaborators, and the cap is frequently one or two. A tool that is free for one person and priced per seat after that is not free for a team of five, it is a trial with no end date.
Automatic date shifting. Drawing a dependency arrow is not the same as having later tasks move when an earlier one slips. Notion's dependency documentation is a good example of how granular this gets: it describes three settings, shift only when dates overlap, shift and maintain the time between items, or do not shift automatically, plus an option to avoid weekends. Whatever the tool, that behavior needs testing rather than assuming.
A record of what changed. When a date moves, someone will eventually ask why. Free tiers often trim version history or activity logs first, and without one a schedule dispute becomes an argument about memory.
There is a fifth omission that is harder to see on a feature list: a place for the conversation about a task. Schedules slip for reasons, and the reason is usually in a chat thread somewhere. A chart that shows a bar moved from the 12th to the 26th without the two sentences explaining why is a picture of a problem rather than a record of one. Tools that keep the discussion attached to the task make that history available to whoever asks next month, and tools that do not push the explanation into somebody's inbox, where it stops being findable the moment that person is on leave.
How to test one properly in an afternoon
A trial answers the question only if it is run as a team, not as a solo exercise. Six steps are enough.
- Put in a real project. Twenty to thirty real tasks with real owners. Sample data hides how a chart behaves when the rows are dense.
- Invite everyone who will edit. Find out on day one whether the free tier allows that many people, and what happens when the next person joins.
- Move a date and watch what happens downstream. Then decide whether that behavior is what the team wants.
- Have two people edit at once. Check that both see the change and that neither overwrites the other silently.
- Export it. Produce the artifact that will go to a client or an executive, on the plan being evaluated rather than the trial.
- Open it on a phone. People check dates while travelling. Some tools do not offer the schedule view on mobile at all.
Teams that run this list usually lose half their shortlist immediately, and almost never because of a missing feature. It is seat caps, view restrictions on the affordable plan, and charts that are disconnected from the tasks.
When a chart maker is the wrong purchase
If the plan is drawn once and presented, a chart drawer is correct and anything heavier is waste. A spreadsheet or a free desktop application will do the job for nothing.
If the plan is meant to reflect reality week after week, the chart is not the product being bought. What is being bought is the absence of a transfer step between where work is reported and where the schedule lives. Any tool that requires someone to retype progress into the chart will produce a chart that is confidently wrong, and a confidently wrong schedule is worse than no schedule, because people act on it.
That is why the board matters as much as the chart. Daily work happens on a kanban board or a list. If the gantt view is a separate screen reading the same cards, it stays accurate for free. If it is a separate product, it stays accurate for as long as somebody has the patience. The features overview describes what sharing data between views means concretely, and the comparison pages put specific tools side by side on that point.
What to change first
Before comparing any gantt makers, decide whether the plan will be presented once or maintained for months, because that single answer eliminates most of the list. If it will be maintained, check that the chart reads the same tasks the team already updates, and that the plan covering everyone who edits actually includes the view. A free tier that includes kanban, gantt, calendar, and chat for a small team is worth adding to the comparison, and Pinateca is one.
Q1. Is there a genuinely free gantt chart maker for a team?
There are free options, but read what free means in each case. Desktop applications such as GanttProject are free and built around one editor per file. Several project tools have free plans that exclude the gantt view. Free tiers tied to another product, such as Instagantt's Asana connection, assume a paid subscription elsewhere.
Q2. Can a gantt chart be made online without installing anything?
Yes, most of the options in this category are browser based. The practical constraint is not installation, it is whether the free plan covers the number of people who need to edit and whether the schedule view is included on that plan.
Q3. What is the difference between a timeline view and a gantt chart?
In most tools they are the same thing under different names. A gantt chart traditionally implies dependencies between tasks and a critical path, while some timeline views only plot items on a date axis. Check whether dependencies exist and what happens to later tasks when an earlier one moves.
Q4. Do free gantt makers let you export to PDF?
Often not. Export is a common paid feature, since the exported file is usually the reason someone needed the chart. If the chart will be shown to a client or an executive, test the export on the plan being considered rather than on a trial that includes everything.
Q5. How many tasks can a small team keep on a gantt chart?
Fewer than most people expect. Rows that a person can report on in one sentence work; plans past roughly fifty rows tend to stop being updated by teams of five or fewer. Some tools also cap this directly, such as the 150 tasks per project on TeamGantt's Basic plan.
