Building in Public | Choosing a Project Management Tool

TL;DR I’m looking for a free, lightweight project management tool—something to track tasks as I develop an app.

I'm starting development on a new app, and one of my first decisions is how to keep track of tasks—features, bugs, tech setup, and so on. This is my (quick and honest) process for choosing the right project management tool.

Photo by Eden Constantino on Unsplash

I Love Using Tools...Just Not Choosing Them

I love project management tools. I love being organised. I love to-do lists.

But choosing a tool? Meh. I want to use the tool, not spend an afternoon reading comparison blogs and feature charts.

That said, I do care about finding the right tool for the job. So: a little research, but not too much. Reading about tools is no substitute for trying them out.

My plan is simple: time-box the upfront research efforts, pick the best tool based on what I learn, and start using it. In this case, I've arbitrarily decided to time-box my research to a single afternoon. As development on the app progresses, I’ll track what works and what doesn’t, regarding the project management tool. And if the tool falls short or if I hear about something better, I’ll switch.

Ideally, once I’ve made a good choice, I can reuse it for future projects. That makes a little upfront effort worth it.

Terminology

I was initially thinking of this blog post in terms of "issue tracking tools". But along the way, I realised that “issue tracking” might not be the best term for what I need. I’m not just reporting bugs—I’m tracking everything involved in developing the app: feature planning, tech setup, testing, and yes, the occasional bug.

I asked ChatGPT for help with the terminology, and it suggested two broader, more accurate terms:

• Task management tool

• Project management tool

Either one would work. Task management probably covers everything I need for this project, but I’ve decided to use the term project management tool—it’s a little more encompassing, and it feels like the right umbrella for what I’m doing.

That said, I’m not going full enterprise-mode here. I don’t anticipate needing things like milestones or epics... mostly because: Who am I kidding? I don’t even really know what those are.

They’re terms I hear thrown around at work, and I can infer what they mean from context, but I’ve never looked them up. So I did. I asked ChatGPT, and here’s the breakdown it gave me:

🔹 Milestones (Project Management)

What they are:

Milestones are checkpoints or significant moments in a project timeline. They represent key points of progress but don’t contain actual work — they're just markers.

Think of them like:

• “Designs signed off”

• “MVP complete”

• “App submitted to App Store”

Used for:

• Tracking progress

• Coordinating teams

• Communicating deadlines

• Motivating momentum

They’re often attached to dates, not tasks, and used to answer:

• “Are we on schedule?”

🔹 Epics (Product/Agile Management)

What they are:

Epics are large bodies of work that can be broken down into smaller tasks or user stories.

Think of them like:

• “User authentication system”

• “Payment integration”

• “Knitting calculator core logic”

They’re too big to tackle all at once, so they’re split into:

• User stories

• Tasks

• Sub-tasks

Used for:

• Organising complex features

• Prioritising work

• Grouping related functionality

They help answer:

• “What big chunk of product value are we working on?”

🔹 Milestone vs. Epic

Feature	Milestone	Epic
Type	Time-based marker	Scope-based work grouping
Contains work?	❌ No (just a date/checkpoint)	✅ Yes (big features broken into tasks)
Purpose	Track progress	Organise & manage large features
Example	“Beta release by Sept 1”	“Build user profile & settings system”

Do I Need Milestones or Epics?

Nope. Not for this project.

Milestones make sense when you have a deadline or when someone else is waiting on your progress. That’s not the case here—I’m working at my own pace and I'm not coordinating with anyone else.

Epics seem more useful: they help you group related tasks under one big goal. But for a small enough project, I can probably get most of that functionality by simply tagging tickets by feature area (e.g. “authentication”, “onboarding”, etc.). I don’t think I need a tool that supports formal epics.

What I Need

Here’s what I’m looking for in a project management tool:

• ✅ Free – I’m not willing to pay money to build this app

• ✅ Supports tickets – with types or tags like “bug,” “task,” etc.

• ✅ Blocking or linked tasks – the ability to configure dependencies between tasks

• ✅ Priorities – the ability to set a priority level on a task

• ✅ Subtasks – nice to have, but not a dealbreaker

• ✅ Public visibility – anyone should be able to view the board (i.e. no invitation needed)

• ✅ Easy onboarding – if someone wants to contribute, it should be frictionless

I don't need milestones or epics, burndown charts, sprints, sprint velocity metrics, or anything like that. I don't even need story-pointing / estimation.

Tools Considered

The project management tools I'm already familiar with include:

• Jira by Atlassian

• GitHub Issues by GitHub (owned by Microsoft)

• Asana

• Monday.com

• Trello by Atlassian

Of these, Jira and GitHub Issues are the ones I’ve used the most in professional settings.

When I asked ChatGPT for other suggestions, it mentioned Linear, which I hadn’t heard of before—but it caught my interest after a brief skim of their website.

Jira

Jira has a free version that includes everything I’d need (and then some). Jira is a widely used industry tool, so getting more practice with it never hurts.

But it’s probably overkill for a solo project.

It also comes with a higher barrier to entry—contributor access usually requires an invite and an Atlassian account, which adds friction. It doesn’t tick the “easy onboarding” or “anyone can view it without logging in” boxes. So for this project, it’s probably not the right fit.

GitHub Issues

GitHub Issues is free, lightweight, and will integrate easily with my code (which will be hosted on GitHub). It supports labels, markdown, and assignees, and it’s the default tool for many open-source projects.

I did wonder whether it supports "blocked by" relationships between issues (because I know it never used to). At first, I couldn’t find the feature in a repo I was using, so I went digging and found a relevant community discussion:

Hi all, good news! We now have a public preview available for marking issues as "blocked by" and "is blocking" 🎉! If your organization would like to join the preview, just drop your GitHub org name in this discussion thread: https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/165749

Screenshot taken Tuesday, 05 August 2025

That’s exciting! I hadn’t planned to create a GitHub Organization for this project, but I guess I'd have to in order to get access to this feature.

My next question was whether GitHub Issues supports prioritisation. I couldn't find a priority field in my private repos, so I did a Google search and found this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzXsmsfdJKM. The video shows how to set up custom fields in a GitHub Project, and it looks like exactly what I need! I know GitHub Issues supports subtasks because I've used them before.

I know GitHub Issues doesn’t support sprints, velocity charts, or other Agile-style reporting. (Though GitHub Projects might.) But I don’t need those. I won’t be working in sprints—just tracking tasks, some of which may block others or need prioritisation.

NOTE: If you are on the free tier of GitHub, like I am, then GitHub Projects are only available on public repos (not private repos). GitHub Issues are available for both public and private repos.

Linear

Linear caught my eye as a possible solution for household task management with my partner—something simple, clean, and collaborative.

So I gave it a try. And I love it.

I know I sound like an ad, but it took all of 5 minutes to set up. I signed in with my Google account, watched a short intro video, and immediately got to work creating issues. The UI is uncluttered and intuitive (at least to me), and I found it easy to learn by just using it.

While it’s not right for this open-source app project—mostly because it’s not deeply integrated with GitHub and isn’t as open by default—I’m definitely a fan, and I’ll be keeping it in mind for other use cases.

I Choose GitHub Issues + Projects

This whole project is about building in public, and one of my core goals is to make it fully open source.

Not because I expect contributors (though they’re welcome!), but because I want the project to be transparent and showcase-able. That means anyone should be able to poke around, browse tickets, and follow the project’s progress—ideally without needing to create an account or log in or request an invitation.

That alone points me toward GitHub Issues. If you’re viewing an open-source project on GitHub, you already have everything you need to interact with the project board.

In contrast, tools like Linear are a bit more closed off—you can’t view a workspace unless you’ve been invited. That’s great for teams, but not ideal for a public-facing, solo dev project like this. For now, I’m starting with GitHub Issues + Projects, and I’ll stick with it until it no longer meets my needs. If that happens, I’ll revisit the decision with a fresh look at what’s out there.

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What project management tool do you prefer for personal projects? Let me know in the comments!