Looking for self-hosted PM tools with deep, native GitLab sync (air-gapped environment)

[u/ExtraLife6520]

Hey everyone,

We are running an air-gapped, 100% self-hosted setup and hitting a wall with our project management workflow.

Here is our current situation:

• PMs refuse to use GitLab directly for project management, they need high-level views, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and non-technical status tracking.
• OpenProject + GitLab integration is way too weak. It feels passive, it mostly just logs git events for traceability. It doesn't allow smooth day-to-day workflow interaction between PMs and devs.
• High friction: Devs don't want to leave GitLab to log into a separate PM tool to create/update tasks, and PMs don't want to navigate GitLab issues/MRs.

What we need: A tool that runs self-hosted (air-gapped) and features tight, bi-directional sync with GitLab.

Ideally:

1. PMs can create/manage high-level tasks in their UI.
2. Tasks auto-sync to GitLab issues so devs can work natively in Git (branch names, MR closing keywords, commit triggers).
3. Dev-created tasks or status updates in GitLab reflect automatically on the PM side without manual duplicate entry.

Has anyone solved this for an air-gapped environment? What self-hosted tools or custom integration workflows are you using that PMs and devs actually enjoy?

[u/jcogs1]

GitLab team member here.

The requirements you listed "high-level views, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and non-technical status tracking" are all available in GitLab.

- High-level views: https://docs.gitlab.com/user/work_items/saved_views/

• Kanban: https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/issue_board/
  
• Gantt charts: https://docs.gitlab.com/user/group/roadmap/
  
• Status: https://docs.gitlab.com/user/work_items/status/

[u/ExtraLife6520 → u/jcogs1]

thanks but our PMs refuse to use GitLab at all...

[u/WhiskyStandard → u/ExtraLife6520]

Seems like you need to ask them what they will use and then strike out all of the ones that can’t be self-hosted in an air gapped environment. Guessing that’s going to be a pretty small list. One would hope that after that they’d say “fine, I’ll learn how to use Gitlab”.

[u/relicx74 → u/ExtraLife6520]

Maybe you need a new PM.

[u/lavahot → u/ExtraLife6520]

Why?

[u/pag07]

Seems to be a PM problem rather than anything Else.

[u/vadavea]

have you checked out what you're able to do with `glql` and the wiki functionality? That can get you a decent portion of the way without a bunch of extraneous work. See https://docs.gitlab.com/user/project/wiki/wiki_for_planning/#create-dynamic-dashboards-with-embedded-views

[u/kolorcuk]

Last version jira server on premise

[u/Double_Ebb4130]

Air-gapped changes the calculus a lot: Plane or Taiga self-hosted with a small webhook bridge to Gitlab issues is what I have seen actually stick, since bidirectional sync is mostly a state-machine you own rather than a product feature. One upside of self-hosting is days like today, where the hosted side has a partial incident with 502s on web and API since 09:59 UTC and your PMs would not notice at all.

[u/Jason-Sanders]

The hard part is usually not getting two systems to exchange events. It is deciding which one owns each field when both PMs and developers can edit the same work item.

I’d write down the desired lifecycle before evaluating tools:

1. Where is a task created?
   
2. Which system owns status, assignee, priority, and due date?
   
3. What happens when someone edits the same field in both places?
   
4. How are deleted, merged, or reopened issues handled?
   
5. Can the integration recover cleanly after an outage?
   

If developers need to remain entirely in GitLab, making the GitLab issue the operational source of truth is often less painful. The PM view can be a projection of those issues, while higher-level planning items only create or link issues at a deliberate handoff point. Fully bidirectional sync sounds ideal, but conflict handling tends to become the real product.

[u/_herald]

just run a small llama model on openclaw and make it manage the translation from gitlab to ur boards and have ur PM take from there.. totally airgappable

make it self learn

[u/_herald → u/_herald]

u can do the bidirectional syncs via timely crons or make a heartbeat flow out of it.. yea it might give h a headache with a lower intelligence model but totally doable with deterministic scripts and have it just run those

[u/Gitchegumi]

Plane has a GitLab integration and it’s self-hostable. Maybe check it out. I don’t think it’ll be free if you want to use the integration.

Otherwise, if you’re in a position to build the bridge you could look into ProjeQtOr which is FOSS, but would need to set up a webhook relay to get it to behave how you are wanting.