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Comparison · PM
Backlog vs Leantime
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Backlog and Leantime — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Backlog vs Leantime: at a glance
What is Backlog?
Backlog ships steady Gantt and chart refinements, but the feed is mostly Nulab site furniture.
Only two entries in this window carry actual release content, and both are monthly digests: chart groups gaining a start/end date bar with issue counts and status breakdown on hover, personal charts dropping the parent-subtask relationship, an Android 3.0.1 redesign, Markdown in iOS custom-field text areas, plus quarterly-scale Gantt charts for Premium and Platinum plans and child-issue status filtering. The rest of the window is navigation, support links and marketing copy scraped from nulab.com — including rows that belong to sibling products Cacoo and Nulab Pass rather than to Backlog.
What is Leantime?
Leantime swaps role ranks for real permissions and syncs with your calendar app.
Leantime moved from 3.10 to 3.14 between October and 10 November. v3.14.0 replaces role-rank checks with specific permission checks across projects, timesheets, users, API keys, to-dos, milestones and sprints, and opens the calendar to plugins; a new CalDAV plugin syncs both ways with Nextcloud, Radicale and Apple Calendar. Earlier releases added mobile push, per-project modules, global search and self-updating plugins.
Backlog vs Leantime: editorial side-by-side
Backlog
0.0PM
Backlog ships steady Gantt and chart refinements, but the feed is mostly Nulab site furniture.
◆ Current state
Only two entries in this window carry actual release content, and both are monthly digests: chart groups gaining a start/end date bar with issue counts and status breakdown on hover, personal charts dropping the parent-subtask relationship, an Android 3.0.1 redesign, Markdown in iOS custom-field text areas, plus quarterly-scale Gantt charts for Premium and Platinum plans and child-issue status filtering. The rest of the window is navigation, support links and marketing copy scraped from nulab.com — including rows that belong to sibling products Cacoo and Nulab Pass rather than to Backlog.
◆ Where it's heading
The real work is concentrated on planning views — Gantt scale, chart grouping, issue filtering — and on closing gaps between the web app and the mobile clients. Several changes are explicitly gated to Premium and Platinum plans, so view sophistication is being used as tier differentiation. Nothing here suggests a change of direction; it is a mature tracker refining how work is visualised.
◆ Prediction
Given the run of chart and Gantt scale work, the next planning-view change is likely another axis of aggregation or filtering rather than a new surface. The scraped entries make cadence unreliable, so any stronger call would not be grounded.
Leantime
5.0PM
Leantime swaps role ranks for real permissions and syncs with your calendar app.
◆ Current state
Leantime moved from 3.10 to 3.14 between October and 10 November. v3.14.0 replaces role-rank checks with specific permission checks across projects, timesheets, users, API keys, to-dos, milestones and sprints, and opens the calendar to plugins; a new CalDAV plugin syncs both ways with Nextcloud, Radicale and Apple Calendar. Earlier releases added mobile push, per-project modules, global search and self-updating plugins.
◆ Where it's heading
The release cadence is roughly one feature version every two weeks, split between finer access control and a plugin marketplace that carries more functionality. Core changes increasingly exist to give plugins stable hooks, as the calendar rework shows.
◆ Prediction
Expect more marketplace plugins built on the new calendar and permission hooks, and further permission work extending to the remaining modules.
Alternatives to Backlog and Leantime
Other PM products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Backlog or Leantime.
Asana
Asana lets Division admins run their own custom roles, on top Enterprise plans only.
NocoBase
NocoBase's v3 beta lets apps ship their own CLI, separate from Agents.
Productboard
Productboard's v2 documents API now keeps plain web addresses and emoji as ordinary text.
Hive
Hive turns reporting into a planning tool: shared inputs, grouped values, per-person drill-downs.
Tracecat
Tracecat 1.5 alpha patches add sub-cases and lock down agent sandboxes.
See all Backlog alternatives → · See all Leantime alternatives →
Recent activity from Backlog and Leantime
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 3d agoLeantimev3.14.0: per-permission access checks and a CalDAV sync plugin
- 14d agoLeantimev3.13.2: digest changes, OIDC PKCE, marketplace install reporting
- 14d agoLeantimev3.13.1: clearer plugin install errors
- 14d agoLeantimev3.13.0: mobile push, per-project modules, Laravel 12
- 29d agoLeantimev3.12.0: self-updating plugins and a shared interface library
- 1mo agoLeantimev3.11.0: global search across the workspace
- 7mo agoBacklogBacklogAll-in-one project management
- 7mo agoBacklogCacooReal-time visual collaboration
- 7mo agoBacklogNulab PassEnterprise-grade security
- 8mo agoBacklogChart groups gain date-range bars; Android 3.0.1 redesign lands
- 8mo agoBacklogSupportNulab AccountCacooBacklogNulab PassView Nulab Help Center
- 9mo agoBacklogLearnProject ManagementSoftware DevelopmentCollaborationDesign & UXStrategy & PlanningView all topics
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Backlog and Leantime?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Leantime is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Backlog better than Leantime?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Leantime is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other PM products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Backlog?
Top Backlog alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Backlog alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/backlog for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Leantime?
Top Leantime alternatives in PM are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Leantime alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/leantime for the full list with editorial commentary on each.