I built Plen because every planner I tried was either too much or too little.
I'm Wilbert — I run a creative studio in the Netherlands. My days are a mix of design projects, client deadlines, and trying to remember what I promised to deliver by Friday.
For years I tried every planning tool out there. The big ones like Monday.com and Asana wanted me to set up workflows, invite team members, connect integrations, and pay monthly for the privilege. I just wanted to see my week on a timeline. The simple ones — spreadsheets, to-do lists, sticky notes on my monitor — worked for about three days before everything became a mess again.
I wanted something in between. A proper Gantt chart planner that I could open, drag some blocks around, start a timer, and get on with my day. No account. No cloud. No "your free trial expires in 3 days." No loading screen while it syncs with a server I didn't ask for.
It didn't exist. So I built it.
Plen is the planner I wanted for my own studio. It runs on your computer, opens instantly, and stays out of your way. Your data lives on your machine — not on someone else's server. There's no subscription because I personally hate subscriptions for tools I use every day. You pay once, it's yours.
Is Plen going to replace Jira for a 200-person engineering team? No. Is it going to manage your enterprise resource allocation across twelve departments? Also no.
But if you're a freelancer, a small studio, or anyone who just wants to see their work on a timeline and know where their hours go — I think you'll like it. I built it for people like us.
Wilbert