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