ClientNest – Client Portal Project Manager

ClientNest is a lightweight self-hosted project workspace for freelancers, agencies and service teams that need one clear place for client records, projects, tasks and customer collaboration.

It runs on standard PHP/MySQL hosting with no Composer build step, external API or paid SaaS dependency. The browser installer checks the server, connects to an existing database and creates the required tables automatically.

Key features

• Client, project and task management
• Team member and restricted client portal accounts
• Project tasks with priority, owner, status and due dates
• Task search and status filters
• Comments and protected file attachments
• Personal account settings and password changes
• Editable team and client accounts for administrators
• Responsive dashboard with project, task, client and overdue counters
• PDF, JPG, PNG, TXT and DOCX attachments up to 5 MB
• CSRF protection, password hashing, session hardening and login throttling
• Read-only public demo mode to protect sample data

Requirements

• PHP 8.0 or newer
• MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.4+
• PDO MySQL, Fileinfo, ZipArchive and PHP Sessions enabled
• Writable uploads directory

Included

Editable PHP source code, browser installer, database.sql, English HTML documentation and configuration sample. No external API, subscription or paid service is required.

Features

• Client, project and task management
• Team member and restricted client accounts
• Task priority, owner, status and due dates
• Search and status filters
• Comments and protected file attachments
• Account settings and password changes
• Admin management of team and client accounts
• Responsive dashboard
• CSRF protection, password hashing and login throttling

Requirements

• PHP 8.0 or newer
• MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.4+
• PDO MySQL, Fileinfo, ZipArchive and PHP Sessions enabled
• Apache or Nginx
• Writable uploads directory

Instructions

Installation

1. Upload the source folder contents to your web hosting.
2. Create an empty MySQL or MariaDB database in your hosting panel.
3. Open install.php in your browser.
4. Enter the existing database details and create the first administrator account.
5. Sign in and start creating clients, projects, tasks and client accounts.

Public demo

The public demo is read-only to protect sample data. Browsing, task filters and attachment downloads work; data-changing actions are disabled.

Demo access

Administrator: admin@clientnest.demo / DemoAdmin123!

Client: client@clientnest.demo / DemoClient123!