Burndown and burnup charts

Burndown and burnup show progress toward completing a milestone. Burndown charts show the remaining issues (burndown) over the course of a project milestone. Burnup charts show the total number of issues against completed issues.

Similarities and differences

Burndown and burnup charts share some general features. Both burndown and burnup charts:

• Show the total number of issues for each day of the current milestone.
• Have a toggle between the total number of issues or the total weight of issues for each day of the milestone.

Differences between burndown and burnup charts are:

• Burnup charts contain a separate line representing completed issues over a milestone.
• Burnup charts reflect the difference between an issue being moved to another milestone (Total issues line goes down) and an issue being closed (Total issues line remains unchanged).
• Burndown charts measure “total issues minus closed issues” for each day while burnup charts measure the total issues (open and closed) separately from the issues resolved for each day.

Switch between number of issues and issue weight

To switch between the two settings, select either Issues or Issue weight above the charts.

When sorting by weight, make sure all your issues have a weight assigned, because issues with no weight are not represented in the remaining weight totals.

When to use burndown and burnup charts

Burndown and burnup charts provide valuable insights when tracking milestone progress. Their use depends on how you structure your milestones in your workflow.

These charts help teams:

• Visualize progress in real time throughout a milestone period.
• Identify potential delays early by comparing actual progress to ideal progress.
• Communicate status to stakeholders with easy-to-understand visual data.
• Make data-driven decisions about resource allocation and prioritization.

Use burndown charts to focus on remaining work. Use burnup charts to track both completed work and scope changes over time. Burnup charts are particularly useful for monitoring scope creep (uncontrolled additions to a project’s scope) by showing spikes in the chart’s total issues.

Burndown charts

Burndown charts show the number of issues over the course of a milestone.

At a glance, you see the current state for the completion a given milestone. Without them, you would have to organize the data from the milestone and plot it yourself to have the same sense of progress.

GitLab plots it for you and presents it in a clear and beautiful chart.

For an overview, check the video demonstration on Mapping work versus time with burndown charts.

To view a project’s burndown chart:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Plan > Milestones.
3. Select a milestone from the list.

To view a group’s burndown chart:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
2. Select Plan > Milestones.
3. Select a milestone from the list.

How burndown charts work

A burndown chart is available for every project or group milestone that has been attributed a start date and a due date.

The chart indicates the project’s progress throughout that milestone (for issues assigned to it).

In particular, it shows how many issues were or are still open for a given day in the milestone’s corresponding period.

You can also toggle the burndown chart to display the cumulative open issue weight for a given day.

Fixed burndown charts

For milestones created before GitLab 13.6, burndown charts have an additional toggle to switch between Legacy and Fixed views.

Legacy	Fixed

Fixed burndown charts track the full history of milestone activity, from its creation until the milestone expires. After the milestone due date passes, issues removed from the milestone no longer affect the chart.

Legacy burndown charts track when issues were created and when they were last closed, not their full history. For each day, a legacy burndown chart takes the number of open issues and the issues created that day, and subtracts the number of issues closed that day. Issues that were created and assigned a milestone before its start date (and remain open as of the start date) are considered as having been opened on the start date. Therefore, when the milestone start date is changed, the number of opened issues on each day may change. Reopened issues are considered as having been opened on the day after they were last closed.

Burnup charts

Burnup charts show the assigned and completed work for a milestone.

To view a project’s burnup chart:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Plan > Milestones.
3. Select a milestone from the list.

To view a group’s burnup chart:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
2. Select Plan > Milestones.
3. Select a milestone from the list.

How burnup charts work

Burnup charts have separate lines for total work and completed work:

• The Total line reflects changes to the scope of a milestone by measuring the number of issues assigned to that milestone.
• The Completed line measures that milestone’s number of closed issues.

When an open issue is moved to another milestone, the Total line goes down but the Completed line stays the same. The Completed line remains unchanged because it only tracks issues that are closed.

When an issue is closed, the Total line remains the same and the Completed line goes up.

Roll up weights

With tasks, a more granular planning is possible. If this feature is enabled, the weight of issues that have tasks is derived from the tasks in the same milestone. Issues with tasks are not counted separately in burndown or burnup charts.

How issue weight is counted in charts:

• If an issue’s tasks do not have weights assigned, the issue’s weight is used instead.
• If an issue has multiple tasks, and some tasks are completed in a prior iteration, only tasks in this iteration are shown and counted.
• If a task is directly assigned to an iteration, without its parent, it’s the top level item and contributes its own weight. The parent issue is not shown.

Weight rollup examples

Example 1

• Issue has weight 5 and is assigned to Milestone 2.
• Task 1 has weight 2 and is assigned to Milestone 1.
• Task 2 has weight 2 and is assigned to Milestone 2.
• Task 3 has weight 2 and is assigned to Milestone 2.

The charts for Milestone 1 would show Task 1 as having weight 2.

The charts for Milestone 2 would show Issue as having weight 4.

Example 2

• Issue has weight 5 and is assigned to Milestone 2.
• Task 1 is assigned to Milestone 1 without any weight.
• Task 2 is assigned to Milestone 2 without any weight.
• Task 3 is assigned to Milestone 2 without any weight.

The charts for Milestone 1 would show Task 1 as having weight 0.

The charts for Milestone 2 would show Issue as having weight 5.

Example 3

• Issue is assigned to Milestone 2 without any weight.
• Task 1 has weight 2 and is assigned to Milestone 1
• Task 2 has weight 2 and is assigned to Milestone 2
• Task 3 has weight 2 and is assigned to Milestone 2

The charts for Milestone 1 would show Task 1 as having weight 2.

The charts for Milestone 2 would show Issue as having weight 4.

Troubleshooting

Burndown and burnup charts do not show the correct issue status

A limitation of these charts is that the days are in the UTC time zone.

This can cause the graphs to be inaccurate in other timezones. For example:

• All the issues in a milestone are recorded as being closed on or before the last day.
• One issue was closed on the last day at 6 PM PST (Pacific time), which is UTC-7.
• The issue activity log displays the closure time at 6 PM on the last day of the milestone.
• The charts plot the time in UTC, so for this issue, the close time is 1 AM the following day.
• The charts show the milestone as incomplete and missing one closed issue.