22 Best Project Management Software in 2024 (+ Top Free Tools)

Updated Oct 23, 2023.

Are you looking for comprehensive project management software to help you plan, track, and deliver your projects more efficiently? Then, read on to discover 22 of the best project management software tools in 2023.

Clickup icon

ClickUp

Affordable project management app with the most inclusive free-forever plan (and extensive functionality).
Monday icon

Monday.com

Workflow management software offering high-quality process visualization and extensive functionality.
Wrike icon

Wrike

Highly customizable project management tool that simplifies complex projects into simple, manageable tasks.
Teamwork Projects Icon

Teamwork

Excellent project management app that gives you access to robust collaboration tools and enterprise-grade features.
Asana icon

Asana

User-friendly business management software that keeps teams organized while eliminating the busy work.

Our work is supported by affiliate commissions.

Managing projects is not a walk in the park. One of the best ways to efficiently manage and track a project and ensure a successful delivery is to use a project management system.

While good project management software leads to improved project performance, choosing the best project management software can be a bit of a challenge.

Not only are there dozens of project management software tools to choose from, but each tool also offers a varying set of features at different price points, which can make things a bit confusing.

In this guide, I have reviewed 22 of the best project management software tools to simplify things for you, complete with my recommendation of the five best choices.

What Is The Best Project Management Software?

Below are my top picks for the best project management software and tools in 2023.

1. ClickUp

Top-Notch Online Collaboration Software With The Most Inclusive Free Plan

Editor’s Take
9.4 out of 10
Best For:
Powerful free plan
Price:
$0 – $19 per member per month
Annual Discount:
Save 45%

ClickUp is a fantastic tool for managing all aspects of your business, but what stands out for me is ClickUp’s Free Forever plan. Despite being free for life, this plan gives you access to unlimited projects and lots of valuable features that you won’t find on the free plans offered by other project management software.

ClickUp is a multi-faceted process and task management tool that advertises itself as the one app to replace all other business apps, owing to the different things you can do with ClickUp.

You can use ClickUp to manage projects, sprints, finances, sales, human resources, business operations, customer relationships, remote work, and so much more thanks to its advanced project management capabilities.

ClickUp equips you with all the tools and features you need to plan and manage tasks, enhance communication and collaboration within your team, and manage team workload. You can also track and manage time, integrate with your favorite third-party tools, and prioritize your work.

Key Features

Everything view

The Everything view gives you a bird’s eye view of all your tasks and projects, making it easy to find whatever you are looking for, regardless of its location within the project hierarchy.

Spaces, folders, and lists

Keep your project well-organized with a hierarchy of spaces, folders, and lists. Use spaces to organize departments and teams, folders to organize initiatives and projects, and checklists to manage project tasks.

Multiple views

ClickUp allows you to view your project from different angles with 16 powerful views. These include list, board, box, calendar, Gantt, form, embed, activity, mind map, timeline, workload, table, map, and whiteboard views.

ClickApps

Extend the functionality of ClickUp and achieve more using the 35+ ClickApps available in the App Center. These include automations, integrations, templates, relationships, custom fields, and many more.

Pricing

Find out more ClickUp pricing or ClickUp review

ClickUp’s lowest plan starts at $5 per member per month, while their most costly plan starts at $19 per member per month. In addition, there’s a free forever plan for personal use, while large teams can contact sales for custom pricing on the Enterprise plan.

2. Monday.com

Best Project Management Software For Visual Representation Of Business Operations And Processes

Editor’s Take
9.1 out of 10
Best For:
Overall project management solution
Price:
$0 – $16 per seat per month
Annual Discount:
Save 18%

I love Monday.com's highly visual boards that make it very easy to understand everything happening within the project. I also love how intuitive and straightforward the Monday.com user interface is.

Monday.com is one of the most popular project management tools in the market today, and that’s with good reason.

Monday.com is an all-rounded project management app that offers an impressive set of project management features. Overall, I recommend Monday.com as the number one project management software.

Key Features

Clean, color-coded interface

Monday.com comes with a clean interface with color-coded boards that make it easy to visualize project progress at a glance.

Easy task and project management

Managing projects and tasks on Monday.com is super simple. You can create tasks, assign them tasks, build custom workflows, automate your workflows, change between different views to visualize your tasks and projects most suitably, and so on.

Collaboration

Communicate with your team in one central place, store files and documents and share them with your team, manage your team’s time and workload, and so much more.

Real-time updates

Monday.com sends out email notifications to remind you of due dates, as well as real-time updates whenever someone completes a task.

Automations

Set up customizable automations that allow you to do away with lengthy chain emails, avoid unnecessary meetings, and eliminate manual, repetitive work.

Prebuilt templates

For those new to project management and managers who want to save time, Monday.com also provides prebuilt templates that you can use to set up projects in a matter of minutes.

Pricing

Find out more Monday pricing or Monday review

Monday.com is a pretty affordable project management app, with its lowest plan starting at $8 per seat per month, while the highest plan starts at $16 per seat per month. There’s also a free forever plan and an Enterprise plan for larger organizations that want custom features.

Monday.com has a three minimum user requirement for all paid plans and a 14-day free trial.

3. Wrike

Powerful Project Planning Software For Complex Projects

Editor’s Take
8.7 out of 10
Best For:
Complex projects
Price:
$0 – $24.80 per user per month
Annual Discount:
No

If you handle complex projects with lots of moving parts, I believe Wrike is the best project management app for you. It comes with tons of organizational features that ensure that nothing gets neglected. I also love Wrike’s highly advanced reporting and data visualization options.

Wrike is a highly customizable project management software and collaboration software that helps project teams keep track of day-to-day operations and ensure everything is done on time and within budget.

Key Features

Excellent organization

Keeping your work and tasks organized is easy regardless of the complexity of your project, thanks to Wrike’s customizable dashboards, project-related folders, and shared calendars.

Collaboration

Live Editing allows team members to brainstorm and collaborate on tasks, while comments, @mentions, and real-time notifications ensure that everyone remains up-to-date on project progress. You also have the option of turning comments into tasks with Custom Request Forms.

Powerful Reporting

Wrike also has a powerful Custom Reporting tool that allows you to build custom dashboards to track project data and generate reports.

Multiple data visualization options

The data generated using the custom reporting tool can be visualized in the form of bar charts, pie charts, calendar heatmaps, and 12 other visual depictions, allowing you to show data in the most visually appealing way.

Pricing

Find out more Wrike pricing

Depending on your preferred plan, Wrike costs between $0 and $24.80 per user per month. Large teams can get enterprise-level features at custom pricing under the Enterprise and Pinnacle plans. You can try Wrike’s paid plans for free for 14 days.

4. Teamwork

Excellent Project Management System With Robust Collaboration Tools And Enterprise-Grade Features

Editor’s Take
8.3 out of 10
Best For:
Team collaboration
Price:
$0 – $18 per user per month
Annual Discount:
Save 25%

For me, two things make Teamwork a top project management solution. First, Teamwork offers enterprise-grade features while remaining reasonably affordable. Second, even for novices, teamwork is still easy to use despite the advanced features.

Teamwork is the perfect solution for any project manager looking for an integrated online project management tool that offers powerful, enterprise-level features coupled with a straightforward, simple interface.

Key Features

User-friendly interface

The simple interface makes all the information you need readily accessible without putting endless lists in your face or forcing you to click through dozens of screens.

Multiple views

You can view your tasks as a list or as Kanban boards, and there is a simple menu that makes it easy to find whatever you want.

Collaboration

Working together on projects is efficient and enjoyable, thanks to Teamwork’s excellent collaboration features like in-built messaging, note-taking, file sharing and document management, real-time editing, and guest access.

Automation

To eliminate manual work and speed up projects, Teamwork allows you to automate various actions and workflows, while Dashboards provide you with real-time insights about project health.

Integrations

Give Teamwork extra functionality by integrating it with dozens of popular business apps, including Slack, Hubspot, Xero, Dropbox, Quickbooks, Zapier, Google Drive, and many more.

Pricing

Find out more Teamwork pricing

Teamwork costs between $0 to $18 per user month. A custom-priced Scale plan is also available for teams looking for custom resources. You can try Teamwork for free for 30 days.

5. Asana

Best Business Management Solution For Organized Workflow

Editor’s Take
7.8 out of 10
Best For:
User-friendliness and ease of use
Price:
$0 – $24.99
Annual Discount:
Save 22%

I believe that no other project management tool beats Asana in simplicity, intuitiveness, and ease of use. Everything is well-organized, which is what you’d expect from a project management software named after a yoga pose.

Asana is another highly popular project management software that makes coordinating projects and remote teams fun and enjoyable. It is a simple project management tool that most people will find very easy to use.

Key Features

Simple, intuitive interface

At the core of Asana is a simple, intuitive, and colorful user interface that presents all the information you need in a well-organized manner.

Multiple views

To give you even greater control over information presentation, you can choose between Timeline, Board, and List view.

Inbox

Asana’s Inbox makes it easy for users to follow conversations and respond to comments and requests from one central place, rather than following conversations all over the app.

Templates

The pre-built templates allow you to get your projects up and running in just a few minutes. You can also set up projects from scratch or import data into projects as CSV files.

Multiple use cases

Asana is the perfect solution for managing content calendars, marketing campaigns, events, product development, customer relationships, and similar workflows.

Pricing

Find out more Asana pricing

Asana will cost you between $0 to $24.99 per user per month, depending on the features you want. Asana’s free plan offers unlimited projects, which is not common in most PM tools.

You can try Asana’s paid plans for free for 30 days.

6. SmartSheet

Best Spreadsheet-Based Project Scheduling Software

SmartSheet Best Spreadsheet-Based Project Scheduling Software

For those who like planning and scheduling their projects using spreadsheet software like Excel but at the same time want the dynamism and advanced features that come with dedicated project management platforms, Smartsheet is your best choice.

Smartsheet’s user interface looks like an intuitive spreadsheet packed with collaborative features, automated functions, and dashboards.

Key Features

Collaboration

Unlike ordinary spreadsheets, Smartsheet allows teams to communicate and collaborate seamlessly on projects, with features like instant chat, shared tasks, automated alerts, notes, and file sharing.

Activity Log

To keep everyone on the same page when multiple people are working on a project or task, Smartsheet has an Activity Log to track all changes made to a task and the reason behind each change.

Automation builder

Smartsheet also comes with an easy-to-use automation builder that allows you to set up automations by dragging and dropping. However, despite its simplicity, you can use the automation builder to set up highly advanced automations.

Integrations

Instead of switching between multiple apps, get work done in context by connecting Smartsheet to all your fav cloud apps, including Workplace Chat, Skype for Business, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office 365, G Suite, DocuSign, Outlook, and dozens of other productivity tools.

Pricing

Find out more Smartsheet pricing

Smartsheet has a Pro and Business plan costing $7 and $25 per user per month, respectively, and a custom-priced Enterprise plan. You can try the Pro and Business plans for free for 30 days.

7. Hive

Cloud Project Management Platform For High Performing Teams

Hive Cloud Project Management Platform For High Performing Teams

Launched in 2015, Hive is one of the newest project management tools in the market today.

This commercial software built by users for users. It brings a perfect combination of all the features you’d expect to find in a top-notch project management tool – collaboration, task management, resource management, and analytics.

Key Features

Four project views

Hive gives you a choice of four different views for keeping track of tasks, including Kanban View, Gantt View, Table View, and Calendar View. There’s also a “My Actions” section that shows you all tasks assigned to you.

Collaboration

Hive offers top-of-the-range collaboration features, including in-app email, in-app messenger, customized project access, proofing and approvals, task prioritization, and the ability to add email to cards.

Pre-built templates

To get you started as quickly and efficiently as possible, Hive comes with dozens of pre-built templates for project roadmaps, workflows, and even tasks. Just pick a template that works for you, customize it with a few clicks, and get started.

Reporting and analytics

Hive also has an Analytics feature that provides you with various insights about the progress and health of your project, such as project completion percentage, overdue tasks and actions, most productive resources, most productive days of the work, work done by each team member, and so on.

Time management

Hive’s time management features allow you to understand how your team is spending their time, track time by task or person, monitor resourcing by the hour or percentage, and manage your team’s shared calendar.

Pricing

Hive users get to choose between three pricing plans – Hive Solo plan costing $0, the Hive Teams plan starting at $12 per user per month, and Hive Enterprise, which offers custom features and custom pricing. There’s a 14-day free trial with the Hive Teams plan.

8. GanttPro

Best Gantt Chart Software For Project Tracking

GanttPro Best Gantt Chart Software For Project Tracking

GanttPro is an online task and project management software that uses Gantt charts to break down complex projects into simple, easy-to-follow tasks.

Key Features

Multiple project views

While GanttPro uses Gantt charts primarily, this is not the only view. GanttPro also gives you the option of visualizing your project in board, workload, list, and time log views.

Workload management

Resource management is easy with GanttPro’s Workload view, which allows you to track all the tasks assigned to different team members and redistribute tasks to prevent team members from being under or over-worked.

Team management and collaboration

Communicating, collaborating, and managing your team is a breeze on GanttPro with features like comments and @mentions, file attachments, calendar sync, and real-time notifications.

Resource management and cost estimations

GanttPro allows you to set hourly costs for a resource and add the resources to specific tasks. GanttPro then uses these figures and the estimated task durations to give you accurate cost estimates for various tasks or even the whole project.

Auto Scheduling

GanttPro has an Auto Scheduling feature that automatically adjusts tasks and dependencies in real-time based on changes made to the project.

Critical path analysis

The critical path feature is a helpful feature that shows you the shortest path to completion and gives you insights into how different changes will affect the critical path.

Pricing

GanttPro pricing

GanttPro’s Team plan costs $8.90 per user per month, while the Individual plan costs $15 per user per month. In addition, larger organizations can contact the GanttPro team for custom pricing on the Enterprise plan.

The Team and Individual plans have a 14-day free trial.

9. ProofHub

Smart Online Project Management Solution

proofhub Smart Online Project Management Solution

ProofHub is one of the best online project management solutions that provide teams and organizations with all the innovative tools they need to work quickly and efficiently and plan projects and track the project status, while at the same time keeping everything simple and easy to use.

Key Features

Task management features

With ProofHub’s task and project management features, you can create and assign tasks to multiple team members, set task deadlines, assign different priority levels to tasks, and even create recurring tasks.

Multiple visualization options

To plan and visualize your tasks, ProofHub gives you various options, including Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and Table view.

Seamless communication

To keep everyone in the loop, ProofHub allows you to create project, task, or team-wide discussions, with @mentions to get the right person’s attention. This means you don’t have to worry about crucial communication getting lost in a cluttered email inbox.

Timesheets

ProofHub also has a Timesheets feature that allows you to monitor how your team spends time across different tasks and track billable and non-billable hours.

Multiple languages

Many users also love that ProofHub supports various languages.

White labeling

ProofHub allows you to personalize the platform with your brand’s theme colors, logo, and custom domain.

Pricing

proofhub pricing

ProofHub offers two plans costing $45 and $150 per month. However, the Ultimate Control plan is currently on offer at $89. You can try either plan with a 14-day free trial.

10. Backlog

Best For Software Development Teams

Backlog Best For Software Development Teams

Backlog is the perfect project management software and collaboration tool for project managers and teams involved in software development. It comes with all the tools developers need to plan and schedule development tasks, review code, and track bugs.

Key Features

Different views

To plan, schedule and track tasks, Backlog offers three different views – Gantt charts, Kanban-style boards, and Burndown charts.

Custom Wikis

Backlog allows you to create custom Wikis that you can use to document and share knowledge within your team.

Code collaboration and reviews

Backlog gives you access to private cloud repositories to host your code and share it with other team members. Here, you can quickly review other people’s code, see who’s working on what code, and track changes. Backlog also allows you to create SVN and Git repositories.

Team collaboration

Backlog enhances collaboration and minimizes confusion with excellent team collaboration features like task comments, ability to add files to tasks, guest roles for freelancers, clients, and vendors, emojis, and support for integration with tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams.

Bug Tracking feature

This feature simplifies reporting bugs and tracking their resolution. You even have the option of assigning different priority levels to bugs.

Other useful features include drag and drop file management, push notifications, in-issue and in-task commenting, user stories, and Jira imports.

Pricing

Backlog pricing

Backlog has three main paid plans ranging between $35 to $175 per month. There’s also a free plan and an on-premise Enterprise plan starting at $1,200 per year. All plans have a 30-day free trial.

11. ProProfs Project

Intuitive Online Project Management App For Simple Task Management

ProProfs Intuitive Online Project Management App For Simple Task Management

ProProfs Project is an intuitive, award-winning online project management platform that helps project teams efficiently manage tasks while keeping everyone on the same page throughout the project's life.

With ProProfs Project, your team members will not miss out on any important task, milestone, or event, whether they are co-located or working remotely.

Key Features

Shared calendar

ProProfs Project gives you access to a shared calendar that keeps everyone in the loop. What’s more, ProProfs Project allows integration with popular calendar tools, such as Outlook and Google Calendar, enabling your team to sync their individual calendars with the shared team calendar.

Powerful dashboard

With a single look at your ProProfs Project dashboard, you’ll be able to see all your projects and how they are going. Your dashboard shows you the status of each project, time spent on the project, current progress, whether there are any pending actions, and so much more.

Unified communication

Instead of dealing with messy email threads, ProProfs Project allows team members to comment directly on tasks, which makes it a lot easier for other team members to follow conversations and understand the context behind these conversations.

Time management

ProProfs Project comes equipped with a time tracker that you can use to calculate billable and non-billable time.

Powerful reporting

Use ProProfs Project’s robust reporting features to generate project summaries, financial reports, project performance reports, and so on.

Pricing

ProProfs pricing

ProProfs Project is one of the most affordable project management apps, with two paid plans starting at $2 and $4 per user per month. There is a 15-day free trial on both plans and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

12. TeamGantt

Excellent Gantt-Based Project Management Tool For Small Businesses

TeamGantt-Get-a-top-rated-gantt-chart-for-free-forever

As you can tell from the name, TeamGantt is a simple project management app based on Gantt charts. TeamGannt uses Gantt charts to visualize project timelines.

TeamGantt is relatively easy to set up and use and is particularly well-suited for small businesses and creative teams looking for an easy way to plan, schedule, and manage projects.

Key Features

Beautiful Gannt charts

At the heart of TeamGantt are the beautifully designed Gantt charts, which give you a quick view of project tasks, their start and end dates, the team members assigned to the tasks, as well as the relationships between the tasks.

Drag and drop simplicity

The Gantt charts come with a drag and drop function, which significantly simplifies the process of adjusting timelines, reordering tasks, and changing start and end dates.

Alternative views

Just because TeamGantt is Gantt-based, that doesn’t mean you’re limited to Gantt charts in all situations. If you want a different view of your project, you can switch to Kanban, List, or Calendar view with a single click.

Centralized hub

TeamGantt also provides a centralized location where you can keep all your conversations, tasks, and documents, making it easy for your team to quickly find the latest project files, updates, and chats.

Workload management

TeamGantt’s workload and resource management features allow you to boost productivity by ensuring everyone has enough work to do while ensuring no one is overloaded.

Other useful TeamGantt features include workload management, portfolio views and reports, baseline comparisons, project templates, time tracking, and a dedicated mobile app.

Pricing

TeamGantt-Pricing

TeamGantt has a Free plan that supports up to 3 users and a Standard and Advanced plan starting at $19.90 and $24.45 per month. The Standard and Advanced plans offer a 30-day free trial.

13. LiquidPlanner

Dynamic Workflow Software For Fast-Moving Teams

LiquidPlanner Dynamic Workflow Software For Fast-Moving Teams

LiquidPlanner is a powerful workflow, project management, and collaboration tool that brings together time tracking, project management, and predictive scheduling.

Key Features

Predictive scheduling

One of LiquidPlanner’s best features is the predictive scheduling engine, which allows you to make intelligent estimates based on what is currently happening within the project. This helps mitigate project risks caused by changes made to the project once it is underway.

Powerful dashboard

LiquidPlanner is also highly suitable for any project manager overseeing multiple projects simultaneously. From the LiquidPlanner dashboard, you can view tasks, project progress, budgets, and even risks for all your projects in one central place.

Automatic resource allocation and leveling

Conveniently track your team members' work and balance your team’s workloads across multiple projects.

Change tracking

When teams work on the same thing, changes occur often and can easily lead to confusion. To prevent this, LiquidPlanner has a change tracking tool that allows team members to follow all changes and stay up-to-date on the latest versions.

Analytics and reporting

You also get advanced analytics and reporting tools that allow you to monitor project performance effectively, view resource allocation and utilization, and track metrics like costs and profits.

Pricing

LiquidPlanner pricing

LiquidPlanner has a free forever plan for those just getting started with project management software. They also have three paid plans – an Essentials, Professional, and Ultimate plan starting at $15, $25, and $35 per user, respectively.

The Ultimate plan comes with a 14-day free trial. You can also request a demo on all three paid plans.

14. Celoxis

Offers Robust Resource Management And Issue Tracking Features

Celoxis Offers Robust Resource Management And Issue Tracking Features

Celoxis is a straightforward project management and work management platform that gives you a combination of dynamic dashboards, enterprise-grade features, and a high level of customization.

Key Features

Robust project planning tools

Planning your projects on Celoxis is a breeze thanks to the powerful project planning tools like automatic scheduling, the ability to assign multiple resources to a task, and inter-project dependencies.

Advanced project tracking

Tracking your project is similarly easy with milestones, RAG health indicators, project baselines, and critical path analysis.

Time and budget tracking

To track project budgets and spending, Celoxis provides you with an in-built time tracker for client billing, a revenue forecasting feature, a profit and margin tracking feature, and the ability to create your own custom financial KPIs.

Advanced reporting features

Celoxis also offers highly advanced reporting features, including an intelligent reporting engine that you can use to automatically generate insightful reports, time-phased data reports, drill-down charts, and the ability to quickly export and share reports.

SaaS and on-premise options

Celoxis comes both as a Software-as-a-Service (Saas) platform and an on-premise solution for organizations that prefer hosting their data on their own servers.

Pricing

Celoxis pricing

Celoxis costs $22.50 per user per month for the cloud version and $450 per user for the on-premise version. The per-user fee for the on-premise version is a one-time fee. Celoxis has a minimum requirement of 5 users and a 30-day free trial on the cloud version.

15. Workzone

Middle-Ground Project Management Solution Offering Perfect Blend Of Power And Simplicity

Workzone-Middle-Ground-Project-Management-Solution-Offering-Perfect-Blend-Of-Power-And-Simplicity

Workzone is a top project management software that offers more robust features than you’ll find on most entry-level project management apps while retaining the simplicity and user-friendliness of the entry-level tools.

Key Features

To-Do Lists

Keeping track of tasks is easy with Workzone’s To-Do Lists, which are automatically emailed to team members so that everyone knows what they need to be working on each day.

Status alerts

Status Alerts ensure that no work slips through the cracks by highlighting late tasks and automatically sending out email reminders for work falling behind schedule.

Workload Reports feature

This is a valuable feature that allows you to visualize whether your resources are over or under-utilized and then reallocate work to balance the workload and ensure optimum resource utilization.

Group calendar

Workzone gives you access to a group calendar that allows you to filter and monitor tasks by department or client and send reminders and updates to people who fall under that specific group.

White labeling

Many teams and organizations will appreciate that Workzone allows custom branding. This means that you can use your own logo or branding on the platform, truly making Workzone your own.

Pricing

Workzone pricing

Workzone has three pricing plans costing $24, $34, and $43 per user per month. Unfortunately, Workzone doesn’t offer a free plan or a standard free trial. Instead, what they offer is a free demo.

Those who want more access before buying the software can request a custom free trial.

16. Basecamp

Best Collaboration Software For Remote Work

Basecamp Best Collaboration Software For Remote Work

Launched in 2004, Basecamp is not a new project management software in the market. However, it uses a modern interface that resembles a social media platform and offers a slew of collaboration features that make it the perfect option for remote teams.

Key Features

Message boards

At the heart of Basecamp’s collaboration features is Message Boards, a central archive from which you can access all your conversations.

Designated discussion area

Basecamp also has a designated discussion area for team members to bounce ideas off each other and gather feedback.

Daily email updates

Basecamp keeps everyone in the loop by sending daily status updates via emailletting users know where a project stands each day.

Robust project management tools

For project management, you get all the necessary features and tools, such as scheduling, to-do lists, file storage, task assignments, and so on.

Automatic check-in questions

Basecamp also offers automatic check-in questions that allow you to quickly ask your team members to update you on their tasks and progress. Examples of such check-in questions include “what did you work on today?” or “what are you working on this week?”

Multiple views

Basecamp has multiple project views, including a Schedule view that shows start and end dates for project tasks and events. There’s also an Activity view that shows you what team members are working on, upcoming milestones, and overdue tasks, as well as a My Stuff view that shows you all the work assigned to you.

Pricing

Unlike most other project management software covered in this guide, Basecamp does not charge you based on the number of users.

Instead, they have a flat fee of $99 per month. However, this approach makes Basecamp relatively costly for small teams compared to other project management tools.

Basecamp offers a 30-day free trial and free access for teachers and students.

17. Trello

Best Kanban-Based Project Management Software

Trello Best Kanban-Based Project Management Software

Trello is more of an online Kanban tool than a fully-featured project management tool.

However, the card-based Kanban interface is straightforward to use. Simply create cards for different things, such as tasks and conversations, and place them anywhere on the board by dragging them around with your mouse.

Key Features

Flexible and versatile

The use of a Kanban-based system makes Trello a lot more flexible and free-formThis makes Trello perfect for managing all kinds of work, from small individual projects to big projects with complex workflows.

Detailed cards

rello also allows you to add all kinds of details to cards, including documents and images, due dates, task assignees, custom dropdowns, hyperlinks, and so on.

Smart automations

Another great feature on Trello is Butler, an intelligent virtual assistant that helps you automate workflows based on various rule-based triggers.

Powerful integrations

Add specific functionalities to Trello with custom PowerUps, or connect Trello to apps your team already uses, such as Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, and Confluence.

Reporting

Trello’s reporting tools are not the most comprehensive, but you can use third-party extensions to add more robust reporting capabilities to Trello.

Pricing

Trello pricing

Trello pricing plans cost $5, $10, and $17.50 per user per month for the Standard, Premium, and Enterprise plans, respectively.

The Enterprise plan gets cheaper as you increase the number of users. Trello also has a great free plan for individuals and small marketing teams looking to keep work organized without spending any money on a project management app.

Trello allows interested users to try the Premium plan with a 14-day free trial.

18. Podio

#1 Solution For Building Powerful Low-Code Business Solutions

Podio #1 Solution For Building Powerful Low-Code Business Solutions

Podio is an easy-to-use and highly customizable workflow software designed to bring clarity and focus to your team and get them to work in sync.

A truly holistic platform, Podio gives you access to project and task management tools, personal dashboards, automated workflows, unlimited storage, meeting scheduling, integrated chat, data visualization, social collaboration, a connected CRM, and many other very useful features.

Key Features

Podio Apps

One of the best things I love about this software is Podio Apps, which allows you to use if-this-then-that logic to build your own low-code business solutions tailored to solve your team’s unique challenges.

Podio app market

If building your own app sounds like too much of a hassle, you can browse through the one million+ apps created by other users and customize them for your business.

Collaboration

Podio also has a robust set of communication and collaboration features that make it very easy for teams to communicate and collaborate on projects. These features include instant messaging, task commenting, status posts, and video and audio meetings.

Integrations

Podio supports seamless connections to dozens of business and productivity apps, including GoToMeeting, Dropbox, ShareFile, Google Drive, Excel, Zendesk, and many others.

Pricing

Podio pricing

Podio has a free forever plan supporting up to 5 users and three paid plans starting at $7.20, $11.20, and $19.20 per user per month. Unfortunately, Podio does not offer a free trial on their paid plans.

19. Nifty

Powerful Project Tracker For Handling Client Work

Nifty Powerful Project Tracker For Handling Client Work

Nifty is a simple project tracking and collaboration software designed to be an all-in-one workspace for managing projects and tasks and reducing project development cycles.

The web-based platform also improves productivity by providing a simple way for teams to communicate, collaborate, and automate their workflows.

Key Features

Project home

Nifty allows you to customize your own project home screen, from where you can view all your projects and tasks and gain insights into what is going on within each project.

Powerful communication features

Nifty particularly excels in collaboration due to its well-thought-out communication features. Team members can brainstorm and share ideas with Discussions, while messages shared in these discussions can be easily converted into tasks.

File management and sharing

If you need to share project-related material, Nifty allows you to upload or share files directly from your hard drive or file-sharing services like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Multiple project views

Nifty has multiple views that enable you to track your project at different levels easily. The Kanban view makes it easy to maintain a high-level view of the project and prioritize tasks, while the Detail view makes it easier to track project milestones.

Time tracking

Nifty’s time tracking tool gives you detailed breakdowns of how your team spends their time, allowing you to drive efficiency and make smarter decisions.

Pricing

Nifty uses two pricing systems – a per-user pricing system and a flat-rate pricing system. Under the per-user pricing system, Nifty has three plans costing $5, $10, and $16 per member per month.

Under the flat-rate pricing system, Nifty also has three paid plans costing $39, $79, and $124 per month, with a limit of 10, 20, and 50 members, respectively.

Nifty also has a free forever plan and a fully scaled Unlimited plan that costs $399 per month. The paid plans come with a 14-day free trial under the per user and the flat-rate pricing system.

20. Microsoft Project

Best Project Management Tool For Big Projects

Microsoft Project Best Project Management Tool For Big Projects

Developed in 1984, Microsoft Project is one of the oldest project management software tools.

However, Microsoft Project has received several updates over the years to match the changing needs of project teams, and today, it is still the project scheduling software of choice for lots of experienced project managers.

Key Features

Familiar user interface

The user interface on Microsoft Project resembles what you’ll find in most other Microsoft Office apps. People who are conversant with other Microsoft Office apps will find it relatively easy to figure out how to use Microsoft Project.

Highly detailed tasks

One of the things you’ll love on Microsoft Projects is the ability to add a high level of detail to tasks and resources. For instance, when you select a specific team member, you can see this person’s availability, all the tasks assigned to them, the start and end dates for these tasks, and so on.

Powerful reporting

Use pre-built templates to whip up reports quickly or create your own custom reports that suit your needs. What’s more, you can easily export these reports to PowerPoint.

Dynamic scheduling

Microsoft Project has an intelligent scheduling engine that allows you to optimize your resource allocations based on availability, project duration, and effort required to complete a task.

The major downside to Microsoft Project is its high cost, which makes it only practical for large organizations running big projects with big budgets.

Pricing

Microsoft-Project-pricing

Microsoft Project has a cloud-based solution that offers three pricing plans ranging between $10 to $55 per user per month.

The on-premise solution has two major pricing plans costing $679.99 and $1,129.99. A 30-day free trial is available for the paid plans on the cloud-based version.

21. Scoro

End-to-End Work Management Software

Scoro End-to-End Work Management Software

Scoro is a comprehensive end-to-end solution that gives you access to a combination of all the features you need to keep your business running, from workflow management, reporting, and financial management to customer relationship management and team collaboration.

Key Features

Customizable views

Scoro comes with multiple customizable views that allow you to focus on different aspects of your project. Use board view to get a bird’s eye view of your project, or switch to Gantt view to see scheduled tasks and track progress.

Sales and CRM

With the Sales and CRM feature, you can see all communications between clients and your team, track leads, send quotes and invoices, track team and individual targets, and make sales forecasts.

Time management

Scoro has an in-built time tracker to help you keep an eye on where and how your team members are spending their time, as well as shared calendars and timesheets. You can also use the in-built time tracker to monitor billable and non-billable hours and then use these as a basis for developing client invoices.

Automated reports

Scoro also has an automated reports feature that simplifies the process of generating project reports, making it easy to monitor risk areas, identify bottlenecks, and analyze your processes for improved project performance.

Pricing

Find out more Scoro pricing

Scoro plans range between $26 and $63 per user per month. All paid plans require a minimum of 5 users and offer a 14-day free trial. There’s also an Ultimate plan with custom features and pricing.

22. MeisterTask

Best Agile Project Management Software

MeisterTask Best Agile Project Management Software

MeisterTask is a simple project management app that is part of the Meister Suite – a collection of products designed to help businesses manage their workflows effectively and efficiently.

MeisterTask is perfectly suited for project managers running agile projects and is an excellent tool for running software sprints. However, it also works well with other workflows, including Kanban systems and simple static project boards.

Key Features

User-friendly interface

MeisterTask comes with a beautifully-designed interface that makes using this tool easy and enjoyable.

Personal board

MeisterTasks’s personal board allows you to keep your tasks organized by pinning them on a board customized for you.

Intuitive task management tool

Managing tasks on MeisterTask is simple, thanks to intuitive task management features like assignees and watchers, time tracking, due dates, file attachments on tasks, multiple checklists, and custom fields.

Collaboration

You also get access to handy but straightforward collaboration features, such as task scheduling, user mentions, task watching, email notifications, and tags.

Integrations

MeisterTask supports integrations with dozens of third-party tools, such as Gmail, Slack, MS Teams, GitHub, and Timely, in addition to the Meister Suite of tools.

There’s also an in-built time tracker, task checklists, WIP task limits (allows you to limit how many tasks a team member can take on simultaneously), automations, and task relationships feature for defining dependencies.

Pricing

MeisterTask pricing

MeisterTask has a Basic plan that is free forever and two paid plans, a Pro plan starting at $4.19 per month and a Business plan starting at $10.39 per month. In addition, large companies can request custom pricing with the Enterprise plan.

Types Of Project Management Software

Project management software can be categorized into several different types depending on the central problem they solve, how they solve it, and the kind of user they are designed for.

Some common types of project management software include:

Best Project Management Tools FAQ

What is project management software?

Project management software refers to digital tools and applications that allow a project manager to plan and manage projects more efficiently to ensure successful completion.

Project management software makes it easier to plan project schedules, track projects, create, assign, and track project tasks, communicate and collaborate, track and manage time, plan and track budgets, and manage bugs and errors.

What are the top features of project management software?

Some of the top features that are a must-have for every top project management software include:

– Project planning and scheduling
– Task management
– Time and budget tracking
– Communication and team collaboration
– Document management and sharing
Project dashboards
– Resource management
– Monitoring and reporting
– Third-party software integrations

How much does a project management tool cost?

Most project management tools are relatively affordable. For example, for web-based project management apps, the price can be as low as $2 per user per month for the lowest plans, but higher plans with more features will cost a lot more.

It’s also good to keep in mind that while the costs seem low, they can quickly add up as the number of users increases. For instance, $5 per user per month seems low, but if you have 20 users, that translates to $100 per month or $1,200 per year.

Many web-based project management tools also offer free forever plans, but these often have limitations that make them suitable for personal use only.

The costs are much higher for on-premise project management tools, ranging from about $600 to thousands and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars.

How to get the most out of project management tools?

Here are some tips that will help you take full advantage of your project management software:

– Choose the right project management tool for your team based on your needs.
– Ensure that the project management software is scalable to different projects.
– Pick a mobile-friendly tool that you and your team can use even outside the office.
– Integrate your project tracking tool with third-party tools for increased functionality.
– Train your team members to enable them to make full use of all the tool’s features.
– Spend some time defining your workflows before you start setting up projects.

What are the best project management apps for small teams?

Some of the best project management software for small businesses and small teams include:

ClickUp
Monday.com
Wrike
Teamwork
Asana

What is the best free project management software?

The best free project management software is ClickUp. While there are several other project management tools with free forever plans, ClickUp’s free forever plan offers a lot more features and fewer limitations compared to what you get on other free forever plans.

What are the best project management apps for large organizations?

Some of the best project management software for large organizations and enterprises include:

Microsoft Project
Celoxis
Scoro
TeamGantt
Basecamp

How to choose the right project management software?

To ensure you choose the best project management software, you need to:

– Analyze the needs of your team
– Check whether the software offers the features you need based on your business model, workflows, and target outcomes.
– Check how user-friendly the software is
– Consider your budget
– Consider the integrations supported by the software
– Go for a mobile-friendly project management software
– Consider the level of support offered
– Involve your team in choosing the software since they’ll also be using it.
– Try out the software and get feedback from your team before making the purchase decision.

Project Management Software Comparison

All the project management software and tools covered in this guide are highly reliable and help you improve your team’s productivity and deliver projects faster.

Our top 5 best project management software from the list are:

Best Overall

ClickUp

Affordable project management app with the most inclusive free-forever plan.
Best for Extensive Functionality

Monday.com

Versatile workflow management software that offers high-quality process visualization and extensive functionality.
Best for Complex Projects

Wrike

Robust and highly customizable online project management tool that simplifies complex projects into simple, manageable tasks.
Best for Collaboration

Teamwork

Excellent project management app that gives you access to robust collaboration tools and enterprise-grade features.
Best for Organized Workflow

Asana

User-friendly business management software that keeps teams organized while eliminating the busy work.

If you need to make a quick choice, I recommend picking one of these.

However, suppose you still need some more information before making your decision. In that case, you can check out the project management software reviews below for comparisons and more detailed reviews of these project management tools.

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Martin Luenendonk

Editor at FounderJar

Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.

This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.