14 Best Visual Project Management Software 2024 (+ Free Tools)
The right visual project management software can help you and your team quickly assess where your project stands. Here we’ve reviewed the 14 best visual project management software in the market with our top 5 choices.
Monday.com
ClickUp
Wrike
Teamwork
The best visual project management software helps you communicate clearly with your team and keeps everyone on the same page. When working on a complex project, it's unlikely that people will work on the right things unless they understand how each task contributes to the project's success. A visual project management tool lets you do exactly that.
With so many tools in the market, it might be difficult for you to choose the best one. The visual project management solutions mentioned in our review are the best and have unique features that set them apart from others.
Key Visual PM Software Features
While visual PM software is excellent for collaboration, there are a few other reasons why it might help you organize and grow your business.
- Quickly upload pictures to the dashboard for visual proofing.
- Visually organizing and managing projects and tasks with a drag-and-drop tool.
- Actionable and insightful reports in the form of charts and graphs, making them easier to understand.
- Access to the kanban boards or other charts to plan out the project.
- Note-taking tools, like sticky notes, built right into the application.
- Access to colored labels for tracking project progress or due dates.
- A shared, visual calendar where your team members can view their upcoming tasks and meetings.
Best Visual Project Management Software
Here is the best visual project management software you should try out for your business.
- Monday.com
- ClickUp
- Wrike
- Teamwork
- Asana
- Smartsheet
- ProjectManager
- KIssflow
- GanttPRO
- Backlog
- Hive
- Jira
- Process Street
- Microsoft Planner
1. Monday.com
Best Visual Project Management Software with a Visual Dashboard
Monday.com offers a visual operating system developed for the new age of working.
Best Features
Gantt Charts
Keep track of your project schedule and scope with the help of visual charts. The tool lets you manage your milestones and dependencies more efficiently and gives you access to visual, easy-to-understand metrics.
Customizable Forms
Streamline and visualize projects and tasks to deliver your best work with customizable forms. These forms let you instantly create items on your board to keep track of where everything stands. Customizable forms make Monday.com one of the best visual project management solutions.
Visual Dashboard
Monday.com offers a shared platform to bring the entire team together and collaborate. Project managers can easily update changes in real-time, allocate resources, and bridge any silos with communication tools.
Workload view
The visual workload view lets you analyze and manage your teamโs resources. You can easily assign them to work, manage the burnout, and adapt to the changing priorities.
Monday.com has five plans, including a free basic plan for its users.
Monday.com gives you access to a free 14-day trial, where you can create unlimited projects, access more than 200 templates, and build automations to save time.
2. ClickUp
Top Visual PM Software with Mind Maps
ClickUp brings your entire team together to track and collaborate on a project with a visual interface.
Best Features
Checklists
Outline each step for your team members by adding simple to-do lists to the dashboard. This will help them complete more complicated tasks efficiently. You can easily nest items and subitems or drag and drop them. By assigning your checklists, you can clarify who is working on what.
Task Dependencies
ClickUp's task dependency feature lets you set a clear order of operations by marking your tasks. You can either mark them as ‘waiting on' or ‘blocking others'. The dashboard also lets you link similar tasks to each other.
Goal Tracking
You can measure your goals by tying them to specific numbers or tasks. You can also set milestones for your project to signify when a crucial stage of a project is completed. This makes ClickUp one of the industry's best visual project management solutions.
Workload Management
With ClickUp, you can quickly view your team's work capacity. This can be measured based on hours, tasks, or points. Once you have a visual view of your team member's workload, you can manage and optimize it effectively.
ClickUp has five plans – Free, Unlimited, Business, Business Plus, and Enterprise.
ClickUp offers a free plan to its users, where you can create unlimited tasks, add unlimited members, and get access to sprint management options.
3. Wrike
Leading Visual Project Management Tool for Task Prioritization
Wrike is one of the most powerful visual project management software which removes barriers, lets your team find clarity, and exceeds all the goals.
Best Features
Visual Proofing
Wrike lets a project manager keep a detailed record of all the changes that have been done to the project. Visual proofing ensures that the feedback does not get lost in the process. They can also tag multiple team members as needed.
Project Portfolio Management
Drive more significant results with project portfolio management tools. This visual project management software lets you connect your strategy, planning, execution, and results into one flexible platform. With real-time optimization and insights, you can improve forecasting.
Intelligent Automation
This visual project management software is designed to minimize the time you spend on repetitive tasks. Wrike offers more than 400 tools that you can use to automate and personalize your workflows. This lets you accelerate different project tasks at each stage, making it one of the leading visual project management tools.
Advanced Analytics
Get real-time updates on your projects with advanced reporting tools. You can quickly visualize team performance and project progress with the help of these real-time insights and key performance indicators. These customized reporting tools let you view all the potential roadblocks and minimize any risks.
Wrike has four plans – Free, Professional, Business, and Enterprise.
With Wrike, you get access to a free 14-day trial, where you can create interactive Gantt charts, access shareable dashboards, and generate real-time reports.
4. Teamwork
Best Suited Visual Project Management Tool for Growing Companies
Teamwork offers an integrated tool to manage projects, which streamlines your collaboration and lets you track your teamโs performance at a glance.
Best Features
Kanban Board
Visualize your teamโs progress, map out your workflow, and automate your processes quickly with the Kanban board view. You can optimize all your processes in real-time and get deeper insights into the efficiency of your workflow. This helps you identify any blockers.
Shared Calendars
Teamwork gives you access to a shared team calendar where you can quickly view all the upcoming deadlines or meetings. This helps you keep everyone on your team updated.
Notebooks
Take down meeting notes easily and share them across the team with the help of notebooks. Project leaders can also write down their ideas and collaborate with the team on them. Teamwork lets them observe all the changes between different notebook versions as well. This is what makes Teamwork one of the unique visual project management tools in the market.
Resource Management
Make sure that you deliver your clientโs work on time and within budget with the help of resource management, capacity, and project planning. The visual workload planner lets you manage your teamโs work in real-time. You get a complete picture of everyoneโs capacity, allowing you to reassign tasks easily with these resource management features.
Teamwork has four plans – Free forever, Deliver, Grow, and Scale.
With Teamworkโs free forever plan, you can create subtasks, access a calendar view, and outline your project lifecycle using Gantt charts.
5. Asana
Top Online Project Management Software for Marketing Teams
Asana lets you bring your teamโs work together in a visual and shared dashboard, where you can seamlessly collaborate with everyone.
Best Features
Subtasks
Asana lets you break your work into manageable portions for you and your team. This helps your team understand what they should be working on. You can also divide a task into smaller subtasks and show additional steps needed to complete an overall task.
Attachments
The visual dashboard offered by this project management software allows you to add files directly from your computer or through links. You can attach files to any conversation or task. Asana lets you view these files either on an individual level or project level.
Customized Templates
With Asana, project managers get access to more than 50 project templates that they can personalize as per the project needs. They can also create your project templates and save them on the dashboard. This way, the team can quickly and easily kick start their work.
Portfolios
Get a real-time, visual overview of all the project tasks with Asana. This visual project management tool lets a project manager monitor the task status of all the projects in real-time. Portfolios help them keep all the initiatives or tasks on track and let them report real-time updates to the team.
Asana has three plans – Basic, Premium, and Business.
Asana offers a free 30-day trial, where you can access the workflow builder, create unlimited dashboards, and set your teamโs goals.
6. Smartsheet
Best Visual Project Management Software with Intelligent Workflows
Smartsheet offers a dynamic project management tool and workspace, helping your business move forward.
Best Features
Workflow Automation
Smartsheet lets you implement simple yet powerful workflow automations in just a few clicks. You can automate all your repetitive processes by requesting approvals or updates and sending alerts. The platform empowers businesses to create their automations with an intuitive visual editor.
Collaboration
Finalize your assets faster by project planning, managing, and reviewing your content through Smartsheet. You can use automated reminders to keep all your team members on schedule with the help of real-time communication and collaboration tools. With content collaboration and simultaneous proof reviewing, you can avoid bottlenecks.
Gantt Charts
The customizable charts offered by Smartsheet let you easily visualize your projects. You can also set up a Gantt chart with task dependencies. You can easily adjust deadlines or build dependencies between multiple tasks using a drag and drop tool. This is what makes Smartsheet one of the leading visual project management tools in the market.
Work Insights
Use Smartsheetโs work insights to make better and more informed business decisions. Project managers can uncover and visualize key trends, bottlenecks, and other activities.
Pros
- Create personalized dashboards as per your project needs.
- Get access to multiple visual data viewing options, including calendar and Gantt views.
- Knowledgeable and responsive customer support.
Cons
- Clunky and slightly slower user interface.
- Lacks built-in third-party integration capabilities, including Trello or Google Sheets.
- Lacks a native time tracking option.
Smartsheet has three plans – Pro, Business, and Enterprise.
Smartsheet offers a free 30-day trial, where you can create unlimited sheets, build automations, and view your data in Gantt or calendar views.
7. ProjectManager
Leading Visual Project Management Application for Managing Sprints
ProjectManager lets you plan and collaborate across different remote teams and work styles, offering better visibility and greater productivity.
Best Features
Task Lists
This visual task management software lets you manage your tasks in multiple work views. You can easily assign different project tasks to multiple members of your team, track projects and their productivity, and drive progress across your projects. Personalized or team tasks lists let you manage and prioritize your work.
Visual Timesheets
ProjectManager gives you access to online timesheets to track time, log hours, and view your teamโs productivity at a glance. This helps you create visual reports for a better analysis. Timesheets also help you streamline your project budgeting and payroll.
Manage sprints
Maximize the teamโs productivity and manage project expectations by tracking their progress in real-time. These flexible boards help a project manager create sprint plans and set milestones for agile project management. This is what makes ProjectManager one of the unique visual project management tools in the market.
Resource Visibility
This visual project management software gives you access to real-time resource visibility. You can balance your team workload, manage projects, and assign resources quickly. These resource management features let you always have the right people and materials available for the task at hand.
Pros
- Knowledgeable and responsive customer support team.
- Make better business decisions with agile and customizable reports.
- Seamlessly integrate with third-party applications, including Salesforce and Slack.
Cons
- Lacks an intuitive user interface.
- Limited mobile application features.
- Medium learning curve.
ProjectManager has four plans – Starter, Team, Business, and Enterprise.
With ProjectManager, you get access to a free plan, where you can add up to 3 users, outline your project lifecycle using kanban boards, and access 2GB of online storage.
8. Kissflow
Top Visual Project Management Tool with Flow Efficiency Reports
Kissflow lets you manage your project your way, plan your teamโs work, and deliver results intuitively with minimal tracking.
Best Features
Multiple Views
Kissflow lets you view your data in multiple formats. The kanban view lets you visualize the flow of your tasks. With the matrix view, you get alacrity on whoโs working on what. The platform lets you view all the tasks assigned to you, acting as a personal to-do list.
Task States
This visual project management tool gives you a visual overview of the progress of your tasks. With the hold, in progress, or done states, you can get accurate information on what your team is working on at the moment.
Insightful Reports
Kissflow gives you access to actionable and insightful reports, which you can use to make better business decisions. The flow efficiency reports help you visualize the team efficiency and calculate the time taken to complete tasks. With the cumulative flow report, you can identify any bottlenecks.
Activity Logs
With Kissflow, you can track the history of each task performed by your team members. This lets you ensure that nothing falls through the crack and no critical information is missed.
Pros
- Interact continuously with your team or clients to deliver quality feedback throughout the process.
- Stay in line with your budgets.
- Knowledgeable and responsive customer support.
Cons
- Lacks efficient exporting capabilities.
- Lacks an intuitive and interactive interface.
- Limited mobile application functionalities.
Kissflow has three plans – Free, Basic, and Advanced.
Kissflow offers a free plan where you can set up deadlines, create custom statuses, and build a simple activity log for customers.
9. GanttPRO
Leading Visual Project Management Software for Gantt Charts
GanttPRO is an online visual project management solution based on Gantt charts, helping you keep your project planning simple and your team engaged.
Best Features
Auto Scheduling
GanttPRO offers project managers a visual scheduler that tracks all the changes that may happen to the projectโs dependent tasks. This feature recalculates the dates accordingly and sets due dates for the team members.
Data Synchronization
With real-time synchronization, project managers and team members can work with the most updated information. They can also track any changes made to the project instantly. This makes GanttPRO one of the leading visual project management tools in the market.
Project Health
With GanttPRO, you can easily track the status or health of your project. You can monitor the number of project tasks completed, unassigned, or overdue through the visually appealing dashboard. With project health, your clients or stakeholders can always be aware of the progress of your project.
Workload Management
The workload dashboard offered by this visual project management software helps you manage the workload and access efficient resource utilization. It gives you a birdโs eye view of who has time for more assignments and who is overloaded. You can then reschedule these tasks to avoid any roadblocks or delays.
Pros
- Make better decisions with advanced reports and insights.
- Quickly invite people through the platform to collaborate with.
- Clean and interactive user interface.
Cons
- Limited mobile application features.
- Limited customization options for kanban boards.
- Lacks multiple color options to differentiate between multiple roles.
GanttPRO has three plans – Individual, Team, and Enterprise.
With GanttPRO, you get access to a free 14-day trial, where you can create Gantt charts, access insightful reports, track tasks and their dependencies,
10. Backlog
Leading Visual Project Management tool for Code Management
Backlog is one of the few software that offers project and code management that your team needs to release great projects.
Best Features
Bug Tracking
With bug tracking, you can make the process of how your team records, tracks, and manages bugs easier. This visual project management tool alerts your team with push notifications each time a new issue is detected.
Version Control
Backlog lets you collaborate on code and host it securely on the cloud. The visual version control gives you a clear view of who is working on what, reviews your teamโs work, and tracks all the changes.
Task Hierarchy
Organize your workflow in a better manner and take more control of your task management with task hierarchy. You can easily use the drag-and-drop tool to create parent and child project tasks and assign them to your team members. Task hierarchy makes Backlog one of the best visual project management tools for task organization.
Gantt Charts
With these charts, you can plan and visualize projects better and achieve desired results. It offers you a high-level view of your entire project and visualizes your entire project timeline at a glance.
Pros
- Personalize icons on your dashboard.
- Minimize your projectโs risks with bug tracking.
- Interactive and easy-to-use interface.
Cons
- Unresponsive customer support.
- Expensive monthly plans.
- Limited feedback options.
Backlog has four plans – Free, Starter, Standard, and Premium.
With Backlog, you get access to a free plan, where you can add up to 10 users, track issues, and access 100MB of cloud storage space.
11. Hive
Best Suited Visual Project Management Software for Agile Tracking
Hive is one of the best visual project management software in the industry built for and by users, helping remote teams move faster.
Best Features
Multi-Project Overviews
Hive's visual interface gives you a quick overview of multiple projects your team is working on. This software's portfolio and summary view let you add custom fields to your project plans.
Recurring Tasks
Save time by automating all your recurring tasks. This automation lets you focus more on the crucial tasks and get your project completed in time. Easy automation makes Hive one of the best visual PM tools in the industry.
Visual Proofing
Hive lets you easily proofread and leave feedback on your project's creative assets. Both internal and external approvers can join the board and leave comments, annotate, or approve multi-stage design processes. You can also visually proof the added URLs.
Notes
This visual PM software lets you create meeting agendas and sync them during the meeting with the help of Hive notes. Hive offers pre-built templates, which you can customize and collaborate on in real-time.
Pros
- Interactive, intuitive, and easy-to-use interface.
- Robust and knowledgeable customer support team.
- Improve the platform's overall performance by segmenting and tagging your data.
Cons
- Limited searching and sorting options for individual projects.
- Limited mobile application features.
- Files deleted on the platform are removed permanently from the database.
Hive has three plans – Solo, Teams, and Enterprise.
Hive offers a free 14-day trial, where you can outline and visualize projects with Gantt charts, automate your workflows, and collaborate efficiently with your team.
12. Jira
Best Visual Tracking Project Management Solution
Jira is one of the most popular development and visual tool used by agile software development teams.
Best Features
Scrum Boards
Jira creates a culture of team collaboration within the scrum framework, allowing remote teams to manage complex projects efficiently. These boards promote sprint planning and iterative development. This visual project management software enhances communication and transparency within your project teams.
Roadmaps
Roadmaps offered by this visual PM software let you stay on target to achieve your goals. They help you release projects on time, plan smarter, and communicate in a better manner.
Agile Reporting
Jira offers more than 12 reports to help you analyze the performance of your team and the progress of your project. These real-time, actionable insights help you improve your team's productivity as well. Agile reports make Jira one of the leading visual PM tools in the market.
Automation
Jira offers a robust automation engine that lets you easily automate all your tasks and processes. By building these rules across multiple products and integrations, you can increase the power of your software.
Pros
- Personalize your interface with custom filters.
- Easily update your team, client, and stakeholders about the project status.
- Seamlessly integrate with third-party applications, including Slack and Github.
Cons
- Lacks built-in project timelines to track your projectโs progress.
- Steep learning curve.
- Cannot add more than two team members to a single task.
Jira has four plans – Free, Standard, Premium, and Enterprise.
With Jira, you get access to a free plan, where you can add up to 10 users to your team, access agile reports, and build customizable workflows.
13. Process Street
Top Visual Project Management Software with Conditional Workflows
Process Street is the most straightforward way to manage your team's recurring workflows.
Best Features
Visual Documents
Create structured documents in seconds with their simple interface. Process Street offers pages to capture, organize, and share your established team knowledge. The intuitive keyboard shortcuts and drag-and-drop interface make creating procedure documents easier.
Conditional Workflows
With Process Street, a project manager can quickly create workflows and assign them to team members. They can create dynamic workflows that will adapt to the team's changing needs by using conditional logic.
WebForms
The web forms offered by this visual project management software let project leaders collect structured data in their workflows. This data can be entered manually into the platform or exported from a third-party application.
Activity Feed
Process Street gives you access to a visual activity feed. Through this feed, you can analyze all the tasks or subtasks completed by your team members. This helps you track their performance and enhance the productivity of your team.
Pros
- Save time by automating processes through templates.
- Get access to fully customizable advanced checklists.
- Responsive and knowledgeable customer support team.
Cons
- Lacks an interactive and intuitive inbox
- Medium learning curve.
- Limited mobile application features.
Process Street has three plans – Free, Pro, and Enterprise.
With Process Street's free plan, you can create a customizable workflow, add unlimited pages, and offer unlimited file sharing and storage options.
14. Microsoft Planner
Best Visual Project Management Tool for Collaborative Task Management
Microsoft Planner lets you organize your project and teamwork with collaborative, intuitive, and visual task management.
Best Features
Schedule View
Microsoft Planner lets you outline your project and set a deadline. Once it has a start and an end date, you can directly view all the tasks in a calendar view. This lets you manage your time and complete your tasks before the due date.
Visual Task Management
View all your tasks on a single dashboard under the My Tasks option. You and your team can access file-sharing by attaching files on the tasks through your local computer or a link. Project managers and approvers can leave their feedback on the tasks
Outlook Integration
Facilitate project scheduling and save time by integrating Microsoft Planner into your Outlook. This lets project managers efficiently manage their tasks and schedule meetings.
External Access
Microsoft Planner allows you to invite outside users to your powerful project management tool. If you are working on a third-party project and want to share your progress with the vendors or clients, you can give them external access to your dashboard.
Pros
- Interactive and easy-to-use interface.
- Stay on top of your task list with email reminders and alerts.
- Fully integrates with Microsoft 365.
Cons
- Lacks Gantt charts.
- Lacks a native time tracking option.
- Cannot create multiple checklists for a single task.
Microsoft Planner has four plans – Business Basic, Business Standard, Business premium, and Apps for Business.
With Microsoft Planner, you get access to a free 30-day trial, where you can filter out your tasks, create a project outline, and collaborate with your team.
How to Choose the Best Visual Project Management Software Tool?
The best visual project management software tool can help you outline and track your projects in a better manner. There are a few ways to choose the perfect tool for your company.
1. Define Your Project Management Needs
The best way to find the best Visual PM software is to identify the current problem in how your team functions. You can make a quick list stating all the problems. While selecting the PM tool, you should analyze whether the tool solves most of your problems or not.
2. Research the Market Thoroughly
Once you have identified all your problems, you should get down in the market and analyze all the available products. In this way, you'll be able to finalize a few visual tools that would help you make your business processes and work more efficient.
3. Test Out Your Visual Tools
Before deciding which visual project management tool you should use for your business, it is crucial to test out the visual tools. Most companies offer you a free trial period, where you can access most of their premium features. By using the tool constantly for a few days, you will be able to analyze whether it's making a positive change in your workflow or not.
4. Get Your Team's Feedback
The perfect visual PM tool should be easier to adopt by your team. Hence, it would be best always to take feedback from your team. The team members should include both technical and non-technical executives. They can help you analyze how easy it is to shift the entire business process to another platform. The right tool for your business will have a shallow to a medium learning curve.
5. Evaluate the Key Features
Most visual project management software has basic outlining and collaboration features. However, it would be best to always look for software that will scale up as your business grows. The software should have kanban boards, Gantt charts, and a visual interface to track project progress.
6. Evaluate the Cost
The best PM tool should offer value for the price it costs. When comparing different tools based on their cost, you should also analyze what advanced key features they will be offering. If you have a small business, you should always start with the basic plan and scale up as your business grows.
Visual PM Tools FAQ
Visual project management refers to managing or organizing your projects with tools that help you understand and visualize the complex project data. With the help of the visual element, you will be able to monitor your team's performance and project progress in a single glance.
This innovative management style lets you visualize all your business processes over traditional projects and help your team understand the needs and goals of the project. This lets you manage your workload efficiently.
To track a project visually, you should be able to plan and outline it appropriately. You can use different tools like Gantt charts, mind maps, calendars, kanban boards, scrum boards, and project dashboards.
These tools let you visually represent your project ideas, create outlines, and design a workflow for your team members. When you organize and visualize projects with one of these tools, you will be able to track them at a glance from your dashboard.
Before you can start outlining and designing your project workflow, you should be able to write down your visual project plan.
You should first identify the aim and goals of your project.
Dividing the project into different stages would help you create a more organized project plan.
Analyze all the different task details that should be completed to move to the next stage.
Use a Gantt chart to plan your team's schedule.
Use an organizational chart to structure and divide them based on their skills.
Use infographics, charts, or mind maps to visualize complex project processes better.
Once you have the visual project plan ready, you need to use your project management software and create a digital outline of your workflow. This will keep your entire team on the same page, and you can track your project's progress from anywhere.
The cost of a visual project management software would depend upon the features you need and the number of team members. In case you have a small team, you can use PM software for free. If you have a growing business, an excellent visual PM tool would cost you between $6 and $10 per user per month.
If you work on multiple projects at a time or need to access advanced visual PM features, an enterprise-level project management software will cost you $10 and $40 per user per month.
Which Project Management Tools Should I Use for Visual Planning?
The best project management tools would depend upon your project goals, the number of employees, and the needs of your industry.
- If you are looking for a visual PM tool with a visual dashboard, you should try Monday.com or Hive.
- If you are looking for an online project management software with Kanban boards, Teamwork or Asana might be a better option.
- If you are looking for a visual PM application for tracking or building task dependencies, you can try out ClickUp or Smartsheet.
- If you are looking for a visual management tool for task prioritization, Wrike or ProjectManager might be a good option.
When looking for the best visual project management software for your company, you can compare ClickUp and Asana and Monday.com and ClickUp. You can also compare Wrike and Asana to find what suits best for your business needs.