Project management skills are essential for your career and help you in your everyday life, too. But having the skills doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be successful. You need to put them to work. And for that, you need the right tools.
Project management tools represent software that helps you track projects, meet deadlines, manage teams and resources, and solve any project management problem you might have. Of course, a single software solution can’t meet all expectations and solve all issues. So, we’ve compiled a list of the best project management tools for choosing your favorites. Some focus on project tracking, others on people management. It’s up to you to decide what’s best for your company. Remember, you don’t have to rely on a single program. You may consider having the right project management tool for each requirement.
Description: Wrike aims to be the only project management tool you need. The platform provides functionalities for organizing workflows, managing teams, tracking projects, and developing collaboration. It helps you manage all your projects, deal with clients, coordinate teams in real time, and generate reports and analytics. You can start using Wrike with one of their templates and integrate it with your current software in seconds. Wrike supports integrations with over 400 apps like Zoom, Slack, Google Calendar, Outlook, and Dropbox.
Key Features: Real-time team collaboration, analytics, role-based access control, templates
Pros: It is an all-in-one platform to manage all your projects
Cons: It is designed for large teams, mid-size and enterprise companies, and complex project management
Price: From $0 for teams getting started to $24.80/user/month for businesses
Description: Asana is a project management tool for complex projects. It features everything from Gantt charts, project timelines, automated processes, and team workload tracking. It helps you define and reach goals, schedule tasks using a shared calendar, release your staff from repetitive tasks, and generate real-time reports. You can use Asana with any device without worrying about synchronization, which means you can manage your projects and teams remotely. The program also includes time-tracking tools, approval procedures, collaborative tools, and permissions and privacy controls.
Key Features: Real-time team collaboration, time tracking, shared team calendar, automated processes
Pros: It covers a broad range of project types and team requirements
Cons: It may be too expensive and complex for beginners
Price: From $0 for individuals and teams getting started to $24.99/user/month for businesses
Description: Focusing on team productivity and collaboration, ClickUp features functionalities for managing any type of project. It lets you import your work from other tools, define tasks and subtasks, associate documents with your tasks, visualize project planning, and share everything with your team using a real-time chat. Besides being a project management tool, ClickUp is also a good organizational tool. It syncs with over 1,000 programs, from team calendars to cloud storage and messaging apps.
Key Features: Chat, exhaustive synchronization, managing tools for resources and teams
Pros: It’s very good for collaborative projects and teamwork
Cons: It doesn’t have a free trial version for paid plans and requires some time to learn all its actions
Price: From $0 for individuals to $19/user/month for businesses
Description: Monday provides work management products suited for project management, portfolio management, business operations, resource management, and other types of strategies. It includes over 200 templates to help you get started and assists you in defining goals, tasks, and procedures. Monday also features multiple views (e.g., Gantt, Kanban), dashboards, team planning tools, team workload tracking, and analytic tools.
Key Features: Tools for a complete project management solution, from creation to marketing
Pros: It includes many templates, views, and dashboards for a quick start
Cons: It doesn’t provide time tracking for free accounts
Price: From $0 for individuals and teams of two to $16/user/month for businesses
Description: Trello is an easy-to-use project management tool that aims to have you set up in minutes. It integrates with many other tools and features plug-ins to link with even more. The program provides templates for a quick start, multiple views to see your project from any angle, and Butler automation for automated tasks and processes. It helps you organize tasks, people, deadlines, and resources and track your project from beginning to end.
Key Features: Customizable, built-in automation system, content management permissions
Pros: It is easy to learn and intuitive and offers easy integration with 100+ tools
Cons: It doesn’t include a Gantt chart and may not cover all the needs of a complex project
Price: From $0 for individuals and teams looking to organize a project to $17.50/user/month for businesses
Description: Airtable is a platform that allows teams to use shared data and build connected apps. It offers tools for each project management step to boost productivity and collaboration. Among its features are Kanban cards, calendar, reporting tools, complex relational databases, automation, and Blocks SDK for developing custom extensions. Airtable uses AI-based algorithms to help you generate specifications, classify feedback, and create marketing campaign briefs.
Key Features: Powerful AI-based automation, custom extensions, integrations with other management tools
Pros: It offers real-time access to data and the possibility of sharing data within teams
Cons: It requires a learning curve and may have fewer reporting and exporting options than other tools
Price: From $0 for individuals and small teams just getting started to $20/user/month for businesses
Description: Zoho is an online project management tool that provides all the basic functionalities one needs to manage a project, from Gantt charts to timesheets, automation, time tracking, task management, and collaboration. It allows you to work remotely using any device and integrate your favorite management apps. You can also use Zoho to generate reports, manage problems, set up dependencies between tasks, and prioritize.
Key Features: Standard project management functionalities, built-in messaging, integration, mobile access
Pros: It’s affordable, intuitive, and covers all basic requirements for standard project management
Cons: It doesn’t provide templates, and customization is possible only for paid accounts
Price: From $0 for up to three users and two projects to $10/user/month for unlimited projects
Description: With Teamwork, you can manage projects, teams, clients, and resources. The tool offers functionalities for team workload tracking, task management, resource allocation, setting goals and milestones, team collaboration, and time tracking. It also allows you to create invoices, manage budgets and expenses, and manage long-term client work. Teamwork includes file management tools, templates, and automation. It integrates with other management apps and offers a mobile version for remote access.
Key Features: Supports invoice creation and budget management, Kanban cards, Gantt charts, file management
Pros: It allows you to create invoices and keep an eye on expenses
Cons: It takes some time to learn advanced features and doesn’t integrate with as many apps as other project management tools
Price: From $0 for up to five users to $19.99/user/month for large teams
Description: Smartsheet aims to provide the only project management tool you’ll need by incorporating many features. It includes digital asset management, request management, workflow automation, team collaboration functionalities, content management, and resource management. You can customize many of its functionalities. And if you like to work with spreadsheets, the transition to Smartsheet will be fast and straightforward.
Key Features: Workflow automation, digital asset management, resource management
Pros: It’s intuitive for people used to working with spreadsheets and allows customization
Cons: Advanced features are available only for paid accounts
Price: From $0 for one user to $22/user/month for businesses
Description: Notion links project management with knowledge and document storage to help you keep everything in one place. It features timelines, tables, calendars, Kanban cards, and progress bars for real-time project tracking and intuitive visualizations. Furthermore, Notion lets you customize priority labels, team processes, and templates to speed up your workflow. The program is web-based and thus accessible from any location.
Key Features: Embeddable content from Google Docs, Trello, and others, relational databases, wikis, and document management
Pros: It is a web-based tool that provides online and offline access
Cons: It may become complicated to manage more than one project
Price: From $0 for individual use to $15/user/month for companies
Description: ProofHub covers all project management steps, from planning to tracking to reporting. It provides tools for gathering data, allows you to customize fields and roles, and offers a multi-lingual interface. You can use it for your daily agenda or complex projects with Gantt charts, timelines, and activity logs. Furthermore, ProofHub features time tracking, calendars, templates, milestones, workflows, approval procedures, document management, and task history.
Key Features: Kanban cards, Gantt charts, custom role definition, version system, task history
Pros: It provides all standard project management tools plus discussions threads and collaboration tools
Cons: It’s expensive and doesn’t have a free plan for individual use
Price: From $45/month for up to 40 projects with unlimited users to $89/month for unlimited projects and users
Description: Basecamp is a web-based solution that offers access from any location or device. It helps teams stay organized and connected by providing tools for to-do lists visible to the entire team, file management, scheduling, discussion chats, automatic check-ins, workflows, and views. Basecamp integrates with many other tools like Dropbox, GitHub, Google apps, Figma, and Slack. It also makes sharing projects, working collaboratively, and generating reports easier.
Key Features: Automatic check-ins, file management, Hill Charts and views, cloud file support
Pros: It offers very good communication and collaboration tools and is very intuitive and easy to use
Cons: It doesn’t manage budgets or expenses and doesn’t have a free plan for individual users
Price: From $15/user/month to $299/month for unlimited users
Description: Jira is known for issue management and is popular amongst development teams. But over the years, the program has become versatile enough to deal with any type of project and assist you from planning to implementing and testing. Jira allows you to define tasks, track their progress, create roadmaps and manage them with agile boards, generate reports, and customize workflows. It integrates with more than 3,000 apps and management tools.
Key Features: bug tracking, task management, agile boards, reporting
Pros: It is very good at issue management and project tracking
Cons: It lacks budget management and may have a steep learning curve
Price: From $0 for up to 10 users to $15.25/user/month for unlimited users and storage
Description: Microsoft Project is part of Microsoft 365 apps and comes with Microsoft’s philosophy and security. It suits both small and large projects as it features dynamic scheduling based on effort needed, duration, and allotted team members. Microsoft Project includes views, roadmaps, and boards, coauthoring, collaboration through Microsoft Teams, project planning tools, reporting, resource management, budget management, and more. It can work as a cloud-based app or as an on-premises solution.
Key Features: Project planning, multiple project overview, collaborative work, and budget management.
Pros: It is a Microsoft product that fits a Microsoft user like a glove.
Cons: It provides limited integration options.
Price: From $10/user/month to $55/user/month for cloud-based solutions.
Description: MeisterTask focuses on task management and provides functionalities for planning and tracking projects, creating agendas, and over-viewing multiple projects simultaneously. The customizable dashboard lets you create personal checklists, a notification system, and a time-tracking process. MeisterTask features Kanban boards, communication tools, task dependencies, and priority procedures. It also lets you attach files and share them with your team.
Key Features: Kanban and Gantt chart views, task management, reporting, and daily agenda
Pros: It offers intuitive web-based task management, customizable automation, and multi-platform synchronization
Cons: The free version has few functionalities
Price: From $0 for up to three projects to $22.49/month for unlimited access
Description: The best feature of Liquid Planner is its intelligent predictive scheduling engine. The program runs simulations across your projects to try to predict risks and allow you to manage uncertainty. Liquid Planner features predictive priority-based scheduling, automatic resource leveling, workload views, time off management, task management, time management, and an open API for customizations.
Key Features: Intelligent predictive scheduling engine, collaborative planning, custom data, open API
Pros: It is very good at resource management and priority-based scheduling
Cons: It doesn’t have a free plan and may require a steep learning curve
Price: From $15/user/month to $35/user/month
Description: Kissflow provides automated workflows, tools for co-creating apps, case management, task management, and collaborative tools. It covers all project management steps, from planning to development and testing. Furthermore, it offers over 400 templates to get you started, integrates with many marketing, management, security, financial, and file storage apps, provides metrics and analytics, and includes boards for full project visibility.
Key Features: Boards (Kanban, lists, matrix, etc.), form builder, app builder, reports and analytics, direct chat, voice messages, and calls
Pros: It’s intuitive and visual and covers all project stages
Cons: Paid plans may be too expensive for startups
Price: From $15/user/month for companies with 20 to 100 employees to $20/user/month for companies with 100 to 500 employees
Description: TeamGantt is built around the popular Gantt chart, but it’s much more than a chart. The program features multi-project management, resource management, budget management, organization tools, collaborative functionalities, and reporting. Besides the classic Gantt timeline, TeamGantt provides calendar and list views too. It also offers a mobile app for remote access, project plan templates, file storage, and a sticky note system for reminders.
Key Features: Workloads and team availability, collaboration tools, project dependencies, multi-project dashboard
Pros: It offers multi-project management views and tools
Cons: It doesn’t include time tracking and budget management
Price: From $0 for personal projects to $99/month/manager for enterprise projects
Description: Designed to tackle time tracking, project management, invoicing, and profitability measurements, Paymo is a complete solution that helps you organize your teams and reach your goals. It features manual and automatic time tracking, task management, Kanban boards, and collaborative Gantt charts. The program can also handle online payments, invoicing, reporting, and file management.
Key Features: Budget management, file management, time tracking, leave planner, boards, charts, and templates.
Pros: It is a complete management solution that covers all project stages.
Cons: It may be too expensive for small companies and startups and requires a steep learning curve.
Price: From $0 for personal use to $20.79/user/month for medium and large teams.
Description: Hive is a project management tool focusing on collaboration and teamwork. It covers everything from project planning to task management, time management, and reporting. It ensures your team meets deadlines, benefits from an efficient request and approval procedure, receives reminders when needed, and collaborates with external users and clients. Hive includes Kanban boards, project dependencies, file management, an internal chat and Zoom support, and collaborative notes.
Key Features: Time tracking, timelines, Kanban boards, resource allocation, file management, communication tools
Pros: It allows you to automate tasks using action templates and create forms to gather data
Cons: It integrates with much fewer apps than other project management tools
Price: From $0 for small teams to $12/user/month for unlimited users and storage
Project management tools transform your project management skills into reality. They keep your projects on track, provide transparency, improve teamwork, and help you prevent and solve problems. Having the best project management tool for your business and project type is essential for your productivity and people’s morale and motivation. So look for products that fit your workflow and company culture.
What should you look for in project management software?
You should look for features that help your team increase productivity, efficiency, and collaboration, such as automated processes, time tracking and leave planners, communication tools, and collaborative work tools. You should also look for features that simplify the management process, such as reporting, data gathering and analytics, reminders and notifications, and integration with apps you already use.
What tools are used in project management?
Standard project management tools are time tracking, leave planning, task management, resource allocation and management, budget management and invoicing, report generation, and meeting scheduling.
How do you choose project management software?
Start by making a list of your project’s requirements. Then research and see what products meet your criteria. Look for trustworthy sources, such as peer reviews, expert reviews, and websites you have already read and appreciate. It also helps to use free trials and see precisely what the program has to offer and whether it fits you or not.
What are the benefits of project management software?
Project management software helps you be organized and efficient. You have everything in one place and can easily navigate from one project to another or one task to another. You have exhaustive views and small details in the same place, easily accessible and in real-time. Project management software also helps you create a healthy work environment by being transparent and responsive and considering people’s needs and requests.