10 Best Project Management Software

Project management software platforms simplify project planning, task allocation and team organization, ensuring the timely completion of projects. But choosing the best option for your business can be challenging, in part due to the need for the software to work harmoniously with your other work tools.

To help with this decision, we thoroughly examined the top providers and identified the best options, considering factors such as pricing, features, integrations and more.

Our Top Picks for Best Project Management Software

• Monday: Best for Custom Workflows
• Asana: Best for Complex Projects
• Microsoft Project: Best for Windows Devices
• Wrike: Best for AI Features
• Zoho Projects: Best for Small Teams
• ClickUp: Best for Remote teams
• Trello: Affordable and Easy to Use
• LiquidPlanner: Best for Keeping Projects on Track
• Airtable: Best for Managing Databases
• Confluence: Best for Security

Best Project Management Software Reviews

Why we chose it: Monday offers an unusually high number of customization options. It’s one of the easiest programs on our list to tailor to your needs, including to those of individual team members.

In addition to offering customizable task views, collaboration features and project workflows, Monday excels in facilitating automation. The automation center lets you choose from predefined templates and easily select relevant information from dropdown menus. Additionally, you'll discover template actions designed for seamless integrations with commonly used tools like Slack.

Notable features include resource workload and allocation data, which provide insights into your team's activities and workload. Collaborative docs allow everyone to work together on documentation and link to other files within the platform. Additionally, Monday's customizable dashboards empower you to create personalized views that display the data pertinent to your operations.

Integration options encompass pre-built connections to popular apps such as Google Drive, DocuSign, Gmail, Dropbox, Google Calendar, GitHub and Typeform, among others. You can use Zapier to connect with thousands of additional applications. [https://monday.com/features/automations]

While the most basic of Monday's plans is free, you have to pay for some helpful features such as access to a dashboard and storage. What's more, Gantt charts, a popular tool for viewing projects' progress, are only available on Monday's mid-level plan. [https://monday.com/pricing]

Why we chose it: Asana is a comprehensive project management software that’s equipped with huge ranges of both automation tools and integrations, along with a rule builder and other valuable workplace management features.

Asana boasts a vibrant interface featuring compartmentalized productivity elements and animated cartoons that zoom across the screen to celebrate completed tasks. The platform provides multiple views to help you organize and understand your data, including board, list, timeline and calendar. These views allow you to store and visualize project-related information such as tasks, subtasks, milestones, assignees, sections, custom fields and much more.

Standout features of the software include resource and task management, powerful automations, comprehensive reporting and a flexible workflow builder. Additionally, with Asana's Timeline, users can create and visualize project plans, ensuring that work stays on track even as circumstances change. [https://asana.com/product/automation]

When it comes to integrations, Asana offers among the widest range of options. You can connect with popular tools like Jira Cloud, Salesforce, Adobe Creative Cloud, Tableau, Slack, Microsoft Office 365, Gmail, CSV Importer, Dropbox and many more. Asana also connects with Zapier to offer hundreds more integrations.

[https://asana.com/pricing]

Why we chose it: Unsurprisingly, Microsoft Projects key distinction is how well it facilitates seamless collaboration and data exchange between different tools within the Microsoft ecosystem, including Outlook, Excel and Skype.

The program also allows Windows users to efficiently manage agile projects through intuitive task boards that support Scrum, kanban or customizable workflows. It offers the flexibility to choose the most suitable project methodology, be it agile, waterfall or hybrid.

Key features of MS Projects include kanban boards, milestone-driven timelines, resource request management, visual heatmaps for identifying over-allocation, pre-built templates, robust reporting capabilities, task management and portfolio management./en-us/microsoft-365/project/simple-project-management]

While MS Projects is a widely recognized and accepted tool in the industry, it does have its limitations. Notably, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it is not optimized for iOS, making it less suitable for users of Apple devices. Additionally, while experienced Microsoft users should be able to pick it up, it’s not the fastest project management software for newcomers to learn.

[https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/project/compare-microsoft-project-management-software]

Why we chose it: Wrike's focus on leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for assistance make it a great option for businesses who are committed to exploring and using this emerging tool to manage projects.

The platform offers a range of "smart" features that employ AI to power search, mobile replies and text recognition. The AI-assisted capabilities are accessible across all plans, including the free version, with the exception of AI-assisted project risk prediction, which is exclusive to higher-tier paid plans. [https://www.wrike.com/price/]

Standout features include visual proofing, which lets your team obtain multi-tier approvals from clients, and workflow automations that eliminate repetitive tasks. Project portfolio management features provide insights into whether your initiatives align with company strategy and goals. Additionally, cross-tagging facilitates collaboration with other business initiatives. [https://www.wrike.com/features/dashboards/]

While the free plan allows unlimited user additions, it does impose certain restrictions that may limit its viability primarily to freelancers. It lacks calendars, dashboards, custom fields and advanced reporting. Upgrading to a paid plan unlocks these features alongside workflow automation, however. It's important to note that additional costs apply for specific integrations, marketing tools and two-way sync capabilities for Jira or GitHub, as Wrike offers these as separate add-ons.

Why we chose it: Targeted toward small and growing businesses, Zoho Projects is an affordable project management solution with a range of useful features.

Zoho Projects boasts user-friendly navigation, extensive customization options and the ability to track work hours. While Zoho Projects doesn't provide pre-built templates, users can create their own within the app. Standout features include task dependencies, Gantt charts, issue tracking and time tracking.

Its tiered pricing structure caters to organizations on a budget and those anticipating rapid growth. However, in its free plan, Zoho’s storage is quite limited at just 10MB.

[https://www.zoho.com/projects/zohoprojects-pricing.html]

Why we chose it: ClickUp stands out for allowing an unlimited number of users of their platform, regardless of where those people are working. It also boasts a robust array of features and a huge number of collaboration tools so that remote teams can easily assign, communicate about, monitor and complete projects.

ClickUp’s collaboration tools include real-time editing, mentions, calendar synchronization, role creation and advanced user permissions. With preset and customizable automation recipes, reporting dashboards and project-tracking tools like checklists, timelines, Gantt charts, kanban boards and dependencies, ClickUp provides flexibility and efficiency. It also offers customizable dashboards, templates and over 1,000 integrations to allow your team to build the setup it needs.

In addition to the expected project management features, ClickUp offers templates and tools specifically designed for agile software development. ClickUp simplifies the use of Scrum with task progress boards, assignments, checklists, automation tools and collaborative features for gathering customer feedback after each sprint.

ClickUp's interface's hierarchy begins with teams and includes lists, projects, spaces and tasks. This structure helps prevent siloing and is especially important for entirely remote companies where different teams may not interact frequently. That said, the platform can offer a little too much of a good thing for some; the robust feature set and Agile workflows might be a little overwhelming for users who are new to project management software.

[https://clickup.com/ , [https://clickup.com/pricing]

Why we chose it: Trello is easier to use than many platforms, and costs less than most of them, too, especially for a large number of users.

The program is a visually appealing and user-friendly application that allows you to fairly easily organize, coordinate, and monitor work. Its standout qualities include its intuitive interface and the ability to foster collaboration with both internal and external teams. While most project management platforms are only free for one or two users, Trello's free plan doesn't limit the number of users that can use it.

However, Trello lacks the tools necessary for resource management and project balancing across multiple projects, including subtasks and advanced reporting capabilities. Additionally, the free version of Trello lacks a calendar or table view.

Trello encompasses all the standard features found in a kanban board app, meaning that it shows tasks visually as if they were cards on a corkboard. It is worth mentioning that Trello recently introduced a Timeline view resembling a Gantt chart, which brings it closer to the realm of project management. However, Trello's effectiveness in handling large-scale projects remains limited.

[https://trello.com/tour, https://trello.com/pricing]

Why we chose it: LiquidPlanner’s “liquid planning” approach deftly accommodates the complexities and uncertainties of real-world projects. That can help create plans and predictions that are more precise than many or most platforms.

LiquidPlanner's forecasting engine enables users to anticipate how long a project may run by considering all tasks and their interdependencies. Through statistical analysis, it generates a range of potential completion dates. Users can refine the forecast by adjusting input parameters, such as estimated effort or project duration.

To ensure balanced workloads, LiquidPlanner's resource leveling feature automatically schedules and reschedules tasks based on team members' availability and workload. Additionally, LiquidPlanner allows users to track tasks, projects, staff and company equipment.

For large organizations handling multiple projects, learning LiquidPlanner can yield substantial benefits. However, the software's large number of advanced features might be overkill for some, especially for those new to project management software. [https://www.liquidplanner.com/product/, https://www.liquidplanner.com/pricing/]

Why we chose it: Airtable stands out for how well it combines the functionality of spreadsheets and databases. It facilitates working with, and helping to create, both.

The program provides multiple options for organizing and presenting data, which proves valuable for monitoring information across various dashboards. Essentially, it’s an advanced spreadsheet that lets you integrate and manage many kinds of data, including videos, photos and other files. In addition to the spreadsheet-like view, you can also use Gantt, calendar, grid, gallery and Kanban views.

One standout aspect of Airtable is its adaptability to suit various organizational needs, enabling users to track different processes and build robust databases. The platform also offers a range of templates for common use cases like project management, CRM, and content creation, facilitating quick and easy setup.

On the downside, Airtable has a pretty steep learning curve and lacks tutorial content to help users get up to speed with its advanced features. [https://www.airtable.com/product, https://airtable.com/pricing]

Why we chose it: Confluence is a powerful project management platform that allows for especially secure collaboration. That security could be invaluable for projects that may involve sensitive data.

Confluence is collaboration software that offers a unified virtual workspace for teams to efficiently build, organize and collaborate on their work. With a user-friendly text editor, document approval workflows, robust audit trails and ready-to-use templates, Confluence serves as an ideal platform for comprehensive documentation.

It’s also highly secure due to being a product of Atlassian, a company known for its commitment to data security. Confluence lets you have granular control over data access and user permissions. It also has robust encryption and authentication, which is especially important if your business is in a field that handles sensitive data.

Additionally, Confluence is free for up to 10 users, a generous number compared to many of its competitors.

The platform’s downsides include limited time tracking compared to some of its competitors. Confluence also lacks some tools project managers might look for, like workload charts, task dependencies and custom roles.

Other companies we considered

Smartsheet

Though notably light on integrations, Smartsheet elevates your spreadsheet-style tracking with its versatile, user-friendly interface and a wide range of project management tools.

With Smartsheet, you can manage projects on pre-populated spreadsheets, but it's more powerful than Excel or Google Sheets. Smartsheet allows you to quickly fill in task details like name, duration, endpoint and assignee. This makes setup easy, even if you're not a spreadsheet expert. Additionally, you can easily create tasks, sub-tasks and task dependencies, attach files as needed, and choose between calendar or kanban board views.

The interface also offers familiar features found in popular web services. For instance, you can tag users in comments using the "@mentions" feature seen on Twitter and Slack, and highlight important text like you would in a Word or Google doc.

However, if you're not familiar with project management software, you might find data visualization challenging as you have to create charts and widgets from scratch without any pre-set options. The individual version of Smartsheet also has limitations on these features. Other drawbacks include far fewer integrations than most of its competitors and the lack of a default real-time save function.

Teamwork

While pricey and light on integrations, Teamwork simplifies the process of working with clients and managing relationships with a number of collaboration and client-focused tools and features.

With Teamwork, projects can have an unlimited number of collaborators. This enables freelancers, consultants and agencies to directly work with clients within the platform and tailor deliverables to meet their unique needs and expectations. While the free plan has limitations on these features, upgrading ensures the best client experience.

Paid plans offer various client-facing features, including team chat tools, a collaborative document editor, intake forms, client-access controls, time tracking and invoicing capabilities. Clients can provide feedback on project deliverables, task lists, and milestones, ensuring their requirements are met throughout the development process. This leads to higher client satisfaction and an increased likelihood of repeat business.

However, it's important to note that Teamwork's paid plans are relatively expensive compared to its competitors. Additionally, Teamwork offers a limited number of integration options.

TeamGantt

TeamGantt, too, is light on integrations, as well as on collaboration tools But it’s worth considering for fans of user-friendly and interactive Gantt charts.

A Gantt chart is a project management tool that visually represents the progress of work over time compared to the time allotted for the work. It can include task dependencies, assignees, task start and end dates and milestones.

TeamGantt is particularly well-suited for beginners as its intuitive interface makes it simple to navigate. Even if you have no prior knowledge of Gantt charts, it’s easy to learn with TeamGantt’s excellent tutorial content. Additionally, while the app focuses on Gantt charts, you can also switch between Kanban and calendar views. [https://www.teamgantt.com/features]

That said, the free plan is restrictive and only allows three users. Additionally, the software’s collaboration tools are limited and don’t include whiteboards, group tagging, video meetings and other tools helpful for teamwork and remote work. Finally, there are very few integrations available.

[https://www.teamgantt.com/pricing]

Celoxis

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Though it’s shy on collaborative capability, Celoxis offers a comprehensive range of features that cater to various business types and project complexities — while still being easy to use for people who aren’t tech-savvy.

Along with core functionalities like time tracking and resource management, Celoxis facilitates seamless communication with stakeholders through a free client portal.

That said, Celoxis has room to improve in terms of document collaboration and ease of use. For instance, users must edit documents and emails off platform. Additionally, many customers note that the interface is difficult to navigate.

Notion

It’s comparatively rudimentary when it comes to project management, but Notion might work well for solopreneurs, creatives and small teams. It uses task lists, calendars, sprint organizers and kanban boards to track projects and manage tasks. There's also a shared team calendar that shows one-off and ongoing tasks, a mobile app, document storage, filing sharing and a comment section for every task.

But Notion lacks reporting features such as the ability to create graphs in the platform. Additionally, many users say their earning curve with the application was steep.

Project Management Software Guide

Choosing the best project management software requires that you consider features, pricing, integrations, collaboration tools and more. The guide below will help you in this process.

Main things to know before choosing a project management software

Here are a few aspects to consider before you decide on a project management tool:

• The ideal software should be intuitive and easy to navigate, requiring minimal training and support
• Effective document management, including seamless workflows and storage capabilities, is essential for successful project management
• Integration with other software tools is crucial to streamline processes and avoid duplicating tasks or data entry
• The software you choose should be able to handle the number of users you have, as well as their storage needs

How does project management software work?

Project management software enables users to assign, track and monitor tasks. It also keeps track of team hours and allows team members to organize the tasks within company projects. Typical features include scheduling, task management, analytics and team communication tools.

The software facilitates collaboration and allows team members to access and use the program for scheduling assignments and managing ongoing projects. It also often includes cloud storage options, so users can integrate files into workflows.

What is the average cost of project management software?

Pricing varies depending on the company and plan level you choose; your costs can range from free to hundreds of dollars a month. If you're an individual, it's easy to find a free plan that suits basic needs. If you're looking to include multiple users on the plan, you'll likely end up paying somewhere between $10 and $30 per user per month. [https://www.betterbuys.com/project-management/project-management-pricing-guide/]

What are the benefits of project management software?

Whether you're looking for project management software for a construction company or a marketing firm, these platforms can offer the advantage of centralizing all project-related data in one place.

That centralization, in turn, allows for easy task delegation, team member tagging and document sharing. This can be especially useful when it comes to managing remote teams. Effective project management systems also ensure that team members are well-informed about project plans and details, which promotes collaboration and transparency.

Additionally, these software platforms help with time management by providing tools for creating work calendars, time tracking, Gantt charts, staff scheduling and resource allocation.

How We Found the Best Project Management Software

We evaluated various aspects such as key features, user-friendliness and pricing to choose the top project management software.

• Cost: When assessing prices, we considered the potential value each program could bring to a business

• Important features: We examined not only the main functionalities provided by each software but also their practicality and effectiveness for different types of teams and industries

• User experience: We considered how accessible each software platform is on mobile devices, whether it supports straightforward workflows and how user-friendly its interface is

• Integrations: We evaluated each project management platform based on its capability to smoothly connect and integrate with other commonly used software and apps

Summary of the Best Project Management Software of 2023

• Monday: Best for Custom Workflows
• Asana: Best for Complex Projects
• Microsoft Project: Best for Windows Devices
• Wrike: Best for AI Features
• Zoho Projects: Best for Small Teams
• ClickUp: Best for Remote teams
• Trello: Affordable and Easy to Use
• LiquidPlanner: Best for Keeping Projects on Track
• Airtable: Best for Managing Databases
• Confluence: Best for Security