Best Project Management Software

The workplace has been forever altered by COVID-19, as many workers discovered – and want to keep – some or all the remote, work-from-home flexibility they grew accustomed to. Employers are looking for ways to balance the desires of their workforce with the necessity of doing business. Project management software bridges the gap among in-office and at-home colleagues and serves multiple purposes by:

  • Maximizing productivity
  • Promoting collaboration and communication
  • Documenting and tracking project progress in real-time
  • Identifying obstacles in resources (time and personnel)
  • Driving increased employee engagement

Business executives say their companies responded to COVID-19 changes, including an increase in remote working and/or collaboration, much more quickly than they thought was possible. Get more insights from McKinsey & Company. Project management software is one-way businesses of all sizes can streamline and accelerate the delivery of their products and services and efficiently manage all facets of operations.

What is the Best Project Management Software?

While your business needs will determine the features that best suit you, any type of shared digital workspace is a step forward in saving time and wasted dollars on inefficiencies from duplicated efforts or initiatives stuck in the weeds due to poor planning and scheduling.

The list below is a result of our reviews of some top project management tools. Here are our picks for the best project management software:

1. Teamwork

Time to Change the Spreadsheets?

Preferred by agencies, creative teams, and marketing teams, Teamwork brings ease, convenience, and broad efficiencies to managing client work. It’s intuitive and easy to use, allowing you to move beyond spreadsheets and boards. Teamwork offers a Forever Free plan with basic features and messages for individuals and small teams who are just getting started with project management.

Teamwork

Pricing & Features

Deliver – $10/user.mo. (billed annually)

  • 20 Project Templates
  • Time Tracking & Invoicing
  • Agile View with Workflows
  • Teams
  • Integrated Team Chat (New!)
  • Unlimited Free Client Users
  • Collaborative Document Editor
  • Tableview (New!)
  • Customer Success Manager (35 users minimum)

Grow – $18/user/mo. (billed annually)
Everything in Deliver plus:

  • 50 Project Templates
  • Custom Fields
  • Project Portfolio Workflows
  • Workload Resource Mgmt
  • Resource Scheduling
  • Project Time Budget
  • Utilization Reports (New!)
  • Hubspot Integration

For advanced security, extra speed, and other high-level features, contact Teamwork for an Enterprise quote.

2. Monday.com

No More Manic Mondays

Small and medium-sized businesses can run all aspects of the company in one place with Monday.com. From project management and inventory tracking to HR onboarding and sales and marketing. Easily access progress reporting, budgets, and status to save time and avoid re-dos. If you thought it wasn’t possible to know what’s going on in all corners of your company, think again. Monday.com also integrates seamlessly with existing tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Google Calendar.

Monday.com

Pricing & Features

Free

  • Up to two seats
  • Best for individuals looking to keep track of their work
  • Unlimited boards
  • 200+ templates
  • Over 20 column types
  • Up to 2 team members
  • iOS and Android apps

Basic – $8 seat/mo.
Includes individual plan features, plus:

  • Unlimited free viewers
  • Unlimited items
  • 5 GB file storage
  • Prioritized customer support
  • Create a dashboard based on 1 board

Standard – $10 a seat/mo.
Includes Basic features, plus:

  • Timeline & Gantt views
  • Calendar view
  • Guest access
  • Automations (250 actions per month)
  • Integrations (250 actions per month)
  • Create a dashboard that combines up to 5 boards

Pro – $16 seat/mo.
Includes Standard, plus:

  • Private boards
  • Chart view
  • Time tracking
  • Formula column
  • Dependency column
  • Automations (25,000 actions per month)
  • Integrations (25,000 actions per month)
  • Create a dashboard that combines up to 10 boards

Enterprise solutions are available to meet your organizational needs.

3. Hive

Graphics and Templates Keep Business Buzzing

If you appreciate graphics to visualize your data, you’ll like Hive’s flexible project views, including Kanban, Gantt, portfolio, calendar, table, and summary. Using Hive templates, you can save time by building efficiencies that come with duplicating repeatable tasks and projects. Hive also boasts a first-of-its-kind email integration with Gmail and Outlook.

Hive

Pricing & Features

Pricing starts with one base cost with optional add-ons that apply to all users in your workspace.

$12 per user/mo. includes:

  • Flexible Project Layouts
  • Summary Views
  • My Actions
  • Chat
  • Hive Mail
  • Meeting Notes
  • Automated Workflows

Add-ons – $4 to $6 per user/mo.

  • Proofing and Approvals
  • Resourcing
  • Timesheets
  • External Users
  • Dashboards
  • Enterprise Security
  • Analytics

4. GanttPRO

Ready, Set, Go with Ready-made Templates

Full features at an affordable price, GanttPro gets you up and running quickly with professional, ready-made templates that create charts within minutes. Of course, you can customize based on your needs and save your plans to use as templates later. 

GanttPro

Pricing & Features

Individual – $15 per user/mo.

  • All features available for personal productivity

Team – $8.90 per user/month

  • Unlimited functionality for team collaboration

Enterprise – Contact GanttPro to learn more.

  • SAML single sign-on and 2FA
  • Enterprise onboarding assistance
  • Priority support
  • Increased API limits

5. TeamGantt

Off and Running with Drag-and-Drop Features

Project management software is only as useful as your ability to integrate it easily with a disparate team. The drag and drop simplicity for TeamGantt allows you to change start and end dates, rearrange tasks and update timelines with one click. To ensure no one is overextended, see conflicts right away by viewing all of your projects in one Gantt chart.

TeamGantt

Pricing & Features

Free – One project for personal use

  • 3 people
  • Limited features
  • Free forever

Standard plan – Starts at $24.95/mo.

  • Unlimited projects + business features
  • Get workloads, baselines, & more

 Advanced plan – Starts at $29.95/mo.

  • Unlimited projects + business features
  • Standard features + time tracking & hourly estimating

For large teams with unique needs, contact TeamGantt to learn about their Enterprise Plan.

6. Plan.io

Permissions Keep You in Control

Plan.io recognizes that there are different roles on every project management team. Its robust role-based access model means the team lead has total control with detailed permissions tailored to customizable roles. The good news is if you don’t need that, there are convenient, pre-loaded default settings, too.

All plans include SSL encryption, continuous updates, backups, and maintenance, unlimited issues and incidents, an unlimited number of Git and Subversion repositories, free imports of existing data, and super-friendly support via email and phone.

Plan.io

Pricing & Features

Platinum – $199 / month

  • 40 active Projects
  • 45 active Users
  • 80 GB Storage
  • Planio Storage
  • Planio Help Desk
  • Planio Team Chat

Diamond – $99 / month

  • 15 active Projects
  • 20 active Users
  • 40 GB Storage
  • + Planio Storage: $20 /mo.
  • Planio Help Desk
  • Planio Team Chat

Gold – $49 / month

  • 7 active Projects
  • 10 active Users
  • 20 GB Storage
  • + Planio Storage: $15 /mo.
  • + Planio Help Desk: $15 /mo.
  • Planio Team Chat

Silver- $25 / month 

  • 3 active Projects
  • 5 active Users
  • 5 GB Storage
  • + Planio Storage: $7 /mo.
  • + Planio Help Desk: $7 /mo.
  • Planio Team Chat

Need more? Get an Enterprise solution, starting from $399/mo.

7. Wrike

Breaking Down Barriers

It’s not unusual for even mid-sized companies to have silos in their organization. But very few can optimize results when true cross-departmental collaboration is a wish and not a reality. Wrike’ s customizable dashboards, workflows, request forms, and more, you can 360◦ visibility into your project management instantly, enabling you to find information and make decisions faster.

Shorten your feedback process with visual proofing and automated approval systems.

Wrike

Pricing & Features

Free – With the free account, you get some basic features, including a board view, task and subtask management, file sharing, some basic integrations with Google Drive and Office 365, and some storage space.

Professional – $9.80 per user/mo.

Additional features with the Profession plan include Gantt Chart, advanced integrations with MS Project, Excel and RSS, shareable dashboards, collaborators, and extra storage.

Business – $24.80 per user/mo.

This level becomes even more robust with custom fields and workflows, shared real-time reports, graphical analytics, calendars, an automation engine, and more. Additionally includes a free trial of Wrike Proof.

Enterprise – Contact Wrike for a custom solution with advanced security and controls.

8. LiquidPlanner

Do you want to answer the question that plagues most project leaders: When? LiquidPlanner’s project management software has a predictive scheduling engine, which is a fancy way of saying automatic scheduling adapts to changes in real-time to keep your team focused and on track. Schedule views, workload views, and task boards help with prioritizing.

LiquidPlanner

Pricing & Features

Free

  • Powerful enough for real work and evaluation
  • Max Users: 10
  • Max Tasks: 300
  • Max Projects: 3
  • Max Workspaces: 1

Essentials – $29  per user/mo.

  • More capacity for larger portfolios and teams
  • Max Tasks: 5,000
  • Max Projects: 50
  • Max Workspaces: 1

Professional – from $39 per user/mo.
Customizable pan with the following available add-ons:

  • PRO+ Tracking
  • PRO+ Custom Data
  • PRO+ Groups & Access
  • PRO+ Dashboards
  • Max Tasks: 50,000
  • Max Projects: 500
  • Multiple Workspaces: 20

Ultimate – $59 per user/mo. (Price is for annual billing.)

  • All PRO+ Add-ons included
  • Negotiated Contracts
  • Ultimate Service
  • No Usage Limits

9. ProofHub

Empower Employees to Succeed

Multi-tasking project management is made easy with Proofhub bringing your teams, projects, and clients together in one convenient platform. Targeted discussion topics do away with long email threads that are hard to follow when the subjects are all over the place. Bring organization to your project planning and rollout by dividing and conquering essential tasks, allowing team members to self-manage in the process.

ProofHub

Pricing & Features

Two packages have flat pricing with no per-user fee.

Essential: $45/mo. billed annually

Core features like task management, discussions, calendar, file sharing, group chat, private items, file versioning, project templates, notes, email, integrations, announcements, multilingual, and request forms.

Ultimate Control: $89/mo. billed annually

  • Unlimited projects
  • Unlimited users
  • 100 GB storage

Core features, plus:

  • Custom roles
  • White labeling
  • Custom workflows
  • Project manager
  • Network control
  • Manage trashed items
  • API access for data transport
  • Project and resource reports
  • Advanced activity logs
  • Account transfer tool
  • Priority support
  • Data export

10. Zoho Projects

Zoho offers a full suite of project management software to run your business with 45+ integrated applications. Options are a unified customer experience platform, business finance platform, HR platform, IT management, marketing, automation, and more. Zoho’s business intelligence and analytics app gives you fresh insights into your operation and the customers you serve to plan for and reach your business goals. In addition, resources, seminars, and webinars ensure you get the most out of your projects.

Zoho Projects

Pricing & Features

Free – Up to 3 users

  • 2 Projects
  • Attach files up to 10MB
  • Simple task tracking
  • Gantt Chat Viewer
  • Mobile Apps (iOS, Android)

Premium – $5 per user/mo. for up to 50 users

  • 3/client user/month
  • Unlimited projects
  • 20 Project Templates
  • Attach files up to 100GB

Free Features, plus:

  • Subtasks & Reminders
  • Task Duration in Hours
  • Task Automation with Blueprint
  • Project Gantt
  • Project Resource Utilisation
  • Project Planned vs Actual
  • Time Tracking
  • Project budget & EVM
  • Customizable Business Hours
  • Business Rules for Issues
  • Custom Views & Status
  • Task Rollup

Enterprise – $10 per user/mo. (No upper limit)

  • 3/client user/month
  • Unlimited projects
  • 30 Project Templates
  • Attach files up to 120GB

Premium Features plus:

  • Custom Fields
  • Custom Roles & Profiles
  • Custom Domain
  • Global Gantt chart
  • Global Resource Utilization
  • Global Planned vs Actual
  • Inter-project dependencies
  • SLAs for issues module
  • Portfolio Dashboard
  • Critical Path
  • Baseline
  • Teams – custom user groups
  • Workflow Rules

11. Asana

Universal Reporting Gives the Full View

With Asana’s Universal Reporting, you’re assured a real-time view across all your projects to pinpoint issues and act quickly to resolve them. Sharable dashboards keep your teams and projects on track, and graphical presentations help everyone visualize key data to act on.

A free plan is ideal for managing tasks and personal to-dos, with multiple features including unlimited tasks, projects, messages, activity logs; collaboration with up to 15 teammates, list board, calendar views; and more than 100 app integrations.

Asana

Pricing & Features

Premium – $10.99 per user/mo.

  • Timeline
  • Unlimited Dashboards
  • Reporting across unlimited projects
  • Advanced search
  • Custom fields
  • Unlimited free guests
  • Forms
  • Rules
  • Milestones
  • Admin Console
  • Private teams & projects

Business – $24.99 per user/mo.
Everything in Premium, plus:

  • Portfolios
  • Goals
  • Workload
  • Custom rules builder
  • Forms branching & customization
  • Approvals
  • Proofing
  • Lock custom fields
  • Advanced integrations with Salesforce, Adobe Creative Cloud, Tableau, Power BI

Enterprise – Contact Sales for details.
Everything in Business, plus:

  • SAML
  • User provisioning & deprovisioning (SCIM)
  • Data export & deletion
  • Block native integrations
  • Attachment controls
  • Custom branding
  • Priority support

12. Backlog

Coders Give it a Thumb’s Up

Backlog is a favorite with coders who appreciate the project management tool’s bug tracking software because, let’s face it: any time you release new code, there’s a chance for error. By logging them as issues in a central hub, your team can work together to identify and resolve issues. In addition, on all projects, organization and big-picture overviews with task management are accessible anywhere with Backlog’s free iOS and Android native apps that sync with the online workspace.

Backlog

Pricing & Features

Free Plan

  • Includes 10 users
  • Includes 1 project
  • 100 MB of storage

Starter – $35/mo.

  • Start free trial
  • Includes 30 users
  • Includes 5 projects
  • 1 GB of storage

Standard – $100/mo.

  • Unlimited users
  • Includes 100 projects
  • 30 GB of storage
  • Gantt charts

Premium – $175/mo.

  • Unlimited users
  • Unlimited projects
  • 100 GB of storage
  • Gantt charts
  • Custom fields

Enterprise includes a private server with unlimited projects and storage. To learn more, contact Backlog.

13. Jira by Atlassian

Powerful software development for agile teams

Jira is a perfect solution for software development businesses that allows team members to plan, track, and release great software. Through real-time reporting and visual data you can improve team and project performance from start to finish. Additionally, integrate a host of tools and save time with automations through the feature-rich platform to ensure that your team’s workflow is performing at it’s best.

Jira by Atlassian

Pricing & Features

Free
For small teams to plan and track work more efficiently

  • Up to 10 users
  • One site limit
  • Scrum and Kanban boards
  • Backlog
  • Agile reporting
  • Customizable workflows
  • Apps and integrations
  • Single project automation
  • 2GB file storage
  • Community support
  • & much more!

Standard – $7 per user/mo.
For growing teams focused on collaboration

  • Everything in Free
  • Up to 20,000 users
  • Additional admin controls
  • 250GB file storage
  • Local business hours for Support

Premium – $14 per user/month
For businesses that need to scale their collaboration and tracking

  • Everything in Standard
  • Global and multi-project automation
  • Capacity planning
  • Project archiving
  • Sandbox environment
  • IP allowlisting
  • Unlimited storage
  • 24/7 Premium support
  • 99.9% uptime guarantee

Enterprise – Contact Jira to learn more
For enterprises with a global scale requiring security and governance needs

  • Everything in Premium
  • Unlimited site limit
  • Advanced admin controls
  • SSO, SCIM, Active Directory Sync
  • 24/7 Enterprise support
  • 99.95% uptime guarantee
  • Centralized per-user licensing

14. Podio

At a Glance or Deep Dive

Take the mystery out of why some projects go off the rails with Podio’s progress update at a glance feature, knowing you can quickly dive deeper into the data for details. Podio integrates with most file-sharing services, customer support products, and marketing tools like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft Exchange, Campaign Monitor, and GoToMeeting, to name a few. The project management software is designed to increase sharing and peer recognition, both essential to positive team culture.

Podio

Pricing & Features

Free for five employees

  • Task management
  • Apps and workspaces

Basic – $7.20 per user/mo.

  • Unlimited items
  • User management
  • Unlimited external users

Plus – $11.20 per user/mo.
Everything with BASIC and:

  • Light user role
  • Automated workflows
  • Read-only access

Premium – $19.20 per user/mo.
Every with PLUS and:

  • Visual reports
  • Contact sync
  • Interactive sales dashboards
  • Advanced workflow automation

15. ProProfs Project

Ready for Every Department

Creative projects, human resources, IT, and marketing departments all appreciate the ease and convenience of streamlining workflows with a simple project management tool. With ProProfs Project time tracking, task management, and resource planning are just three of the ways you can simplify your processes. Plan meetings using a shared calendar and visualize milestone progress along the way.

ProProfs Project

Pricing & Features

Essentials – $2 per user/mo.

  • 50 projects
  • Tasks & Sub Tasks
  • List & Calendar View
  • Assignees & Due Date
  • Recurring tasks/project
  • Collaboration
  • Presentation & Docs
  • Custom Fields
  • Milestones
  • Kanban Board
  • Branding
  • Basic Integrations

Premium – $4 per user/mo.
All the features with Essentials, plus:

  • Roles and Permissions
  • Task Dependencies
  • Invoicing
  • Time Estimates
  • Time Tracking
  • Time Sheet
  • Expenses
  • Client & Billing
  • Approvals, Workflow, Custom Status
  • Gantt Chart
  • Data Export
  • Custom domain
  • Audit logs
  • Vault
  • Custom License, Enterprise Security & Ownership
  • API & Single Sign-On
  • White Label
  • Advanced Integrations

16. Microsoft Project

Proven and Trusted Worldwide

Microsoft Project eases planning, scheduling, file sharing, and collaboration among teams from simple to complex, whether they are across the hall or the world. Desktop and mobile experiences are built on Azure, a secure and trusted enterprise cloud.

Microsoft Project

Pricing & Features

Project Plan 1 – $10 per user/mo.

  • Choose your view
  • Use smart scheduling
  • Visualize timelines
  • Collaborate

Project Plan 3 – $30 per user/mo.
All the features of Project Plan 1, plus:

  • Get best-in-class templates
  • Follow roadmaps
  • Use baselines to track and compare
  • Create reports
  • Connections with Microsoft 365, Teams, OneDrive and Sharepoint

Project Plan 5 – $55 per user/mo.
All the features of Project Plan 3, plus:

  • Access anytime, anywhere
  • Work with Office apps
  • Enables advanced analytics with native OData to quickly aggregate project data
  • Leverage the Microsoft Power Platform for customization

17. Basecamp

An Original Gets Even Better

Basecamp wrote the book on working remotely – literally. Work is broken down into separate projects, and each project keeps those involved. Every discussion, document, file, or task is where it’s supposed to be, making it easy for a far-flung workforce to collaborate and stay on track. Tutorials and help guides get you started; detailed help is a click away. Basecamp does not charge you based on how many users you add, unlike most group project management software.

Basecamp

Pricing & Features

Basecamp Business – $99/mo. flat

Includes every feature like project templates, a company HQ, advanced client access, team projects and priority support plus unlimited projects, unlimited users and no per user fees.

Basecamp Personal – Free but limited

Great for personal projects, students, freelancers, families, and light use, you get three projects, 20 users, and 1GB of storage space.

18. Trello

Playing the Right Cards

Trello’s building blocks are lists and cards. You can open a card on your project management portal to find all your assets. Bigger cards can be broken down into steps with attachments, previews, and reminders. Software integrations include Confluence, Slack, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Evernote.

Trello

Pricing & Features

Free for individuals and teams with:

  • Unlimited cards
  • Unlimited members
  • Up to 10 boards
  • 1 Power-Up per board
  • Unlimited storage (10MB/file)
  • 50 automated command runs per month
  • Unlimited activity log
  • Assignee and due dates
  • iOS and Android mobile apps
  • 2-factor authentication

Business Class – $10 per user/mo.

  • Everything in Free, plus:
  • Unlimited boards
  • Unlimited Power-Ups
  • Dashboard view  
  • Timeline view 
  • Workspace Table view  
  • Calendar view
  • Advanced checklists
  • Map view
  • 1,000 automated command runs per Workspace + 200 per user, up to 6,000 per month
  • Unlimited storage (250MB/file)
  • Admin and security features
  • Workspace-level templates
  • Collections
  • Observers
  • Single board guests
  • Custom backgrounds & stickers
  • Saved searches
  • Priority support
  • Google Apps sign-on
  • Simple data export

19. Workzone

A 10,000-Foot View to See Up Close

Company leaders and executive teams appreciate a global view of all projects across departments, clients, or campaigns. The Workzone project dashboard is easy to read with colors and symbols that represent on track, late or overdue. For complex initiatives, task dependencies and workload reports help to realign assets or expectations to maintain timelines.

Workzone

Pricing & Features

Every plan includes unlimited training and support.

Team – $24 per user/mo.

  • 99.999% uptime (100X industry standard)
  • Unlimited project & task management
  • Project templates
  • Gantt Charts
  • Task dependencies
  • File share, review & approval
  • Image Mark-up
  • Advanced reporting
  • Time Tracking & Resource Management
  • Unlimited workspaces
  • 100GB storage

Professional – $34 per user/mo.
All the features of Team, plus:

  • 150GB storage
  • Custom project intake forms
  • API access

Enterprise – $43 per user/mo.
All the features of Professional, plus:

  • 200GB+ storage
  • Public access forms
  • Custom reporting
  • Custom fields
  • Cross-project dependencies
  • Single sign-on (SSO)
  • Workspace groups
  • Critical path

20. Slack

Keeping the Conversation Going

You can keep clients, vendors, and partners in the loop by sharing a Slack channel. The channels help teams stay focused with a dedicated space for conversations, files, and tools. Video conferencing with screen sharing improves communication, as does the integration with dozens of apps.

Slack

Pricing & Features

Free

  • Access to 10,000 of your team’s most recent messages
  • 10 integrations with other apps like Google Drive, Office 365, and many more
  • 1:1 voice and video calls between teammates

Pro – $6.67 per active user/mo.

  • The full context of your organization’s message history at your fingertips
  • Timely info and actions in one place with unlimited integrations
  • Face-to-face communication with group voice and video calls of up to 15 teammates
  • Secure collaboration with outside organizations or guests from within Slack

Business – $15.50 per active user/mo.

  • Advanced identity management through SAML-based SSO and real-time Active Directory sync with OneLogin, Okta and Ping Identity
  • Compliance requirements met with data exports for all messages
  • Around-the-clock teamwork and assistance with 99.99% guaranteed uptime and 24/7 support with a four-hour response time

Enterprise solutions offer advanced security and large-scale collaboration.

What Can You Do With Project Management Software?

What are the Benefits of Project Management Software?

Project Management Software Summary

Few organizations can’t benefit from project management software as the marketplace gets even more competitive, and any edge against your competition is critical. Consider the features, price, support and integrations as you review what’s available. Here are our picks for leading platforms and why we think they are standouts:

  1. Teamwork wins on bringing all facets of a company into one shared space with the flexibility to make it your own.
  2. Monday.com’s automations and integrations mean you pick and choose what’s right for you without paying for what’s not.
  3. Hive scores with its simple workflows for complex approvals, including proofing and annotation tools.
  4. GanttPRO’s ready-made templates may be just what you need: a tool that’s ready in minutes.

Last updated on by Joshua Holdeman

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About the author

Joshua Holdeman is a DevOps Engineer, Sr. Software Engineer, and Digital Marketing Consultant. With over 12 years in the industry and backed by hundreds of digital marketing projects and websites developed under his direction, he brings experience and knowledge allowing for the recommendation of high-impact business software, tools, and programs to help non-profit organizations, small businesses, and entrepreneurs to launch or grow their business. Before starting this blog, Josh was the Sr. Software Engineer for a world leader in a marketing and graphic communications franchise system.

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