The Best Gantt Chart Software List
Here’s a shortlist of the best Gantt chart software:
As any good project manager knows, Gantt charts are a popular way to visualize your project tasks, timelines, and dependencies. Gone are the days where you need to craft them yourself across sheets or graph paper or painfully plug data into spreadsheets. Gantt chart software does the heavy lifting for you and often incorporates real-time updates to timeline changes, collaboration elements, and reporting dashboards.
That being said, not all Gantt chart software is created equal. Like many software-as-a-service tools, Gantt chart makers have a vast range in reliability, price, and feature sets. This article will take a look at what Gantt chart tools are on the market and making waves. Plus, I’ll outline what each does best so that you can pick the Gantt chart software that fits with your leadership and project goals.
Keep reading to learn about the best Gantt chart software and how it can help plan, optimize, and report on your projects. If you have more general questions about Gantt chart strategy, you can skip to our FAQ at the bottom of the page.
Overviews Of The 10 Best Gantt Chart Software
Here’s a brief description of each of the Gantt chart software on my list showing what it does best. Feel free to check out how I picked the software on this list at any time.
monday.com
Best Gantt chart software for task management & collaboration
monday.com is a provider of multiple software solutions, covering different aspects of business processes, from creative and design, software development, and marketing to project management, sales and CRM, as well as HR and task management. With a work management suite, monday.com can facilitate many things related to project planning and resource tracking. Gantt charts are just one of the core features available in their project management software suite.
Why I Picked monday.com: monday.com’s Gantt charts software solution provides project managers and teams with a quick overview of their project timeline. It lets them see upcoming deadlines on tasks and projects and keep track of the status of multiple active tasks in real time. Creating Gantt charts with monday.com project management software is relatively easy. Users can customize the charts in minutes to facilitate the needs of their team. They even have the ability to take their Gantt charts on the go and remain up to date on project progress using monday.com’s mobile app.
Gantt charts that are created on monday.com will often begin with a dynamic table view, allowing users to add all important information related to the current or upcoming project. While Gantt charts are extremely useful for monitoring project progress, they don’t necessarily work for everyone. This is why monday.com doesn’t rely on Gantt charts alone to visualize project timelines. The platform also provides Kanban board and calendar views.
Although monday.com offer a freemium plan, this does not include Gantt charts so it will not be sufficient for your needs. Instead, use their free trial to test out the software.
monday.com Standout Features & Integrations
Features include project management, task scheduling/tracking, resource management, scheduling, budgeting, API, calendar management, Gantt charts, file sharing, time management, email integration, third party plugins, and notifications.
Integrations include project management apps like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform and many more, accessible through a paid plan with Zapier.
Wrike
Best collaborative Gantt chart software
Wrike is an easy-to-use project management software that is suitable for teams of 5 or more individuals. Users can create Gantt charts in one click, as well as customize workflows, dashboards, reports, and request forms.
Why I Picked Wrike: Wrike enables users to switch between Kanban boards, one-click Gantt charts (that can be adjusted with drag-and-drop), and traditional workload views, allowing teams to choose how to work. Wrike also features task lists, subtasks, task dependencies, shared workflows, file sharing, and real-time collaboration.
Wrike has an easy-to-use, intuitive interface and navigation with distinct spaces, folders, and tasks. Toggle between the home screen and timesheets, dashboards, calendars, reports, and a notification and activity stream.
Wrike Features & Integrations
Features include project management, task scheduling/tracking, resource management, expense tracking, API, budgeting, Gantt charts, marketing automations, collaboration support, and reporting.
Integrations include 400+ pre-built native integrations, including integrations with the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.
ClickUp
Best for its easy and intuitive timeline with drag-and-drop functionality
ClickUp is a cloud-based project management and collaboration app that is highly customizable and enables you and your teams to manage everything from within a central platform, including project-related tasks, team communications, documents, and goals.
Why I Picked ClickUp
ClickUp has an intuitive Gantt view that enables you to manage dependencies, schedule, and prioritize elements into a clear project timeline. This view offers a dynamic drag-and-drop timeline to easily schedule multiple tasks, keep track of project progress, manage deadlines, and handle potential bottlenecks.
Additionally, it provides users with a bird’s eye view of all active projects, spaces, lists, and tasks. It uses a color-coding system, so you and your stakeholders can instantly know what’s happening when and where. Finally, you can use timeline filters to arrange the information by assignee, due date, status, and more.
ClickUp Standout Features & Integrations
Features include task scheduling/tracking, project management, resource management, budgeting, contact management, data visualizations, employee database, expense tracking, file sharing, third-party plugins, collaboration support, timesheets, roadmapping, chat, customer management, email integration, feedback management, and process reporting.
Integrations include native integrations with Slack, Google Workspace, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations through Zapier (may incur additional costs).
Hub Planner
Best Gantt chart software with integrated time tracking & approval
Hub Planner is a Gantt chart software, designed to help teams and businesses manage their projects. With Hub Planner users can easily create Gantt charts that show an overview of the project timeline, enabling them to track progress and identify potential problems.
Why I Picked Hub Planner: Hub Planner includes several features that make it user-friendly for everyone from small businesses to large corporations. The calendar view allows you to quickly see which tasks are due when and who is responsible for each one, while the resource planning feature helps with workforce scheduling, allowing you to assign tasks according to individual skillsets or availability. You can also use Hub Planner’s reporting tools to get a better understanding of team performance across multiple projects over time.
Hub Planner Standout Features & Integrations
Features include analytics, budgeting, dashboard, data visualization, expense tracking, notifications, project management, task scheduling/tracking, resource management, API, batch permissions & access, calendar management, data export, email integration, external integrations, multi-currency, scheduling, workflow management, billing/invoicing, contact management, data import, forecasting, multi-user, third-party plugins/add-ons, and time management.
Integrations are possible using their API. Or, for less technical folk, you can connect to other apps through Zapier, though this may require a separate paid plan.
Canva
Best for small teams and businesses
Canva is a Gantt chart maker and design program with over 1 million free shapes and photos in their asset library and hundreds of thousands of product templates. Canva does more than just Gantt charts: You’ll find templates for slideshows, presentations, infographics, graphs, emails, and more. They have a simple drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy for non-designers to create aesthetically pleasing designs with minimal effort.
Why I Picked Canva: They offer quite a bit for their price, per our evaluation criteria, but free users won’t have access to everything. While Canva is free to tinker with, it will cost you to use certain designs, shapes, patterns, and templates. It will also cost you to download your work in any functional format (besides a mere screenshot). Still, the price is ideal for smaller businesses that are looking for Gantt charts along with other marketing graphics but don’t have a budget for an in-house designer.
Furthermore, if the only thing you need is Gantt charts then Canva doesn’t offer the range of robust data detailing that other programs do. Rather, it’s strength comes from the clean simplicity of its designs. If your project requires an in-depth, multifaceted timetable, Canva probably won’t be for you.
Canva Standout Features & Integrations
Features include Gantt chart templates, whiteboards, presentations, social media integration, video, print products, marketing, drag-and-drop editor, photos & graphics library, collaboration, and third-party integrations/plugins.
Integrations include WordPress, eClincher, Rippling, Sendible, Post Planner, and Viraltag. As you can probably tell, their focus with integration is on social media and/or content creation – if you need to access PM or workflow apps, you’re out of luck.
Paymo
Best free Gantt chart software
Paymo is a work management tool designed to help creative and marketing teams own their entire project cycle. As well as Gantt Charts, they also offer task management, time tracking, resource scheduling, and invoicing modules that are well integrated with each other.
Why I Picked Paymo: Within Gantt charts, users can click and drag on the timeline to estimate a task duration, then pinch its ends to extend or shorten it. Apart from the standard dependencies, you can set lead and lag time to account for overlaps or delays, and even auto-schedule tasks based on those dependencies and constraints. When finished, click the Export button to save the project timeline and send it over to a client or team member. There’s also a Portfolio Gantt Chart available, which acts as a pipeline with all project timelines united on a single screen.
The tool could benefit from having a baseline feature to compare against future changes of the task and overall project duration. Milestones could also be more customizable, as they currently show up only under their corresponding task lists.
Paymo Standout Features & Integrations
Features include time tracking, task management, budget tracking, resource management, collaboration, Gantt charts, reporting & analytics, invoicing, mobile app, customizations, and third-party integrations.
Integrations include popular apps such as Slack, Adobe Creative Cloud, Google Drive, QuickBooks Online, Xero, JotForm, Shift, to name a few. Other integrations are available through Zapier or by syncing with their fully-documented API.
Microsoft Project
Best for Microsoft users
Microsoft Project Online uses a familiar software UI to give you an intuitive way to visualize various project angles. MS Project Online is a great example of Gantt chart template software, offering loads of built-in templates and familiar scheduling tools that make it easy to launch and navigate each assignment. The Gantt chart builder lets you select items for phase indicators, start and end dates, and RAG risk status.
Why I Picked Microsoft Project Online: Unlike some of the other software on this list, MS Projects doesn't have the same number of features and functions despite the higher licensing cost for the full suite of tools. Therefore, they fall short in our value for money spend evaluation criteria, meaning they aren’t the best for small business or startups.
Collaboration is limited by the fact that a project file cannot be opened by multiple team members at the same time. Changing schedule dates is not as seamless as it should be and often ends up causing chaos across the timeline. MS Projects is definitely geared towards large-scale projects and might not work for smaller workflows.
Microsoft Project Online Standout Features & Integrations
Features include project management, resource management, task management, scheduling, portfolio management, dynamic scheduling, business intelligence, Gantt charts, kanban boards, collaboration, reporting, roadmaps, timesheets, and demand management.
Integrations include MS Office suite, OneDrive, Outlook, Skype, and OneNote.
Backlog
Best for software development teams
Backlog is a cloud-based project management tool perfect for developers and the teams they collaborate with. Backlog provides a mobile app on both iOS and Android for collaborating on-the-go.
Why I Picked Backlog: Backlog provides a range of useful team collaboration features including task management (including subtasks, checklists, and custom fields), milestones, burndown charts, file management, wikis, and most importantly, a Gantt chart maker. But Backlog is more than a collaboration and Gantt chart tool. It’s also a bug tracker and version control system in one.
For collaborating on code, Backlog provides SVN and Git repositories, a differences viewer and inline comments, plus pull requests, merge requests, and branches. Visually, the app provides burndown charts, Git graphs, and Gantt charts, so project managers and users alike can quickly assess projects at a glance.
Backlog allows you to assign, track, and release work, right in one app while ensuring transparency and accountability across teams. If you’re looking for a tool to help manage development projects or working closely with a team of developers, this is the app for you.
Backlog Standout Features & Integrations
Features include Gantt charts, boards, burndown charts, issue tracking, custom fields, milestones, versioning, notifications & alerts, code management, documentation management, file sharing, and third-party integrations/plugins.
Integrations include Typetalk, Cacoo, Nulab Pass, Slack, Redmine, Jira Importer, Jenkins, iCal Sync, email platforms, Google Sheets, and LambdaTest. You can also build your own integrations and add-ons with Backlog's API.
Instagantt
Best add-on for Asana users
Instagantt gives you access to scheduling tools, task management, and timeline visualization alongside the usual Gantt chart building tools that you would expect. Instagantt is marketed as an add-on app for Asana (an alternative to Asana’s built-in Timeline for paying users), though it can be used independently, as well.
Why I Picked Instagantt: Instagantt speaks in particular to our evaluation criteria for high levels of chart-building functionality, ticking off all the major boxes such as: letting you drag and drop items, interlink dependencies so changes in the timelines reflect across the graph automatically, view the number of tasks per assigned employee, create subtasks and milestones, customize color schemes, and much more.
Instagantt Standout Features & Functionality
Features include Gantt chart creation, task management with the ability to assign, comment and set task dependencies, collaboration tools, a timeline view with customizable options, reporting functionalities, integration with various project management tools and a mobile app for on-the-go project management.
Integration with Asana is possible. Instagantt also lets users export their charts into Excel, PDF, and image formats, but doesn’t offer integration with other popular workflow apps.
GoodDay
Best Gantt Chart tool for customizability
GoodDay is a work management platform for building Gantt charts to plan projects, allocate resources, and manage tasks, subprojects, events, and dependencies. It’s an affordable all-in-one tool for project management, tasks collaboration, planning, reporting, and productivity with an easy-to-use interface.
GoodDay lets you customize Gantt chart views, columns, the user interface, fields, task types, project templates, and priorities. Additional functionalities include auto-zoom, export to PDF, and filtering.
GoodDay integrates with hundreds of apps such as Google Drive, Google Calendar, Gmail, Slack, GitHub, Gitlab, Excel, Jira, Trello, and many others, accessible via native integration. More integrations are available through Zapier and GoodDay Api.
GoodDay costs from $4/user/month and offers a free-forever version for up to 15-user teams.
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The Best Gantt Chart Software Comparison Chart
It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the baffling array of Gantt chart software out there. Below, we’ve put together a reader-friendly table neatly summarizing basic info about the tools described in this article.
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | monday.com Best Gantt chart software for task management & collaboration | 14-day free trial + freemium plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Visit Website |
2 | Wrike Best collaborative Gantt chart software | Freemium version available | From $9.80/user/month | Visit Website |
3 | ClickUp Best for its easy and intuitive timeline with drag-and-drop functionality | Freemium plan available | From $9/user/month | Visit Website |
4 | Hub Planner Best Gantt chart software with integrated time tracking & approval | 30-day free trial | From $7/resource/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
5 | Canva Best for small teams and businesses | Free to use | From $16.99 /person/month | Visit Website |
6 | Paymo Best free Gantt chart software | Free plan available | From $5.95/user/month | Visit Website |
7 | Microsoft Project Best for Microsoft users | 30-day free trial | From $10/user/month | Visit Website |
8 | Backlog Best for software development teams | 30-day free trial | From $30/month | Visit Website |
9 | Instagantt Best add-on for Asana users | 7-day free trial available | $5/user/month | Visit Website |
10 | GoodDay Best Gantt Chart tool for customizability | Free version available | From $6/user/month | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few additional apps that did not make the top 10, but are worth your consideration if you want to expand your research.
- Vault ERP
Best Gantt chart software for enterprise scalability
- TeamGantt
Best online Gantt chart software
- Miro
Best Gantt chart software with built-in communication tools
- GanttPRO
Best Gantt chart software for workload visualization
- Smartsheet
Best for Gantt chart templates
- airfocus
Best for project prioritization
- MindView
Best for built-in mind mapping capabilities
How I Selected the Best Gantt Chart Software
First, I started with Gantt chart software with high user reviews and satisfaction ratings. Then, using my experience in project management, I discerned what key criteria were most important for Gantt chart software and compared how each of them stacked up against the rest.
After careful consideration, I've determined that these are the most important criteria when selecting the best Gantt chart software. Here's a brief list outlining the whats and whys of my evaluation.
User Interface (UI)
Online Gantt chart software UI needs to help you quickly visualize a projects critical path, tasks, progress, and track projects. The proper use of white space and a proper UI element distribution will help you be more productive simply by making you faster. This is especially true for complex projects that have tons of information to look through.
Usability
Modern software will swap out complex calculations and formulas for interactive Gantt charts with drag-and-drop, point-and-click mechanics. Also, its equally important to learn to use the rest of the software and decrease that learning curve. Therefore, I look for information on how the tool supports you in mastering the software. This includes training material, learning academies, videos, and knowledge bases.
Integrations
Gantt charts are typically just one element of a larger work world, so it’s important that these tools connect to the software you are already using for project management, communication, time tracking, collaboration, agile workflows, and other tools that are part of a complete project management software solution.
Pricing
I’m looking for software that is fairly priced for what they offer and ideally scalable as your company grows. Transparency in pricing terms and what different subscription tiers have to offer the user is key.
Gantt Chart Software FAQs
What is Gantt chart software?
Gantt chart software is software that has the capability to generate Gantt charts. Different Gantt chart software vendors offer different features for planning project tasks and objectives.
A Gantt chart is simply a fancy term for a visual representation of project activities, timelines, and dependencies.
Learn more about the project types that benefit from Gantt chart software.
What should a Gantt chart include?
The best Gantt chart software will include the ability to create horizontal bar charts that depict the timeline of a project’s schedule, the overlay of interdependent tasks (i.e. Task B cannot start until Task A is finished), time estimates, a schedule progress status, and team assignments. Most modern Gantt chart programs also have task management and collaboration features as well.
More on what a Gantt chart should include here.
What is a Gantt chart used for?
Henry Gantt developed the first Gantt chart as a way to plan production and factory resource loading around the turn of the 19th Century. And we still use Gantt charts to this day for resource tracking, deadline plotting, and project communication. A good Gantt chart should visualize the relationship between the work to be done plotted over a set period of time. It will flag the intended start and due date of tasks and subtasks, dependencies between different pieces of work, and plot who is responsible for each item.
We go into more detail about it here: What Is A Gantt Chart, And Why Is It Used?
How do you create a Gantt chart?
Great question! You can follow our step-by-step guide to learn exactly how to create a Gantt chart if you are coming at it for the first time. If you’ve made Gantt charts before and are looking for tips and tricks, try: Elements To Include In A Gantt Chart + Other Gantt Chart Tips.
Is there a Gantt chart in Excel?
Not really but you can build your own or snag a Gantt chart template for Microsoft Excel online. I wouldn’t recommend this approach, though, as it is a ton of manual input for very little benefit. If one project element changes, you have to manually change every step afterward or craft a formula to do so for you.
If you are in the Microsoft ecosystem and loving it, check out MS Projects. You’ll get the familiar look and feel of Excel and other Microsoft platforms with a Gantt chart builder, project management tools, and more
What is the best free Gantt chart software?
The most common free Gantt chart software is probably Excel or Google Sheets. You’ll find templates for creating Gantt charts in those programs if you do a search online, although the templates might cost a few bucks. It works in a pinch, but it’s not great.
Or, you can try a free tool like ClickUp, which offers 100 Gantt charts for free on their basic level plan. There are many other free and open-source Gantt chart software options available online, including RedBooth, GanttProject, Bitrix24, Agantty, Teamweek, and Instagantt for Asana, as well as free versions of paid tools such as Wrike, Paymo, and others.
For more options, read our full list of free Gantt chart software.
What are the key features of Gantt chart software?
- Gantt chart template: Starting from scratch is all fine and dandy but there should be some basic Gantt chart templates available for users who want to hit the ground running.
- Task management: For a Gantt chart to be useful, your team will want to be able to visualize the tasks needed to complete each stage and have real-time updates on progress.
- Task dependencies: Every Gantt chart tool should have a way to mark dependencies (AKA: Task B cannot progress until Task A is done).
- Work-breakdown structure (WBS): There has to be some way to break down huge objectives into smaller, manageable tasks—otherwise, your charts are going to start looking like pretty calendars with no intrinsic value day-to-day.
- Project progress: I’m looking for some way to visualize or communicate the project process, ideally in a way that lets you slice and dice the data in a variety of ways.
- Project insight stats: It’s always super handy when your Gantt chart software can flag ROG status or capacity warnings. Any above-and-beyond insights are welcomed.
- Multiple projects: Some Gantt chart software may only let you manage one project while others let you manage unlimited projects. Only you can know what you need at the end of the day but I’m going to try my best to highlight the maximum capacity of each tool.
What's Next?
Gantt charts are just one way that you can track how you spend your time, set priorities, plan ahead, stay organized, schedule time, and delegate—all key features of a master of time management. Since you are dealing with timelines, I recommend you learn about the critical path method and why it's important.
Related tool lists:
- Best Project Scheduling Software
- Best Gantt Chart Maker Options To Help You Plan
- Project Management Software You Need
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