Best Project Management Software Shortlist
Here’s my pick of the best project management software to manage and control your projects in 2023.
We both know project management is hard. And it's even tougher when it feels your project is out of control. That's why, throughout my career, I've come to love and rely on project management software. It tames my project chaos, and keeps my projects, resources and dependencies in check. My PM software is my project command center: streamlining project planning, workflows, tasks, resources, comms and more. If you're still managing projects in with Post-its and Excel, or you know your PM software sucks, try one of these tools for a serious upgrade!
What is project management software?
Project management software is a digital toolkit designed to help people managing projects plan, organize and manage resources to deliver projects more effectively. It provides a central hub and source of truth for project managers, the project team, and stakeholders.
By consolidating project planning, task management, resource allocation, time tracking, and communication into a single tool, PM software allows effective management and control of projects. It provides real-time status updates, enabling project managers to make quick decisions and adjust a project to keep it on track. Project management software ultimately helps transform chaos into clarity, and gives you the control you need to steer your projects toward their intended objectives and outcomes.
The 15 Best Project Management Software Overviews
Here’s my in-depth review and analysis of the best project management software. I’ll walk you through pros and cons, features and functionality, to help guide you to a better understanding of each tool’s capabilities and suitability for your projects.
monday.com
Best for building custom workflows across teams
monday.com is an award-winning project management platform that can help you build custom workflows for your projects.
Why I picked monday.com: This tool is customizable in almost every way. Besides all the different task views, custom fields, and collaboration features, monday.com is great at helping you create automated workflows. The automation center is a view where you can select from pre-defined templates and simply click to select the information that is most relevant to you from dropdown menus.
Additionally, you can find template actions built for integrations like Slack, and custom cards that you can start from scratch. If you go down this route, you will be taken to a drag-and-drop builder. Read our in-depth monday.com review for a complete overview of the tool, as well as a short video tutorial of basic features.
monday.com Standout Features & Integrations
Features include resource workload and allocation that will give you information on what your team is doing and how busy they are. Another standout is the collaborative docs that help everyone co-author documentation and link to other files within the software. Finally, its customizable dashboards make it possible for you to build views that display the data that is relevant to your operation.
Integrations include pre-built connections to apps like Slack, Google Drive, DocuSign, Gmail, Google Calendar, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform and many more. Additionally, you can connect to thousands of additional apps via Zapier.
Pros
- Helpful visual/color coding customization
- Easy to customize a workflow or board
- Long list of supported integrations
- Huge focus on collaboration
Cons
- May be too robust for small teams
- Gantt charts locked to mid-level plan
- Complex pricing rubric
Wrike
Best project management software for scaling organizations
Wrike is an award-winning project management software that qualifies as a suitable companion for any organization looking to scale.
Why I picked Wrike: The tool offers flexible plans that can support any team size, starting with a free plan that is perfect to manage tasks in small teams. In addition, the features that Wrike offers go anywhere from lists and simple status fields to approvals, proofing, resource management and budgeting.
Wrike also has robust Enterprise features for teams with additional security and granular permission needs. They even have a special tier for complex organizations that have specific requirements.
Wrike Standout Features & Integrations
Features include visual proofing that will help your team receive multi-tier approvals from the client and workflow automations to make those repetitive tasks go away. You can also access project portfolio management features that will let you know if your project initiatives are contributing to the company's strategy and goals, and cross-tagging for projects that require input from other initiatives in the business.
Integrations in Wrike include 400+ pre-built native integrations that include Asana, Airtable, BambooHR, Chargify, Clearbit, HubSpot, Jenkins, Mailchimp, Replicon, Salesforce, and Slack. Additionally, you can build custom automations using its API.
Pros
- Many options and opportunities to customize
- Holistic, comprehensive task modeling
- Different ways to view the same data
Cons
- Commenting system is pretty basic
- No offline access
- No subtasks in the freemium plan
Smartsheet
Best for low-code project management automation
Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-like project management platform. It’s a nice platform if you’re comfortable working in Excel but want a break from complicated formulas, as Smartsheet performs all the calculations for you across multiple sheets.
Why I picked Smartsheet: The platform makes it easy for you to automate workflows and create work applications. On the one hand you have all the workflow automation capabilities that are available for all users. This module within the software lets you automate almost any activity you can think of in a visual drag-and-drop environment. A few examples include alerts for change of status, automated approval requests, and responding to update requests from your email or Slack.
On the other hand, you have the work applications. These are intuitive web and mobile apps that you can build to work with Smartsheet's WorkApps. WorkApps is a no-code platform where you can build apps from a template or directly from sheets, forms, reports, and even external content. These are so powerful that they even include role permissions you can configure for your team.
Smartsheet Standout Features & Integrations
Features include Bridge - a business process automation builder that can help you build workflows in a no-code interface and dashboards that can give you a real-time view of your KPIs, critical trends, and summary reports. Additionally, the document builder integrates directly with DocuSign and lets you send docs for e-signatures while tracking the status of each one.
Integrations include Microsoft and Google apps, as well as development essentials like Jira, and useful business apps like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Box, and Tableau. The platform is extensible through a REST API and webhooks.
Pros
- Easily customizable dashboards
- Ease of sharing
- Many project templates & resources
- Sheet-to-sheet linking
Cons
- Can't customize chart colors
- Changes don’t update in real-time
- Jira, Salesforce, Dynamics connector limited to Premier plan
ClickUp
Best for remote work teams
ClickUp is a project management productivity app with powerful features the allow you to plan projects, schedule tasks, and manage resources in a centralized workspace, regardless of your physical location.
Why I picked ClickUp: I selected ClickUp because of how well they approach the idea of making an app that replaces all others. The features included in this software make it an option for remote teams since they mainly encourage collaboration. From the ability to tag people in conversations to collaborative documents and whiteboards that help users co-create, you won't need to leave this platform unless it is to bill the client.
ClickUp Standout Features & Integrations
Features include the whiteboards that let you brainstorm with your team to come up with a bulletproof plan and the collaborative docs that work as a Wiki where everyone can join and add to the conversation. You can also access an in-app chat and proofing features that can help you streamline approvals on marketing collateral with the client.
Integrations include native ones with Slack, HubSpot, TogglTrack, Figma, Loom, Sentry, G Suite, Dropbox, Clockify, and Calendly. Additionally, you can connect to another 1,000+ apps using a paid membership with Zapier. Finally, if making custom integrations is within your reach, there is a public API you can use for it.
Pros
- Can email (set-up) a task directly from Outlook
- Unlimited file storage on all paid account tiers
- Free forever plan allows unlimited members
Cons
- Granular customization options results in a time consuming set-up
- Reporting suite is limited to paid plans only
- Read-only guest permissions are limited to paid account
Height
Best for startups that need to build products faster
Height is the all-in-one project management tool that can be customized to accommodate workflows on a team-by-team basis and includes visualizations like Spreadsheet (table), Kanban, Calendar, and Gantt.
Why I picked Height: Besides the multiple views, the platform offers unlimited members, guests, and tasks in the free plan, which is great for startups and small businesses.
However, Height gets even better as you move to the other plans. Its robust offering includes a command center where you can customize keyboard shortcuts for almost anything you can think of, macOS and Windows apps, and SOC 2 Type II compliance for data protection.
Height Standout Features & Integrations
Features include a time-tracking feature they recently released where your team can track their time per task and it automatically syncs to third-party software, like Harvest. You will also find automation features that help you build workflows in a drag-and-drop environment, automatically generate tasks in Height from code editors, and quickly access shortcuts using a single keystroke.
Integrations include Notion, Slack, Discord, Harvest, GitHub, GitLab, Sentry, Zendesk, Figma, Slab, and Fivetran. You can also access thousands of additional apps through Zapier (requires paid account).
Pros
- Guest account permissions
- macOS and Windows apps
- Request collection through forms
Cons
- No automations (coming soon)
- Relatively new in the market
Kintone
Best PM software to build business apps for any process
Kintone is a customizable project tracking platform used by teams at Volvo Trucks North America, Japan Airlines, Shiseido, and over 23,000 organizations worldwide.
Why I picked Kintone: Their unique approach to project and task management lets you build a wide variety of customizable “apps” either from scratch, using templates or from your existing spreadsheets. Kintone apps can be customized for project management, sales CRM, customer databases, expense reports, shared to-do lists, equipment management, product feedback, and much more.
Build your no-code project tracking apps by dragging and dropping elements that you want to see onto the page: rich text fields, date fields, drop-down menus, number fields with built-in calculations, and more. Once you’ve built the app you want, you can use it to track whatever data and tasks you and your team need. Finally, custom notifications and reminders will keep you up to date.
What makes Kintone particularly great for project tracking are the features to filter and prioritize tasks by data field or team member to generate custom reports or dashboard views, as well as the ability to automate reminders and handoffs between team members for multi-step workflows.
Kintone’s built-in communication features also allow teams to discuss projects directly in the app and in topic or project-based threads. Dedicated “spaces” organize everything your team needs for your project, including task-tracking apps and searchable conversation threads.
Kintone Standout Features & Integrations
Features include a pre-built application library, enhanced process management, private messaging, real-time custom graphs and charts, and granular permission controls.
Integrations. Kintone lets you expand its capabilities with both free native plugins built by the Kintone team as well as integrations with other tools like Slack, Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Tableau, Dropbox, Salesforce, HubSpot, Eventbrite, WordPress, QuickBooks, MailChimp, and many more through a paid plan with Zapier or via API integrations.
Pros
- Data is easy to pull and manipulate into good looking reports
- Admin accounts have access to tons of customization tools
- Flexible pricing that includes special deals for schools and NPOs
Cons
- No native templates for common project types or documents
- Limited to 5GB/user storage on every pricing tier
- No single-user plan available (minimum 5 users)
GanttPRO
Best for planning and scheduling projects with an online Gantt chart
GanttPRO is a project management software based on Gantt charts and useful for managing all kinds of projects and teams from different spheres. It stands out for its intuitive interface and powerful features.
Why I picked GanttPRO: The software includes features for breaking down projects in an efficient manner into subtasks, sibling tasks, and subprojects, as well as set dependencies and milestones. To get more visibility, users can choose between the Gantt chart, Board views, and task dashboards. GanttPRO also offers handy task management features such as statuses, priorities, duration & estimation, progress, dates and deadlines, assignees, and more.
The Gantt chart maker allows teams to collaborate in real-time using comments, mentions, and attachments. Resource management and workload features for monitoring team members' workload and tasks are also included.
GanttPRO Standout Features & Integrations
Features include task management, resource management, time management, budget tracking, different data views, and templates to get you quickly started on a project.
Integrations include Jira, Google Drive, Slack, and other applications. GanttPRO is widely used in software development, construction, healthcare, finances, events, and education.
GanttPRO Plans & Pricing
Basic plans for one user start at $7.99/month if billed annually and offer a fully featured 14-day free trial.
Pros
- Professional Gantt chart templates
- Multiple and flexible project views
- Intuitive interface with a short learning curve
Cons
- Lack of options to create recurring tasks
- Light on integrations
Nifty
Best for remote teams & ease of use
Nifty is a project management tool that reduces project development cycles and improves team productivity by measuring progress by milestones and ensuring organizational goals remain on schedule.
Why I picked Nifty: It allows you to manage tasks through Kanban or list views, has a built-in calendar that can be integrated with Google, and includes features for file and document sharing. Nifty also has some great collaboration features, such as individual discussion threads that are project-specific.
Nifty is flexible to your team's project workflow, and the cross-organizational project overview tab provides insights into high-level timelines, as well as task-level deep-dive analyses for projects. Nifty's help center assists with ensuring maximum team efforts on the platform.
Nifty Standout Features & Integrations
Features include discussions, task management, time tracking, collaborative docs that can be centrally stored, and reporting.
Integrations include importing data from Asana, Basecamp, ClickUp, and Trello, and has native integrations with Slack, Zoom, GitHub, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Google Calendar, while its Zapier integration connects Nifty with over 1000 additional apps.
Paid plans starting at just $5/user/month.
Pros
- Easy document storage, creation, and management
- Multitude of integrations
- Good chat feature within the system
Cons
- No native integrations with Financial planning tools
- Time tracking & reporting is available with paid account only
- Guests & clients can only be invited on paid plans
Confluence
Best for software teams
Confluence, an Atlassian product, lets users tailor a collaborative digital workspace to their needs using drag-and-drop functionality.
Why I picked Confluence: Confluence’s fast, flexible templates are a stand out feature for project managers. The tool offers project templates for product requirements, marketing campaigns, recruiting initiatives, executive reports, resource scheduling, and more.
A con to be wary of with this tool is the permissions concepts can be a bit tricky to navigate and even trickier to teach/train to team members who need to be aware of them. They lost a few marks in the Usability evaluation because of this.
Confluence Standout Features & Integrations
Features include creating a knowledge database, generating actionable meeting notes, sharing announcements, and dashboard pages for products and teams.
Integrations include Jira, Trello, Slack, Microsoft Office, inVision, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Draw.io, Productiv, Bitbucket, Hipchat, Bamboo, and 3000+ more through their app marketplace.
Confluence starts at $5/user/month and has a freemium version of the tool for us to 10 users, plus a 7-day free trial for any paid plan.
Pros
- Great version control
- Good iOS & Android apps
- 3,000+ integrations
- Plenty of best practice templates
Cons
- Weak search bar functionality
- Rudimentary word processing features
- Limited integration with MS Office
Basecamp
Best for straightforward planning and management by project
Basecamp is a project management software with tools for scheduling, planning, and getting work done collaboratively.
Why I picked Basecamp: The platform features a progress board, to-do lists, a message board, project-specific chats, and document and file management capabilities. Each project has its own board where tasks, collaborators, and documents can be managed. The project boards have schedules and messaging to keep team members up-to-date on progress.
This software prides itself on being simple and straightforward, without unnecessary features or a complex interface. The homepage dashboard has cards with all projects, which can be pinned to the top for easy access. Users can order projects however they prefer, and their custom view will be saved for their usage.
Basecamp Standout Features & Integrations
Features include project dashboards, calendar views, to-do-lists, scheduling, per-project dashboards, project-specific message boards, file and document management, and live chat.
Integrations include Automate.io, CData Clockify, Field Trip, Ganttify, Mr.ToDo, Pleexy, Project Buddy, RSSBus, Retool, TaskClone, Toggl, To-Do Helpers, Unito.io, Zoho, and others. Users with a paid Zapier account can access additional integrations.
Pros
- Customizable homepage for every user to organize as they prefer
- Project dashboards keep work organized and segmented
- Simple and straightforward interface is fast to learn
Cons
- No freemium plan currently available
- Simplicity at times means less feature depth
Ravetree
Best for client service businesses
Ravetree is a work management software platform that empowers teams to deliver work faster, be more informed, and spend less time searching for information. Project-driven organizations around the world use Ravetree to manage their projects, resources, and client information—all in one place.
Why I picked Ravetree: Companies love Ravetree’s elegant and clean user interface, which makes it easy to communicate and collaborate with colleagues and clients. Ravetree eliminates the pain of moving between different applications, relying on cumbersome spreadsheets, and entering the same data in multiple places. Other tools are geared towards either project managers or team members, but not both. Ravetree has solved this problem by providing the powerful features needed by project managers while offering the usability and intuitiveness needed by team members who just want to get work done.
Ultimately, companies benefit from having a single source of truth from which they can optimize their operations and easily see the big picture. Ravetree has a 5-star customer support rating and takes pride in being a customer-focused company. Training, setup, and customer support are 100% free.
Standout Features & Integrations
Features include resource management, client portals, request forms, file management, CRM, time tracking, and billing.
Integrations include native integrations with Box, GitHub, Google Drive, Stripe, QuickBooks, Facebook, Exchange, Gmail, HubSpot, and Xero.
Pros
- Distinction between billable and non-billable hours
- Robust budgeting features
- Easily track multiple projects
Cons
- Home board not customizable
- No public API
- Reporting tools are lacking
Airtable
Best for building project databases
Airtable is a project management solution that lets users add attachments, long text notes, checkboxes, links, barcodes, and more to records in other tables.
Why I picked Airtable: Powerful filtering, sorting, and grouping give you the freedom to arrange your work in whatever way works best for your team. The user interface is sleek, modern, colorful, and attractive, making Airtable a pleasure to use and navigate. This software scored well in the UX consideration for the evaluation criteria listed earlier in this article.
The learning curve for Airtable is made troublesome by a general lack of tutorials and training on their site. Certain features, like posting assignments, might be tricky to teach or learn.
Airtable Standout Features & Integrations
Features include rich field types, desktop and mobile apps, Gantt, timeline and list views, automations, and in-record commenting features.
Integrations. Airtable has built-in support for many popular apps and a robust API. Use Zapier, Workato, Integromat, or Automate.io to connect Airtable with over 1000 websites and apps like Asana, Basecamp, Box, Evernote, Facebook, Github, MailChimp, Slack, and more.
Pros
- Color-code lists and project items
- Forms easy to distribute and embed
- Rollups and Lookups to organize data
- Flexible for small businesses
Cons
- Time consuming to build custom tables
- Steep learning curve
Forecast
Best AI-native project planning tool
Forecast is an all-in-one platform for resource and project management, that is equipped with tools to manage everything from quote to invoice, plus it offers intelligent automation to predict project delivery dates, forecast capacity needs, and become more efficient. Their AI uses cumulative learnings from hundreds of thousands of projects and creates rules based on that user data.
Why I picked Forecast: Let’s talk about features. The Auto-Schedule feature is great for project scheduling, providing estimates, automatically assigning resources to tasks. It’s got a drag-and-drop module that lets you adjust plans and resources in an instant. Another cool feature is that the tool automatically builds a budget for every project with key financial metrics to track planned vs. actuals. It also supports various billing types (fixed price, time & materials) side-by-side and in real-time. It has advanced up-to-the-minute reports you can customize.
Forecast also introduced a one-of-its-kind feature to manage projects in a retainer setup. A dashboard with retainer periods and totals lets you track the financials of ongoing projects without losing sight of staff workloads and time spent on delivery.
Forecast Standout Features & Integrations
Features include resource management, project accounting, business intelligence, retainer budget-type projects, auto-schedule, and AI-based recommendations.
Integrations include several turnkey integrations with mainstream project management tools and two-way sync with Jira on the market. It also complements accounting systems like Quickbooks and Xero with PM capabilities.
Pros
- Easy to plan projects and timelines
- Can manage resources across multiple projects
- Predictive tasks for spreadsheets
Cons
- Higher learning curve
- Additional fee for onboarding/training
- Milestone data is lumped together rather than separated
Microsoft Project
Best for teams that work in the Microsoft ecosystem
MS Projects is Microsoft’s answer to project management. This tool lets users manage agile projects using simple, visual task boards that support Scrum, Kanban, or custom workflows and choose whatever methodology makes sense for the project: agile, waterfall, or hybrid.
Why I picked Microsoft Project: This PM software is particularly easy to use and learn if you are at all familiar with the Microsoft family of products, which most offices are these days. Online tutorials and forums can fill in any gaps, making the learning curve small. Thus, it evaluated well in Usability.
Side note: This is a standard and industry-accepted tool, but it’s not perfect. One major downside is that it’s not easy to run on iOS. If you like MS Projects but are looking for similar options that run on a Mac, check out my post on MS Project options for Mac.
Microsoft Project Standout Features & Integrations
Features include kanban boards, timelines with milestones, Power BI dashboards, resource requests, visual heatmaps to identify over-allocation, built-in templates, reporting, task management, and portfolio management.
Integrations include other Microsoft software, like Outlook, Excel, Skype, and more.
Pros
- Integration with other Microsoft software
- Driver prioritization module for ranking strategies/objectives
- Helpful project template descriptions for guidance
- Can generate a Gantt chart from a spreadsheet
Cons
- Poor customization options
- Steep learning curve
- Limitations on collaboration tools
Paymo
Best PM software for invoicing clients
Paymo is the best project management software to use if you're working in consultancy and the creative/marketing industry. Paymo suits freelancers, small and medium teams, or businesses as it helps creatives navigate projects and tasks, keep track of their time, and bill clients from the same platform.
Paymo lets you streamline your workflow as you manage a creative project. With Paymo, you get a good grasp of task details and status (task management) using multiple views, task lists, Kanban, and Gantt charts. You’ll see how many hours you’ve put in (time tracking)—and how that fares with your initial estimates. You’ll be able to then send invoices to your clients and be paid through online payment gateways like Square, Stripe, PayPal, and others. On top of all that, you can manage everything on the go using the mobile app.
Paymo lets you assign users, collaborate in real-time, file proof, and be updated via notifications or oversee the stream of recent activities. Paymo alos comes with a resource scheduling module and resource management to help manage leave days and set up bookings for clients.
Paymo integrates with Zapier, Google, and Slack for an extra ping.
Pros
- Free for 1 user
- Easy to use project filters
- Seamless time tracking
- View all projects on a single Kanban board
Cons
- Some data export limitations
- No way to invite collaborators/reviewers
- Not great at tracking a large number of projects
Need expert help selecting the right Project Management Tool?
We’ve joined up with Crozdesk.com to give all our readers (yes, you!) access to Crozdesk’s software advisors. Just use the form below to share your needs, and they will contact you at no cost or commitment. You will then be matched and connected to a shortlist of vendors that best fit your company and you can access exclusive software discounts!
Best Project Management Tools Comparison Chart
Review all the tools we just covered in this convenient table where you can see them side-by-side.
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | monday.com Best for building custom workflows across teams | 14-day free trial + freemium plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Visit Website |
2 | Wrike Best project management software for scaling organizations | Free plan available | From $9.80/user/month | Visit Website |
3 | Smartsheet Best for low-code project management automation | Freemium version available | From $7/user/month | Visit Website |
4 | ClickUp Best for remote work teams | Freemium plan available | From $9/user/month | Visit Website |
5 | Height Best for startups that need to build products faster | 30-day free trial available | From $8.50/user/month | Visit Website |
6 | Kintone Best PM software to build business apps for any process | 30-day free trial | From $24/user/month | Visit Website |
7 | GanttPRO Best for planning and scheduling projects with an online Gantt chart | 14-day free trial | From $7.99/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
8 | Nifty Best for remote teams & ease of use | 14-day free trial | From $9 /user/month | Visit Website |
9 | Confluence Best for software teams | Free plan available | From $5.75/user/month | Visit Website |
10 | Basecamp Best for straightforward planning and management by project | 30-day free trial | From $15/user/month (billed annually) | Visit Website |
11 | Ravetree Best for client service businesses | 7-day free trial | From $29/user/month | Visit Website |
12 | Airtable Best for building project databases | Free forever plan available | From $10/user/month | Visit Website |
13 | Forecast Best AI-native project planning tool | 14-day free trial | From $29/user/month | Visit Website |
14 | Microsoft Project Best for teams that work in the Microsoft ecosystem | 30-day free trial | From $10/user/month | Visit Website |
15 | Paymo Best PM software for invoicing clients | Free plan available | From $5.95/user/month | Visit Website |
Other Project Management Software To Consider
Below is a list of additional PM tool options that we shortlisted, but did not make it to the top 15. Definitely worth checking them out.
- MeisterTask
Best Best for teams who use Kanban-style project boards with WIP limits
- Backlog
Best for software developers
- Quire
For small teams looking to combine Kanban and to-do lists
- MindGenius
best built-in mind mapping capabilities
- Asana
Best online task management software for complex projects
- Hubstaff
Best easy agile project management software
- Hive
Best for collaboration & messaging
- Planview Clarizen
Best enterprise project management software
- FunctionFox
Best for creative teams and agencies
- LiquidPlanner
Best for managing complex projects
Check out our video on the top project management tools:
How I Picked The Best Project Management Software
I evaluated and compared the most popular project management tools on the market, both for their reviews and user interface. Then I weighed factors that make a project management system a good option for project management, such as the ones that follow.
Task Management Capabilities
Every project management software should have powerful task management capabilities. This includes being able to schedule tasks, assign them to resources, and set due dates and dependencies. Additionally, it includes several ways to view that information, such as Kanban, Gantt, calendar, and table views.
When done right, task management can help you track project progress and have custom fields for parameters that are specific to your business operation.
Collaboration
I looked at the platforms and the way they enable you and your team to interact with each other. Among these collaboration features are mentions, comments, annotations, built-in chats, attachments, and anything that involves team communication.
Overall, user-friendly features will make collaboration easy, and it's even better when they are available on a mobile app. This way, the team can collaborate with more freedom.
Key Features
Here, I focused on the available categories of features that are helpful in managing projects. It was more about the quality of the features than quantity. Therefore, I focused on the ones that bring our teams closer for collaboration, assist as tracking tools, provide valuable insights or help us automate our work.
I’ve identified five key aspects of functionality that make delivering projects easier. You can use them to get rid of your post-its and spreadsheets and to run your project more efficiently.
- Project task lists: Projects are made up of tasks, sub-tasks, checklists, and to-dos. Being able to outline what needs to be done, by when & by who is critical to delivering a project well. Individual task lists, as well as those accessible by the entire team, are essential. An in-house project team and/or remote team members should be able to assess any project or task progress at a glance.
- Schedules: Timelines, calendars, and Gantt charts help you track progress and know where tasks fit within the broader scheme of a project. This is key to being able to deliver a project on time. A robust, visual, and editable schedule is key to any good project plan.
- File sharing: No one likes having to waste time trying to dig around for random files. The ability to organize and share key project files and assets is important for delivering projects efficiently.
- Communication: A good collaboration tool that allows for contextual project-specific communication enables you and your team to hash things out quickly. Regular communication with your team and client is vital for tracking progress and keeping everything in line.
- Reporting: It’s your job to know whether or not a project is on track and to use this information in communication. Therefore, it’s essential to know how a project’s tasks are progressing—will it be delivered on time or not?
Integrations
I looked at software that could help expand the platform's functionality. Therefore, I included information on cloud-based providers that you can connect to. These integrations can be pre-built, through third-party software, or custom-built using an API.
Project Management Software FAQs
Here's what other people ask about this topic. These questions range from simple concepts to specific use cases.
What is the ultimate goal of project management software?
The ultimate goal of the software is to help deliver value more efficiently by facilitating organization, communication, and management.
This software covers a huge range of functionality – some tools focus on a discrete aspect of project management, like resource management, time tracking, or Gantt charts, while others like do try to do it all.
Different tools offer features to facilitate every phase of the project lifecycle, from planning the initial outline or proposal before you begin and then reporting on your successes or shortcoming after everything is said and done. Along the way, you’ll probably need access to tools for proposals, note-taking, collaborative document building, internal messaging, stakeholder communications, creating and assigning tasks, plotting milestones, planning sprints, imaging user stories, data and analytics reporting, project portfolio management, budget tracking, and timeline scheduling. The best software will tend to most of these needs so that you don’t have to bounce between tabs or use multiple apps.
Although some PM software can be installed on-premise, most new tools are offered online as a software-as-service or SaaS. This means new features and functionality are rolled out as they are built.
Learn more about the different tools used in project management here.
Why should I use project management software?
You should use project management software if you don't want to find yourself drowning in an ocean of Post-its and spreadsheets. The benefits of project management software are:
- Better scheduling
- Faster communication
- Improved organization
- Reduced risk of Scope Creep
- Simplified status reporting
- Fewer redundancies
- Less training
- Resource planning
You can find more details on each of these items in the 8 reasons to use project management software.
You should also take a look at 8 benefits of project management software and what is project management used for articles.
What common features can I find in project management software?
Here is a quick list of the features that you can commonly find in different project management software. Not all might be available in the same tool, but all tools will offer a subset of these.
- Project planning
- Task management
- Communication
- Resource management
- Time and budget tracking
- Dashboards
- Project views
Read more about the common features found in PM software.
What is the best project management software?
I hate to break it to you, but it depends. The best project management software is the one with features that solve your current needs. You should choose a product that can do that and grow with your company as you require more features or improved security. The last thing you want is to have to go through the process of choosing a new tool again further down the road.
Fortunately, most of the current online PM software solutions have pricing plans that you can pay month-to-month and upgrade at any time.
I recommend you start by defining a budget for project management software licenses and go from there. Although these tools come at a low price point, PMs within our community have mentioned that they can get very expensive very quickly. Nothing beats proper planning. If you want more information on how to select the right software for you, check out our buyer’s guide.
What is the best free project management software?
The best free project management software is Microsoft Office (Excel, PPT, and Word) if your company is already paying for it.
Otherwise, free software exists, like ProjectLibre, but it comes at a cost. Usually, free versions have limited functionality or, if they are open source, do not have the customer support level of a paid tool.
If you are interested in a list of free and freemium options, have a look at our list of free pm software.
How do you implement project management software?
Implementing project management software will look very different depending on the size of your organization.
- For a small company, it’s counting how many people need access to the software, buying the licenses, and configuring the product.
- For a mid-sized organization, it triggers a change management project. You have to plan for a new tool because you may already have a system in place. This system (good or bad) currently works, and people are used to it. Therefore, a PM tool implementation involves meeting with the users affected by the change and getting buy-in from stakeholders.
- For a large corporation, it means change management plus strategy. At an enterprise level, your decision on a new tool implementation involves reviewing the tool and how it impacts the users, projects, company goals, and strategy. Add to that the security requirements of an implementation of this scale, and suddenly it’s not that straightforward.
Any implementation will have an adjustment period where people are either training on how to use the tool or being less productive than usual. Why? Because they are trying to figure out how to adapt their workflows.
Whatever the size of your organization, I suggest you schedule a demo and meeting with the vendor. Then, ask for available training services and if they support the initial product configuration. Finally, run some numbers and make sure you have enough money to support this implementation and a bit more (planning for growth).
Please note that this is the case for online project management software and not on-premise. Hosting services on your servers will require extensive planning, no matter the company size.
What is Best-Of-Breed Software?
Many of the work management solutions on this list focus on being jacks-of-all-trades, packing as many features as possible to assign tasks, navigate team collaboration, flag status, perform resource allocation, and so on and so forth, ad nauseam.
Another kind of tool—the “best-of-breed” or “one trick pony”—does the opposite and hyper-focuses on doing one thing really, really well. You can find specialized tools for things like resource scheduling, communication, managing tasks, making Gantt charts, creating reports, managing digital assets, and managing requirements. Tools like Slack (comms), Dropbox (storage), and Todoist (lists) are examples of these uber-specialized tools. Specialized tools can be great—especially for a small team working with niche requirements, fewer clients, or complex projects with unique needs.
Do I need more than one tool?
In an ideal scenario, you wouldn't. However, the reality can be frustrating. You will probably end up using more than one tool. You use one tool for communication, another for file sharing and yet another for task management. An important thing to remember is that the best pm software for you should integrate all these tools you currently use.
If the tools can talk to each other, it can reduce manual update work and the number of times you switch between apps.
Read more about the 5 common types of PM software.
What can you do with project management software?
Project management software allows you to streamline your work.
- You can collaborate with your team in a centralized platform, comment on tasks, tag people that need to get involved in the conversation, and have stakeholders interact with the project through portals or guest accounts.
- With project management software you can also give visibility to everyone on the team of the project timeline. This will help keep your team aligned and alert them when the timeline has shifted.
- PM software lets you automate parts of your work that are repetitive, such as pinging individuals when a task is completed, or approvals are received. Nowadays, workflow automation is a feature that more vendors are trying to incorporate into their offering.
- One final thing you can do with project management is keep tabs on resources, their workload and availability. Although not all software has RM as a feature, those who do make it really easy to see who is available to take on more work, who is on their way to some classic burnout, and who can be pulled to another project.
What is the easiest project management software to use?
The easiest project management software is the one that is easy to use and learn. And although this might be different from person to person, we do have a list of some tools that fit this criteria, like Wrike, monday.com, and Hive.
In this list of the easiest project management software, I compare them and give them start ratings based on ease of use and available documentation.
What is the best project management software for small business?
The best project management software for small business is one like Zoho Projects. A solution that offers a decent amount of features for a low price per user, and can scale with you as you grow.
We've compiled some of the best software for SMBs in this list.
What is the best project management software for large organizations?
The best software for large organizations is one like Adobe Workfront. A software that keeps your information safer than the secrets inside Area 51. Also known as enterprise project management software, this is the top tier offering of any vendor, and usually requires you to schedule a demo before you have access to pricing information.
What project management software has the best special features?
I selected ClickUp as the best tool with special features. ClickUp's tagline mentions them being the app to replace them all, so they have made sure to add everything they can, and not in a sloppy way. The software works great and has a wonderful free version that lets you test all of its features.
Special features include:
- Collaborative whiteboards and documents
- Scrum support to manage sprints within the platform
- Marketing collateral proofing with a comments section
- Over 35 clickApps that extend the software's functionality with stuff like Sprint points, time tracking, and automations.
- Fully customizable dashboards.
Other Project Management Software Reviews
We've curated specific lists for you to find the perfect project management app by category.
- Agile – Agile PM software
- Remote teamwork – Remote PM software
- Web-based – Web-based PM software
- Online – Online PM software
- Mac – Best PM software for Mac
- Microsoft – Alternatives to MS Project
- Agencies – Best agency management systems
- Individuals – Project management for individuals
- Creatives – Creative PM software
- Visual planning – Visual PM software
- Marketing – PM software for marketing agencies
- Advertising – PM software for advertising agencies
- Multiple Projects –PM software for multiple projects
- Startups – PM software for startups
- Architects – PM software for architects
- Construction – Construction PM software

What's Next?
Remember that if you want to have more information about a specific use case, you can always schedule a demo with the vendor. This will clarify how the tool can solve the particular problems you are trying to solve.
Related tool lists:
We have tons of useful content to help you win at work! You can stay up to date by subscribing to the Insiders Newsletter. New content and interesting PM-related conversations will drop into your inbox every week.
27 Comments