10 Best Project Planning Software To Keep Stakeholders Aligned In 2024

Wrike is a project planning tool and is ideal for teams of five members to an unlimited number of members. Wrike offers tools for predicting and preventing delays, visualizing deadlines, and monitoring project progress. The tool is highly configurable, and allows users to customize workflows, dashboards, reports, and request forms.

Wrike’s interface is highly visual, and allows users to switch between Kanban boards, interactive drag-and-drop Gantt charts, and traditional workload views to understand priorities. Project planning capabilities include task lists, subtasks, schedules, file sharing, and real-time communication and collaboration.

Wrike includes a robust mobile application that allows users to update team members or upload files and photos. Users can switch between calendars, dashboards, and task lists, and keep an eye on notifications and messages. Wrike also has a dedicated help center with interactive training, videos, a ‘Getting Started’ guide, and a thriving community.

Wrike offers a host of pre-built templates, including a phased project template, which can help break a complex project into manageable chunks, as well as a simple project scheduling template. Real-time reporting helps project managers allocate resources and adjust workloads, and requests keep repetitive admin to a minimum.

Wrike includes over 400 pre-built native integrations, including integrations with the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox.

Wrike starts at $9.80/user/month and has a free version for up to five users. There is also a 14-day free trial for paid plans.

monday.com is a colorful, user-friendly, jack-of-all-trades project planning tool for modern teams. You’ll be able to plan, track, and deliver projects using hundreds of visual and customizable templates that make data more digestible. View data as a map, calendar, timeline, or kanban. I also love the ability to automate repetitive administrative tasks, like creating new lead entries according to incoming emails.

monday.com costs from $6/user/month and comes with a free 14-day trial. They offer a free plan for up to 2 users.

QuickBase is a user-friendly platform that helps you plan and manage dynamic workflows and projects. You can use its no-code builder to craft customized applications tailored to your unique business needs. It's a flexible solution that provides various tools to support your project and resource management and workflow automation.

Even for complex workflows and projects, this tool is capable of helping your map them out and execute them effectively. Because of its code-free builder, it's easy to set up your workflows and get them up and running quickly. The builder can be used for designing workflows, applications, integrations, and automations, making it a versatile tool to contribute to your various work processes.

Paid plans start from $35 per user, per month, and a 30-day free trial is available.

Productive is a comprehensive project management software designed to streamline operations for agencies. It offers a robust platform for planning, managing, and executing projects, making it an essential tool for businesses aiming to enhance efficiency and productivity. 

The platform offers Gantt charts for visualizing project timelines and dependencies, which is crucial for keeping projects on track. Additionally, its workload feature allows managers to monitor team utilization, ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently and preventing burnout. The automation tools in Productive also help with repetitive tasks. For example, automations can be set to trigger notifications when an invoice is overdue or when a task status changes.

Another standout feature of Productive is its budgeting and financial management capabilities. With the simple budget editor, users can create and manage budgets with ease, making it ideal for both small and large projects. The platform also supports various billing types such as time and materials, fixed price, and non-billable projects. It also offers project profitability tracking and forecasting.

Key integrations include Jira, Slack, QuickBooks, Xero, Trello, Zapier, Google Drive, Sage, BambooHR, Gusto, and HubSpot.

Hub Planner is a project planning software that allows businesses to manage and track their projects in a centralized location. The software helps businesses stay organized and on track to deliver their projects on time and within budget.

The software can automatically populate projects and tasks with the relevant resources needed to complete them. This information is then displayed in an intuitive interface, making it easy to see who is available to work on what and when. This feature can also track billable hours and expenses, making it a valuable tool for project managers managing internal and external resources. The capacity management feature can help users plan projects more effectively. Users can see a team's capacity and allocate tasks accordingly, which helps prevent unproductive bottlenecks and ensure your team is always working at its full potential.

The reporting feature allows users to generate custom reports based on various criteria. This feature will enable users to track project progress, identify improvement areas, and make data-driven decisions about utilizing resources best. Reports can be generated for individual projects or an entire portfolio and customized to include only the information relevant to the user. In addition, reports can be exported in various formats, making it easy to share them with others or to keep them for future reference.

Pricing for Hub Planner starts at $7 per resource monthly when billed annually. A 14-day free trial is available for all plans.

Zoho Projects is a project planning and management solution that can support multiple projects of any scale or complexity. The platform has tools like Gantt charts, Kanban boards, portfolio dashboards, a built-in issue tracker, and a task automation system with blueprint functionality. The task automation with blueprint feature enables project managers and admins to map out their entire workflow, creating a visual flowchart representation.

Tasks and notifications can be automated, and approval criteria can be set for projects and tasks. The software also has collaboration tools like discussion boards, community forums, and real-time activity feeds. In addition to project planning , users can also benefit from in-depth reporting. The cloud-based software’s reporting tools allow project managers to generate detailed reports to keep track of various aspects of project performance and progress.

Pricing for Zoho Projects starts at $5 per user/month with a 10-day free trial included. A free plan is available for teams of no more than three users.

Runn is an affordable project planning tool with real-time scheduling, tracking, and forecasting features. It has an accessible and readable shared project view with charts and templates designed to highlight dependencies and due dates. It also has a full API available for building custom integrations.

Runn costs from $10/user/month and has a freemium plan for up to 5 users.

Miro is an online collaborative whiteboarding platform designed to facilitate visual project planning and enhance teamwork. It offers an infinite canvas where users can brainstorm, plan, and execute projects in a highly interactive and visually engaging environment. 

The platform's whiteboard allows users to map out entire projects, breaking down complex tasks into manageable visual components. Miro's rich set of tools, including sticky notes, mind maps, flowcharts, and Kanban boards, helps teams brainstorm ideas, outline workflows, and monitor progress visually. Real-time collaboration is also at the core of Miro's functionality, enabling team members to work together simultaneously, leave comments, and share feedback. 

Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Trello, Asana, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Zoom, Microsoft Office, Notion, Confluence, Salesforce, Airtable, Zapier, and many more. 

Hubstaff Tasks is a project management tool built to simplify project planning and team collaboration. With its Kanban interface, you can create multiple project stages, add tasks to them, and move tasks to different stages by dragging and dropping.

Aside from Kanban, the app has a Sprints feature that lets users organize their assigned tasks by the sprint in which they need to be done. Tasks can be moved to current or future sprints — or to the backlog for non-urgent to-dos.

Hubstaff Tasks includes a Roadmaps feature that allows you to view projects in Gantt chart form. Users can see all projects on a calendar, giving an overview of the team’s timeline.

The app also has daily stand-ups that your team can use to report progress updates and what they will be working on next. Project managers will receive a notification if team members report any task roadblocks.

Pricing for Hubstaff Tasks starts at $7 per user per month.

FunctionFox is a pretty great project planning tool, but it's an especially good fit for creative teams. It provides easy, visually intuitive project management tools like a simple online timesheet feature that helps you figure out if your billable and nonbillable hours on a project are within your estimates. You can also schedule project milestones, meetings, and actions—everything you'd need to plan out and then carry out projects.

FunctionFox costs from $5/user/month and offers a free demo.