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10 Best Visual Project Management Software 2023

The 10 Best Visual Project Management Software List

Here’s a shortlist of the best visual project management tools:

  1. 1. monday.com — Best free plan with bold color-coding of tasks
  2. 2. Height — Best for its free plan with unlimited members, guests, and tasks
  3. 3. Airtable — Best for integrations
  4. 4. Forecast — Best for managing your projects, resources, and finances in one
  5. 5. Backlog — Best for software devs
  6. 6. ProjectManager.com — Best looking customizable dashboard
  7. 7. KeyedIn — Best for making charts pop
  8. 8. nutcache — Best for visualizing project development
  9. 9. Notion — Best for remote or hybrid teams
  10. 10. CROOW — Best visual project management software with time tracking

The best project management system is one that functions well and looks good while doing it. That’s why I’ve compiled some of the best visual project management software here and outlined what it does best for users.

Adding visual flair to a project or task can help you quickly assess where you stand. For example, if you’re late on a deliverable you want a visual project management software that screams “There is an issue here!” using graphics or bold color schemes. Everything will be easier for you and your team to read so that you can spend less time hunting for information and more time making moves.

Portfolio management is another aspect of PM software that can benefit from a strong visual approach. After all, every item in your portfolio most likely has its own style and feel and your records should show that. Your project team will appreciate having more than a block of text to define their projects, milestones, and schedules.

This article will compare and evaluate the best visual project management solutions and highlight ways in which they can amplify your workflow management.

Visual Project Management Software Comparison Criteria

What am I looking for when we select visual work management software for review? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:

  1. User Interface (UI): Is it clean and attractive on a web browser as well as any mobile app? Is real-time data and reporting displayed in a pleasing, easy-to-read way? Is the dashboard customizable, to appeal to different visual preferences?
  2. Usability: Is it easy to learn and master? Does the company offer good tech support, user support, tutorials, and training? Can team members of various technological backgrounds onboard easily? Does it come with an iOS or Android app?
  3. Integrations: Is it easy to connect with other tools? Any pre-built integrations? Does it connect with whatever project management tool you may already use in your day-to-day? Does it connect to image storage systems like Google Drive?
  4. Value for $: How appropriate is the price for the features, capabilities, and use case? Is pricing clear, transparent, and flexible?

Key Visual PM Software Features

  1. Drag-and-drop visual organization
  2. Colored labels (ex. for due dates or project status/project progress)
  3. Picture uploads
  4. File previews
  5. Reports
  6. Client dashboards
  7. Gantt Charts and/or Kanban Boards
  8. Visual gamification of collaboration tools
  9. Sticky notes or other note-taking
  10. Charts and flows for project planning
visual project management software logos list

Overviews Of The 10 Best Visual Project Management Solutions

Here’s a brief description of each of the visual project management software that is featured on this list.

1

monday.com

Best free plan with bold color-coding of tasks

monday.com is a bold, easy-to-use visual project management software that lets you view your projects, tasks, and milestones in a variety of ways—Gantt chart, calendar views, task lists, Kanban boards, and completion-level bar charts. Each user can build their own visual dashboard using widgets to pull in and display the data they need mostar in their day-to-day.

monday also has in-app commenting and messaging, making for easy workflow collaboration and approvals. Team members can attach documents right into the project space, including graphics, text files, videos, and spreadsheets. Plus, monday.com boasts fully featured iOS and Android mobile apps.

Higher level paid plans will unlock simple, point-and-click automations that can change statuses or send notifications as soon as certain conditions are met. This greatly reduces the organizational and administrative burden on your project management team.

monday.com’s 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.

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.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 6745

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats)

2

Height

Best for its free plan with unlimited members, guests, and tasks

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 Spreadsheets (table), Kanban boards, Calendars, and Gantt charts.

Another feature that the platform offers is real-time chat per task. This effortlessly ensures that all conversation about work happens in context, is searchable, and only notifies the people for whom the info is relevant.

Height’s robust offering includes a command menu 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.

Integrations include Notion, Slack, Discord, GitHub, GitLab, Sentry, Zendesk, Figma, Slab, Fivetran, and many more through Zapier.

Height's pricing starts at $6.99/user/month and comes with a free 30-day trial. One last thing, guest accounts are free in all paid plans.

30-day free trial

From $8.50/user/month

3

Airtable

Best for integrations

Airtable is a super robust and highly customizable visual project management software with smart sorting and filtering capabilities, an assortment of different data visualization styles, and very flexible workflow automations to accommodate any process. It can be tricky to learn all the ins and outs of the system but it’s well worth the effort.

Airtable is so data dense and informationally rich that its internal search function tends to lag behind what is needed for the tool. Don’t let this stop you from trying it out, though, as you’ll definitely find the broad functionality of the system gets you a bang for your buck.

Airtable integrates with Asana, Basecamp, Dropbox, Box, Email, Eventbrite, Evernote, Facebook, Github, Gmail, Google Drive/calendar/contacts, Instagram, JotForm, MailChimp, LinkedIn, MeetUp, Pocket, Slack, SMS, Soundcloud, Stripe, Trello, Tumblr, Twilio, Twitter, Typeform, WordPress, Wunderlist, YouTube, and Zendesk. You can connect to thousands of other apps using Zapier, Workato, Integromat, or Automate.io (may require a paid plan) or leverage their robust API to do the same.

Airtable offers a free plan with some feature and size limitations. Paid plans cost from $10/user/month and come with a 14-day free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.6 1339

Free-forever plan available

From $10/user/month

4

Forecast

Best for managing your projects, resources, and finances in one

Forecast is a visual project management software that unites your projects, resources, and financials in one AI-powered platform. Project managers can leverage Forecast’s workflow automation capabilities to create smart schedules, estimate timeframes and budgets, and populate timesheets instantly. Forecast is currently used in over 40 countries by an assortment of agencies, consulting companies, SMBs, and enterprises.

PMs can control the workflow by building out detailed task lists and flagging clear priorities. Task cards allow every team member to easily comment, share files, and register time spent. Everything related to the specific task appears in one place, including dependencies and subtasks. You can put together projects for any type of work: fixed price, time and material, or retainer.

Forecast’s AI learns from previous work and suggests the number of hours you normally register on similar tasks to help you log time faster. You can monitor time registrations from a team perspective and notify each member if they forget to enter something in. Time tracking utilization on a company-wide level is calculated for you for easy alerts, estimates, and reporting.

Forecast integrates with Slack, Microsoft Teams, iCloud Calendar, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Outlook, Harvest, Trello, Asana, GitLab, Github, and dozens more using a paid plan through Zapier. Higher-tier subscriptions include native integrations with Timelog, Xero, QuickBooks Online, JIRA, Azure DevOps, Salesforce, Okta, OneLogin, and Azure Active Directory.

Forecast cost from $29/user/month with a minimum of 10 users and offers a 14-day free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 225

14-day free trial

From $29/user/month

5

Backlog

Best for software devs

Backlog is project management and code management united, making it particularly well suited for software development teams who want a modern, visual workspace. Backlog has everything that you would expect from a visual project management tool: sprint planning, communication tools, real-time updates, and a healthy number of workflow-related integrations. Backlog has both an iOS and Android mobile app, as well.

Backlog also has all the stuff that software dev PMS need: issue and bug tracking, remote work support, version controls, and tons of built-in storage space 100 GB for enterprise level plans). You can even add issues directly from whatever email solution you use. They also empower code review and collaboration through Git, Subversion (SVN), and wikis.

Backlog integrates with 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.

Backlog is free for up to 10 users and 1 project. Paid plans cost from $35/month for up to 30 users and come with a 30-day free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.5 162

30-day free trial

From $30/month

6

ProjectManager.com

Best looking customizable dashboard

ProjectManager is an online project management solution currently used by over 375K users and counting, including teams from NASA, Volvo, and Ralph Lauren. The tool lets you share projects and collaborate online with features such as Gantt charts, visual dashboards, real-time reporting, and time tracking functionality.

ProjectManager is a highly flexible tool used by teams in construction, manufacturing, IT & dev work, professional services, engineering, product management, and more. It comes with free onboarding and free training to ensure that the tool is set-up to meet the specific needs of your industry and team.

ProjectManager integrates with MS Project, Excel, Office 365, Salesforce CRM, QuickBooks, Xero, Dropbox, Desk.com, JIRA, Hubspot, Slack,Zendesk, Evernote, OneLogin, OneDrive, and the complete Google Suite. They also have a powerful REST API to help you build against internal or external tools.

ProjectManager is free to use for up to 3 users. Paid plans cost from $14/user/month and come with a 30-day free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4 76

30-day free trial

From $16/user/month

7

KeyedIn

Best for making charts pop

KeyedIn is a visual project management tool that combines all of your PMO’s projects, tasks, resources, and reports across a modern, clean interface. Simple dashboard views can flag overdue deliveries, tasks, and actions so that your team can address them quickly. They also offer risk & issue management features: track, manage and resolve risks and issues associated with portfolio projects.

KeyedIn is available in over a dozen languages, inlucing English (US & UK), Spanish (Mexico & Spain), Chinese Manderin, and French. They also offer their services in different hyper-focused modules to address things like manufacturing enterprise resource planning, project portfolio management, or professional services PM.

KeyedIn integrates with Salesforce, Cherwell, JIRA, CAST Software Intelligence, Sage, Microsoft BI, and other apps not listed directly on their site. Their enterprise-level plan boasts support for third-party integrations for things like predictive analytics, IT product analysis, advanced reporting, and AL/machine learning.

KeyedIn costs from $15.30/user/month depending on permissions/feature needs. They also offer a free trial for new users.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.3 27

Not available

Available upon request

8

nutcache

Best for visualizing project development

Nutcache is a visual project management software with a suite of communication and collaboration tools built into daily workflow processes.

Nutcache features include project management, project budgeting, task management, time tracking, expense tracking, online invoicing, and reporting capabilities. The tool is a collaborative workspace with features for live editing, commenting, and mentions.

Nutcache lets you use custom workflows, divide work into manageable chunks, prioritize tasks, assign multiple members to a task, define budget alerts, set budget tracking by the hour or amount, use KPIs to stay on budget, and has a roadmap of features to come.

Integrations include Dynacom Accounting, PayPal, 2Checkout, Stripe, Authorized.Net, Google Sign In, and GitHub.

Nutcache is free to use for up to 20 users. Paid plans start at $6/user/month with a minimum of 5 users and offer a free trial.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2 13

Free trial, no credit required

From $12.49/user/month on a yearly basis

9

Notion

Best for remote or hybrid teams

Notion is an easy-to-use project planning tool with a focus on docs & wiki building and is used by teams from Loom, Spotify, Slack, Nike, and Pixar. The interface is designed to marry your daily task view with knowledge base documentation in the same space so that you don't need to jump back and forth or worry about straying from the project expectations. This approach is particularly useful for remote or hybrid teams, who may not have 1:1 access to management support at all times.

Key features include drag-and-drop dashboards, a community-curated template library, real-time collaboration with in-app commenting and discussions, and granular permission levels. They offer a web-based SaaS or on-premise option, as well as versions for both macOS and Windows. They also have a free mobile app.

Notion's API for integrations is currently in the beta stage. They do not advertise any native third-party connections, which puts them at somewhat of a disadvantage when compared to others on this list.

Notion is free to use with some feature limitations. Paid plans cost from $10/user/month.

Free for 1 admin + 5 guests

From $10/user/month

10

CROOW

Best visual project management software with time tracking

CROOW is an innovative project management platform designed to unify business leaders, project managers, and creatives into high performing teams for simple, scalable work. The tool includes project planning features for managing to-dos, timelines, and deliverables. Users can also create tasks, assign due dates, and communicate with team members through comments and message boards. Another great feature is the option to create custom workflows that correspond with specific project plans.

They have a free plan that allows for unlimited team sizes, where you can set permissions by group or role. All plans include multiple view settings including Kanban, Gantt, List and Calendar to accommodate independent user preferences. The platform also features a built-in digital asset management feature for storing and accessing brand assets like logos, playbooks, brand templates, color palettes and approved imagery.

CROOW offers additional project and business management features such as automated processes and notifications, forecasting and reporting on dashboards. Team leads can generate actionable insights and forecasts through robust reporting dashboards that deliver true, real-time business intelligence. Users can also manage workloads with resource scheduling capabilities using visually appealing calendars and task lists.

CROOW is free to use with some feature limitations. Paid plans cost from $19/month.

Free version permanently available but limited access to certain platform features

From $19/month

Need expert help selecting the right Project Management Software?

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!

The Best Visual Project Management Solutions Software Comparison Chart

Tool Free Option Price
1
monday.com

Best free plan with bold color-coding of tasks

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) Visit Website
2
Height

Best for its free plan with unlimited members, guests, and tasks

30-day free trial

From $8.50/user/month Visit Website
3
Airtable

Best for integrations

Free-forever plan available

From $10/user/month Visit Website
4
Forecast

Best for managing your projects, resources, and finances in one

14-day free trial

From $29/user/month Visit Website
5
Backlog

Best for software devs

30-day free trial

From $30/month Visit Website
6
ProjectManager.com

Best looking customizable dashboard

30-day free trial

From $16/user/month Visit Website
7
KeyedIn

Best for making charts pop

Not available

Available upon request Visit Website
8
nutcache

Best for visualizing project development

Free trial, no credit required

From $12.49/user/month on a yearly basis Visit Website
9
Notion

Best for remote or hybrid teams

Free for 1 admin + 5 guests

From $10/user/month Visit Website
10
CROOW

Best visual project management software with time tracking

Free version permanently available but limited access to certain platform features

From $19/month Visit Website

Other Visual Project Management Options

Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list. If you need additional suggestions for handy visual PM apps, check these out.

  1. Teamwork – Best free plan for small businesses that need a visual approach.
  2. ProWorkflow – Best for visualizing resource management.
  3. Hive – Best for visual time tracking & timesheets for projects.
  4. Process Street – Best for aesthetic project timelines.
  5. Mavenlink – Best for building roadmaps.
  6. Forecast.app – Best for visually appealing invoicing documents.
  7. TeamGantt – Best for Gantt charts and other planning.
  8. Project Insight – Best for appealing analysis reports.
  9. Acuity PPM – Best customer support resources.
  10. Genius Project – Best for easy, visual project tracking.
  11. Bubble – Best as an intuitive, easy-to-use visual PM tool.
  12. Airfocus – Best for scalability, large or small teams.
  13. Asana – Best for simple task management.
  14. Jira – Best for agile workflows.
  15. Trello – Best for Kanban board task lists.
  16. Odoo – Best open source project management tool
  17. Scrumwise – Best eye-catching SCRUM software.
  18. Microsoft Project – Best for integration with MS software like Powerpoint.

What Do You Think About These Visual PM Tools?

Have you tried out any visual project management apps listed above? Is there a SAAS visual project management tool that you would add to this list? Sound off in the comments.

If you’re still looking, find other types of project management software and overviews in this article.

By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 15 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony.

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