17 Best Project Management Software and Tools

17 Best Project Management Software and Tools

It might be challenging to pick which Project Management software is ideal for your project's needs with many available options.

You are a project manager if you manage work. However, this was not always the case. For many years, the only persons in charge of project management were (unsurprisingly) project managers.

These highly specialized professions require substantial training and the ability to handle legacy tools.

Now that practically everyone is expected to manage their projects, these obsolete technologies are no longer useful.

While project manager positions and old software remain, current project management software has evolved to meet the demands of a more dynamic, collaborative workforce.

There is project management software for everyone, whether you are a brand new business owner who only wants help with invoicing or you run a multi-national corporation.

Here's a guide to the best project management software for your company's needs and tools for any project to save you the burden of having to sift through various software for the appropriate one.

What Is Project Management Software?

Project management software is a digital platform/tool that businesses or individuals use to do the following:

- plan projects

- allocate and track project resources,

- schedule project timelines and tasks,

- assign tasks

- track progress

- capture and implement knowledge and ideas, and

- collaborate with team members for project completion.

Project management software also helps businesses keep organized by providing document storage, search, and organizational tools.

PM software enables successful project management and control by combining project planning, task management, resource allocation, time tracking, and communication into a single application.

It gives project managers real-time status updates, allowing them to make quick decisions and change a project to keep it on track.

Finally, project management software aids in the transformation of chaos into clarity and provides you with the control you require to direct your projects toward their intended aims and outcomes.

Good Read: 24 Best Social Media Management Tools, Apps, and Software

What Makes a Good Project Management Software?

From tracking deliverables to managing resources and budget management to collaboration with team members, there is a lot to consider when running and managing projects.

This holds true when choosing the right project management software tool as well.

Here's a list of the top 5 key functional aspects of project management software to guide you in your decision.

- Task lists – being able to assign and update the status of tasks so that everyone in your team is on the same page is critical.

- Schedules – many tools offer calendars, Gantt charts, or milestone tools that help you understand where a task fits into the project as a whole and how much time there is to complete it.

- File sharing – sharing and organizing key project documents eliminates time wasted searching for files.

- Communication – this is critical in project management as a smooth flow of communication means quick and easy problem solving

- Reporting – this is important for all team members when it comes to updating themselves on the project as a whole. However, this is also a huge plus for project managers who want to ensure that the project is progressing and tasks are being carried out in a timely manner.

Benefits Of Project Management Software

Overall, project management software may help firms track the progress of projects, campaigns, resource allocation, and activities across an organization.

Project managers and team leaders can use a project management solution to understand better how organizations and teams are pacing and to keep teams on the same page.

Teams without project management software have struggled to track all remote work and project updates, as we can no longer rely on in-person meetings to communicate information.

That is why, whether you are just establishing a business or seeking ways to adapt your well-established organization, project management software will be more important in 2023 (and beyond) than ever before.

Here are a few of the most important advantages of using project management software:

- Improves communication and teamwork within an organization

- Allows leadership to see the big picture of project development. Aids teams in keeping tasks in perspective and understanding priorities.

- Aids in cost control and budget management, aids in resource allocation; and reduces team-wide burnout.

- Remote collaboration is made easier for dispersed teams or using a mixed work paradigm.

Best Project Management Software and Tools

Monday.com:- Best for large teams with complex workflows

Trello:– Known for its flexibility in task management but best for small teams

Click-Up:- Suitable for teams of all sizes and best for unlimited users

Asana:- Best for Project tracking

SmartSheet:- Known for its flexible spreadsheet-centric work management tool.

BaseCamp:- Suitable for teams working with external people

Hive: – Widely known for its Advanced collaborative feature

Wrike: – Known for its Simplified all-in-one solution for team collaboration

Jira: – Known for its agile management tools that support agile methodology.

Nifty: – Best for Remote team members

Zoho Project: – Best known for its Inexpensive pricing plan

ProofHub: -Absence of per-user fee

1. Monday.com

Monday.com is a project management software with several features that simplify project operations using a visual approach.

This tool is almost entirely customizable. Aside from the various task views, custom fields, and collaboration tools, Monday.com excels in assisting you in creating automated processes.

The automation center is a screen where you may choose from pre-defined templates and simply click to select the most relevant information from dropdown menus.

You can also find template actions for connections like Slack and bespoke cards that you can create from scratch. If you follow this path, you will be sent to a drag-and-drop builder.

Monday.com Key Features

- Built-in Time Tracking: This feature gives insight into how much time you spend on specific tasks, how to streamline future projects, and the most time-consuming project.

- Customized Template feature that provides you with ready-made templates and tools for customizing your templates.

- Workflow Automation features that prevent the occurrence of repetitive tasks, thereby enabling faster progress on tasks.

- Robust Integration: To prevent you from moving back and forth between platforms, this software provides you with tools such as Dropbox, Google Calendar, Slack, Jira, Outlook, Zoom, Gmail, and more.

- Multiple Project Views: Monday.com allows you to view and access multiple projects at the same time through the Kanban board, Calendar view, and Gantt chart.

- Collaboration Features that provide team members with tools to interact about topics relating to project status.

- Enables the integration of various third-party software program

- Customizable dashboard

- Offers 24/7 customers support service.

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

Pricing

Depending on the size of the firm and the number of users, Monday.com offers a variety of premium plans. Basic $8(2 users/month) up to Pro $16 (2 users/month). They also provide an Enterprise package (price upon request).

2. Trello

Trello is a Kanban board platform that helps businesses keep track of everything. It's a simple and adaptable project management software that allows agile teams to manage and arrange their tasks in real-time while working on critical projects.

Trello is an online Kanban tool that distinguishes it from other project management software. This means that it depicts a full project in a single view.

Trello allows you to create cards and move them across the 'board.' These cards can display a variety of information, such as chats or to-do lists,

The cards can also be placed on a board, making them available to any of the designated tool users.

Trello Key Features

- Boards, Cards, and List System– On the Trello application, the board feature lets you keep track of information. The list feature keeps tasks organized in their stages of progress, making you know their progress status, while the unlimited card feature represents tasks.

- Power-up Feature– this feature adds and edits content to your board. It also enables you to integrate third-party apps like Zoho, Zapier, Jira, and Evernote into Trello.

- Offers In-line tasks list editing feature using Drag-and-Drop mechanism

- Offers File Attachment and Checklist feature.

- Labeling, Tags, and Comment Feature

Offers six major views

- Voting option– With this feature, team members and customers can vote on cards making it easier to know which task should be prioritized, leading to team-driven decisions.

- Allows for Multiple Integration – Trello allows for seamless multiple integrations with third-party apps, plug-ins, extensions, and systems.

Pricing

Trello offers four pricing plans. The free Trello plan allows access to unlimited cards, lists, members, and checklists. However, you can only access a maximum number of ten boards.

The standard pricing plan costs $ 5/month and comes with the same set of features available in the free plan. But there are no restrictions on the number of boards to be used.

The Business plan costs $10/month per user and allows access to multiple views, unlimited boards, lists, cards, checklists, and power-ups. It comes with unlimited storage but limits each file's storage space to 250MB.

The Enterprise plan costs $17.50/month per user and offers features available in the business pricing plan. It also provides other features that enable more security and control across teams.

3. ClickUp

ClickUp is project management software with numerous features promoting team collaboration and communication.

We endorse ClickUp because they tackle the idea of creating an app that nicely replaces all others.

Because the features offered in this program primarily foster cooperation, it is an alternative for remote teams.

You won't need to leave this platform unless you need to bill the customer, thanks to features like the ability to tag people in conversations and collaborative documents and whiteboards that allow users to co-create.

ClickUp Key Features

- Customizable task management feature enables you to build tasks according to your preferences. This feature allows you to organize your tasks into sub-tasks, helps you minimize a task, track a task, and view all tasks in one view. This feature also enables users to create Gantt charts, timelines, and calendars.

- Offers Communication and Document Collaboration Tools that aid collaborative sharing and editing of documents. This feature also allows users to leave comments within tasks.

- Zapier offers a wide range of integrations with G Suite, Dropbox, Slack, and other 1000+ integrations through Zapier.

- It offers project and financial reporting features that enable you to create custom dashboards. It also offers six built-in report types to aid reports on financial goals and account management.

- Time Tracking: This feature gives you an insight into your employee's progress and movement on specific tasks.

- Support for Agile Methodology

- Timesheet Tracking

Pros

- The most comprehensive and cost-effective assortment of programs to satisfy the needs of various-sized teams.

- Keep track of many projects and assignments in one location using the Inbox.

- Gantt chart software for managing project task dependencies

- Configurability is robust for modifying and managing platform workflows.

- Allows you to insert spreadsheets from Google Projects and Google Sheets directly into your project space.

- With Custom Access Rights, you can add freelancers to your team workspace.

- Workload View allows for efficient resource allocation.

- Utilize Pulse, a useful feature for remote work.

- Mobile apps for iOS and Android that are really powerful

- Web developer Chrome extension

- ClickUp, unlike other project management software, features a feature-rich free edition.

- Over 1,000 integrations for developers, business suites, storage, and more are available.

Cons

- Slight variance between imported file and platform results.

- Some platform actions are less intuitive and require additional troubleshooting.

- Occasional lagging between moving pages and lingering platform notices.

Pricing Plan

ClickUp offers five pricing plans to its users. The price for the different plans ranges from $0 to $19. The free plan comes with sufficient features that make it suitable for small business owners.

4. Asana

Asana is a straightforward cloud-based project management tool that assists businesses in organizing activities into projects and teams. It is also one of the best accounting software for business.

Asana's user experience is colorful, rich, and appealing, with everything from segregated productivity elements to amusing cartoon animations that "zoom" across the screen to celebrate task completion.

This earned them high marks in the evaluation criteria's UX category.

Asana allows you to view your data in the following views: board, list, timeline, and calendar, where you may save and visualize project information such as tasks, subtasks, milestones, task assignees, sections, custom fields, and much more.

Asana Key Features

- Advanced Customization Option: this feature permits the manipulation of details during project management.

- Advanced Automation Feature that helps build simple custom workflow and reduce bottlenecks.

- Multiple Integration: Asana connects with tools like Trello, Salesforce, Google Drive, Zendesk, Slack, and more.

- Enables group discussions, comments, tags, events, add followers option, meetings, searched views, multiple workplaces, customer support, prioritization, subtasks, email integration, and tracking.

- Offers Communication Tools that allow team members to cooperate on projects, discuss projects, and share files without third-party apps.

Pros

- Robust feature set competing with the best in project management software.

- Friendly user interface and flexible controls for different tools.

- Extensive import options, including multiple top project management platforms.

Cons

- The interface is less intuitive at times than competing project management tools.

- Deploying some features and advanced tools has a steep learning curve.

- When switching between platform sites, there are occasional error messages and latency.

Pricing Plan

Asana offers four pricing plans. The Free plan costs $0 with 15 team members as the limit. The Premium plan costs $10/month per user when billed annually.

The Business plan costs $24.99/month per user when billed annually but costs $30.49 when billed monthly. To find out the Enterprise price plan, contact the Asana Team.

5. SmartSheet

SmartSheet project management software includes a spreadsheet-based application for easy project management and workflow automation.

From onboarding to using the platform, I was impressed by the interface's user-friendliness and the features' extensibility.

Smartsheet improves on previous technologies by providing an accessible user experience, necessary integrations, strong configurability, and no-code capabilities in a spreadsheet interface.

Smartsheet's price is among the most expensive on the market, and there is no free unlimited option. Nonetheless, the platform's advantages outweigh the drawbacks for small teams to enterprise businesses.

SmartSheet Key Features

- Project Research Management Tools: this feature enables client's project adding, importation of employees rooster from a spreadsheet file, the building of agenda for tasks, task tracking, and reporting.

- Interactive Gantt Chart View: Smartsheet utilizes this feature to enable project administrators to track task progress and status. It also aids in the visualization of tasks relationship.

- Offers tools for communication and collaboration among team members.

- Enables you to work on different projects from a single control feature and also allows for Widget-based visualization of project status

- Seamless Integration With Multiple Third-Party Software.

- Customization tools

- Enables Multiple Integrations and Add-ons.

- Task Automation

Pros

- Friendly user interface for moving from legacy spreadsheet tools.

- Extensive documentation and access to onboarding assistance.

- Prebuilt project and automation templates to get to work fast.

Cons

- Several tools are add-ons, requiring an additional purchase.

- Security features are limited to the Enterprise subscription.

- Premium support is only available for higher-tier plans.

Pricing Plan

SmartSheet offers no free plan, but each paid plan comes with a 30-day free trial.

The standard (Pro) plan costs $7/ per month when billed annually, while the Business plan costs $25/monthly per user.

There is no pricing for the Enterprise plan, and you'll have to contact the SmartSheet Team.

6. BaseCamp

BaseCamp is a project management software that allows for file sharing and storage, job management, and team communication.

https://paypant.com/17-best-project-management-software-and-tools/