best project management software platform

In today’s blog post, I will discuss the twelve best project management software platforms. All these software platforms are renowned and used by big industries. You can review these platforms and select the one best suited to your requirements.

What is Project Management Software?

Project management software tools help plan projects, allocate resources, forecasting, executing, and tracking progress. It helps project managers and teams to control budgets and quality and create reports to distribute to stakeholders.

All team members have access to the project management software to collaborate and communicate in real-time and complete the task with minimal obstruction. Often, project management software goes further and provides a complete CRM solution, such as monday.com. These platforms are advanced and reliable and let you manage multiple projects in a program or a portfolio.

Why Project Management Software?

Before we discuss project management software platforms, let us understand the need for these tools.

Efficient and Simple Planning

The project planning process takes time to map and plan out all the essential steps required to develop the product. A project management tool provides templates to plan the project and carry out further activities quickly. It helps find resource and task dependency and build a sound schedule.

Task Management

Projects comprise many tasks. Project management tools include task management for assigning tasks to team members and monitoring the progress. A task management tool lets team members communicate and collaborate in real-time.

Flawless Teamwork

Working together is hard to achieve, but using project management software tools makes it easier; a team member is only responsible for his work. The project manager can view the tasks and assigned team members. The project manager can assign multiple team members to a task if the task is bigger or can replace the team member if the assigned team member cannot complete the task on time. An efficient workflow ensures progress is on track.

Documents and Calendars

Projects have many documents. A centralized repository helps team members access documents and add their own. Team members can share the file with a link. You don’t have to attach bulky files and send them through emails.

Sharing a calendar is convenient because this will help team members hold meetings. Remote team members can communicate in a planned and efficient way.

Project Tracking

You can track time spent by each team member on tasks. This helps you find efficient team members and plan support for inefficient team members. You will understand your team and assign the work as per their capability to ensure a better performance.

It also helps you bill customers. You can bill your customers according to the time spent on tasks.

So, you have seen how project management software platforms can make your life easier and help you complete projects with automation.

Best Project Management Software

The twelve best project management software are:

  1. Wrike
  2. monday.com
  3. Celoxis
  4. Smartsheet
  5. ClickUp
  6. Zoho Project
  7. ProofHub
  8. Teamwork
  9. Basecamp
  10. Jira
  11. Redmine
  12. nTask

#1. Wrike

wrike

Andres Filev founded Wrike in 2006. It is a privately held project management application service provider and headquartered in San Jose, California. Wrike is a cloud-based project management collaboration platform. It is useful for both large enterprises and SMBs.

Gantt charts, calendars, resource management workload, dashboards, and real-time updates are integrated into this tool. It lets you create and structure folders, projects, and tasks based on requirements. Team members can work remotely and can collaborate in real-time.

Wrike integrates with various third-party tools, including Salesforce, Dropbox, Slack, and Adobe Creative Cloud, and offers an open API.

Key Features of Wrike

  • Gantt charts
  • Detailed reporting
  • Advanced security features

Wrike Pros

  • Access to tons of enterprise management features
  • Built-In time tracking software
  • Detailed analytics and insights
  • Two-factor authentication support

Wrike Cons

  • Mobile Wrike apps have limited functionality
  • Onboarding of Wrike is difficult

Wrike Pricing Plans

wrike pricing details

Wrike has four pricing plans:

  1. Free: This plan is for five users maximum. The plan includes file sharing, real-time activity stream, a spreadsheet view, basic Google Drive, Office 365 integrations, cloud storage integration, desktop and mobile apps, 2 GB of storage space, etc.
  2. Professional: The price of this plan is 9.8 USD/user/month, and you can have 5, 10, or 15 users. You will have all the Free plan features plus task and subtask management, Gantt chart, advanced integrations, collaborators, shareable dashboards, 5 GB of storage space, 15 GB of video uploads per month, etc.
  3. Business: The price for this plan is 24.80 USD/user/month, and you can have from 5-200 users. You will have all the features from the Professional plan plus custom fields and workflows, notifications, report templates, shared real-time reports with schedules, graphical analytics, calendars, request forms, project, and task approvals, time tracking, user groups and permissions, Salesforce integration, branded workspace, from 50 GB of storage space, from 15 GB of video uploads per month, automation engine, etc.
  4. Enterprise: For more advanced requirements, you can go for this plan. The pricing is based on requirements, and you have to contact Wrike customer support to get a custom quote. This plan has all the features from the Business plan plus active directory integration, SAML 2.0 Single Sign-On, two-factor authentication, user audit reports, network access, password policies, IT-controlled admin permissions and compliance policies, business intelligence integration, from 15 GB of video uploads per month, advanced user access controls, from 100 GB of storage space, and automation engine.

Read Wrike Review


#2. monday.com

monday.com

monday.com is cloud-based, intuitive, modern, and easy-to-use project management software. It was created as an internal tool by the Israeli company Wix.com. In February 2012, Wix changed the brand to daPulse.

It is a collaborative project management software that lets you manage everything visually with real-time team collaboration. 

You can have multiple boards for different purposes and combine data for reporting. You can track work progress, the time spent on each task, and milestones. monday.com is one of the best project management software platforms, and you can use it regardless of whether you are using Agile methodologies or waterfall.

You can see all the critical data of your project on the dashboard at a glance.

Key Features of monday.com

  • It has an intuitive user interface
  • Helps manage workloads
  • It provides sufficient reporting and analytics
  • Excellent customer support

monday.com Pros

  • Great collaboration tool
  • Many integrations
  • Intuitive interface
  • Complete CRM solution

monday.com Cons

  • Costly pricing plan
  • No free trial

monday.com Pricing Plans

monday.com pricing plan

monday.com has four pricing plans:

  1. Basic: The price is 10 USD/user/month, and you must have at least three users, so the minimum price is 30 USD/month. In this plan, you will have unlimited boards, over 200 templates, 20 column types, iOS, Android app, etc.
  2. Standard: The price is 12 USD/user/month, and you must have at least three users, so the minimum price is 36 USD/month. This plan has all the features from the Basic plan plus timeline and Gantt view, calendar view, guest access, 250 automation, 250 actions on integrations, can create a combination of three boards, etc.
  3. Pro: The price is 20 USD/user/month, and you must have at least three users, so the minimum price is 60 USD per month. This plan has all the features from the Standard plan plus private boards, chart view, time tracking, formula column, 25,000 automation, 25,000 actions per integration, can create a board that is a combination of up to ten boards, etc.
  4. Enterprise: If you need enterprise-level features and support, you can go for this plan. To get a quote for this plan, contact monday.com support.

You will get an 18% discount with a yearly plan.

Read monday.com Review


#3. Celoxis

celoxis

Celoxis has a cloud-based online management solution for medium to large organizations. It was founded by Nikhil and Ravindra and is now one of the most favored project management collaboration software platforms.

Many popular organizations such as HBO, KPMG, LG, and Deloitte use Celoxis to manage their projects.

Celoxis has a combination of modules for resource management, estimating budgets, forecasting time and expense, reporting, task management, etc.

It has some distinctive features such as scheduling for resource time off, multi-time zone, part-time resources, working days, and weekends. Celoxis’s interactive Gantt chart can handle up to 10,000 tasks.

Key Features of Celoxis

  • It has auto and manual scheduling modes
  • Integrated with interactive Gantt that can handle over 10,000 tasks
  • Easily handles project portfolio management
  • Integrations with Excel, Outlook, and Salesforce.com

Celoxis Pros

  • Detailed reports
  • Integration with time tracking, budgeting, and resources
  • Easy to use
  • Low setup time

Celoxis Cons

  • It has no proofing tools
  • No integration of billing or invoicing features
  • No free version

Celoxis Pricing Plans

celoxis pricing plans

Celoxis has two pricing plans:

  1. The first plan is for a cloud-based platform, and it costs you 22.50 USD/user/month, and you need to have at least five users.
  2. The second plan is On-Premise. Here you have to pay 450 USD per user.

#4. Smartsheet

smartsheet

Smartsheet is a cloud-based project management software platform. It was developed in 2005 by Brent Frei. More than 70,000 companies use this application, including Fortune 500, ranging from Google and Netflix to the U.S. General Services Administration.

Its success is affiliated with its ability to appeal to a wider range of project managers.

Key Features of Smartsheet

  • Manage and share worksheets
  • Securely work together
  • Upload files to a workspace, sheet, or row

Smartsheet Pros

  • The tool can be easily customized and is quite powerful
  • The tool supports automation, inputs from fields of web forms and allows proofing and approvals

Smartsheet Cons

  • Expensive
  • Steep learning curve

Smartsheet Pricing Plans

Smartsheet has different pricing plans for Growing Organizations and Enterprise Users. The pricing plan for Enterprise Users is not given on the site, and you need to contact Smartsheet customer care to get a custom quote.

Here we will discuss the pricing plan for Standard Group for Growing Organizations.

smartsheet pricing plans

Smartsheet has two plans for growing businesses:

  1. Individual: The price for this plan is 14 USD/month. This plan includes connecting Smartsheet to your favorite apps, access to a library of free templates, capturing data with forms, automating workflows and repetitive tasks, etc.
  2. Business: The pricing for this plan is 25 USD/user/month. You have all the features from the Individual plan plus visualize live data with dashboards and charts, manage groups and users, track progress with an activity log, extend data analytics with connectors, consolidate information into reports, apply custom branding, etc.

#5. ClickUp

clickup

ClickUp is a product of Mango Technologies, a privately held software development company based in San Francisco, CA, USA. It was founded in 2014 by Zeb Evans, CEO, and Alex Yurkowski, CTO. ClickUp is a cloud-based teamwork and project management tool that is suitable for all sizes of businesses. It has features like communication, collaboration, assignment alerts, task toolbar, etc. 

You can assign comments and tasks to team members. Comments and tasks can be marked as resolved, in progress, etc. Projects can be viewed from an Agile dashboard or waterfall.

Key Features of ClickUp

  • Process management features enable users to streamline their projects
  • IT has tools that improve team association
  • ClickUp integrates with Slack, GitHub, Toggl, Harvest, Google Drive, Dropbox, Outlook, Chrome, and Zapier

ClickUp Pros

  • Efficient dashboard to view all the tasks created
  • Powerful, even with the free version
  • Excellent customer support
  • Affordable

ClickUp Cons

  • Too many features
  • Excessive customization options
  • Ineffective calendar
  • Inefficient UI

ClickUp Pricing Plans

clickup pricing

  ClickUp has four pricing plans:

  1. Free: This plan includes 100MB of storage, unlimited tasks, unlimited members, two-factor authentication, etc.
  2. Unlimited: The price is 5 USD/user/month if paid yearly. This plan includes unlimited storage, unlimited lists, boards, calendar views, unlimited integrations, unlimited dashboards, guests and permissions, goals, portfolios, custom fields, etc.
  3. Business: The pricing is 9 USD/user/month if paid yearly. This plan has everything from the Unlimited plan plus Google SSO, goal folders, custom exporting, private, protected, default views, dashboard widgets, extra guests, automation, mind maps and timeline views, advanced time tracking, workload, etc.
  4. Enterprise: The price is 17 USD/user/month if paid yearly. This plan has everything from the Business plan plus Single Sign-On (SSO), contract review and HIPAA, increased API limits, dedicated success manager, advanced permissions, advanced workload, custom SAML, extra automation, custom onboarding, training program, white labeling, etc.

#6. Zoho Projects

zoho projects

Zoho Projects is a cloud-based project management tool for small and medium companies. Zoho Corporation is an Indian multinational technology company founded in 1996 by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas in Pleasanton. It has a presence in seven locations, and its global headquarters is in Chennai and the corporate headquarters in Pleasanton.

The dashboards and reporting module help users to prepare reports and summaries. Project managers can use Gantt charts to get a visual presentation of tasks’ progress. The resource allocation chart helps them find team members with overload and no load.

Milestones and task lists help arrange complex projects by breaking bigger tasks into small subtasks.

Key Features of Zoho Projects

  • Efficient task management
  • Import/export data
  • Gantt charts

Zoho Projects Pros

  • Pricing is fair and practical
  • Project and task tracking are efficient
  • Customer support is strong

Zoho Projects Cons

  • The task search functionality needs improvement
  • Bug reporting requires work
  • Dashboard functionality is poor

Zoho Project Pricing

zoho projects pricing plans

Zoho Projects has five pricing plans:

  1. Free: You can have three users, two projects, file storage of 10 MB, Gantt chart, etc.
  2. Standard: The pricing is 3 USD/user/month, and this plan allows six to ten users. This plan includes ten projects, file storage of 5 GB, five project templates, custom status for tasks and projects, task dependency (Finish-to-Start), Zoho CRM integration, issue tracker module, subtasks, etc.
  3. Express: The pricing is 4 USD/user/month, and this plan allows twelve to fifty users. This plan includes everything from the Standard plan plus ten project templates, file storage of 20GB, recurring tasks, custom views, business hours customization, interactive Gantt charts, Zoho Invoice/Books integration, timesheet approval, weekends, and holidays, etc.
  4. Premium: The pricing is 5 USD/user/month, and this plan allows 15 to 100 users. This plan includes everything from the Express plan plus 20 project templates, file storage of 100 GB, 1 free training session, task automation with blueprint, project resource utilization, task roll-up, business rules and automation for issues, planned vs actual, four types of dependencies, project budget, etc.
  5. Enterprise: The pricing is 6 USD/user/month, and this plan allows 20 to 100 users. This plan has everything from the Premium plan plus 30 project templates, file storage of 120 GB, two free training sessions, custom fields, SLAs for issues module, global Gantt chart, global resource utilization, inter-project dependencies, personalized web domain, roles, and profiles, critical path, baseline, teams – custom user groups, etc.

#7. ProofHub

proofhub

Sandeep Kashyap is the founder and CEO of ProofHub and is leading cloud-based project management and collaboration software. This tool provides applications for project management, resource management, task management, etc.

You can have discussions, take notes, use Gantt charts, to-do lists, calendaring, milestones, timesheets, etc.

ProofHub is used by leading organizations like NASA, Disney, Taco Bell, and many more.

ProofHub has many features, so you won’t need other tools.

Key Features of ProofHub

  • Organize various projects
  • List and task management
  • One-on-one chat
  • Mobile apps
  • Integration with Google Docs and Dropbox

ProofHub Pros

  • Centralized workspace where clients can manage projects
  • The proofing tool helps to restructure the review process and facilitate collaboration
  • Includes time tracking and resource planning capabilities

ProofHub Cons

  • The software becomes slow when users are uploading and managing files
  • Usage of Gantt chart functionality becomes cumbersome
  • Lacks budgeting tools

ProofHub Pricing Plans

proofhub pricing plan

ProofHub has two pricing plans:

  1. Essential: The pricing is 50 USD/month and is reduced to 45 if paid annually. In this plan, you can have 40 projects, unlimited users, and 15 GB of storage.
  2. Ultimate Control: The pricing is 99 USD/month and is reduced to 89 if paid annually. In this plan, you can have unlimited projects and users with 100 GB of storage. The other features are custom roles, white labeling, custom workflows, project manager, network control, managing trashed items, API access for data transport, project and resource reports, advanced activity logs, account transfer tool, priority support, and data export, etc.

#8. Teamwork

teamwork

Teamwork is a privately owned, web-based software company headquartered in Cork, Ireland, and was founded by  Peter Coppinger and Dan Mackey. Teamwork’s project scheduling feature lets you assign tasks and monitors the progress. It allows you to share documents within the team through an online portal.

Teamwork’s dashboards provide visibility into project objectives and enable communication through mobile devices. Teamwork can be integrated with applications such as FreshBooks, Dropbox, Google, and Box.

Key Features of Teamwork

  • Gantt chart
  • Valuable insights on team performance
  • Board view to see task flow

Teamwork Pros

  • Communication between teams and users is sleek
  • Excellent customer support

Teamwork Cons

  • Separate tools to track assignments leave gaps, etc.
  • Steep learning curve
  • Fewer customization options
  • Unpleasant design

Teamwork Pricing Plans

teamwork pricing plans

Teamwork has four pricing plans:

  1. Free Forever: In this plan, you can have five users, two projects, 100 MB storage, standard project management, integration with Zapier, etc.
  2. Pro: The pricing is 10 USD/user/month. This plan includes unlimited free client users, 300 projects, 100 GB storage, integration with Zapier, standard project management, standard integrations, etc.
  3. Premium: The pricing is 18 USD/user/month. This plan includes everything from the Pro plan plus 600 projects, 250 GB storage, advanced project management, all integrations, etc.
  4. Enterprise: Contact the sales team for a price quote. This plan has everything from the Premium plan plus unlimited projects, 500+ GB storage, enterprise security and support, success planning, etc.

#9. Basecamp

basecamp

Basecamp is a cloud-based project management software app. Jason Fried founded Basecamp in 2004, and he is the CEO of this company. It’s flexible, reasonably priced, and integrates with a wide variety of services.

Key Features of Basecamp

  • It is very simple to create a project
  • Easy to assign the admin role to team members
  • Tasks can be created in the project
  • Real-time Group Chat
  • Access to client
  • Hill charts, direct messages

Basecamp Pros

  • Flexible and easy to set up
  • Monthly flat price for unlimited users
  • Easy integration with a variety of apps and services

Basecamp Cons

  • Limited reports
  • No proofing tools

Basecamp Pricing Plans

basecamp pricing plans

Basecamp has one pricing plan:

  1. 1It starts at $99.00 per month, and you can have access to all features.

#10. Jira

jira

Jira is a product of Atlassian, an  Australian company founded by Mike Cannon-Brookes, and Scott Farquhar in 2002. It is an issue tracking product that allows bug tracking and Agile project management. The Jira dashboard has many useful functions and features which make it easy to handle.

Key Features of Jira

  • Customizable workflows
  • Bugs and defect management
  • Seamless source and issue integration

Jira Pros

  • Great for Agile
  • Highly customizable
  • Works efficiently for different types of users

Jira Cons

  • No clean integration within the mobile app
  • Difficult migration from other platforms
  • Reports are not reusable
  • Confusing UI

Jira Pricing Plans

jira pricing plans

Jira has four pricing plans:

  1. Free: In this plan, you can have ten free users, one site, Scrum and Kanban boards, backlog, Agile reporting, apps and integrations, roadmaps, automation, Atlassian access, password policies, domain verification, session duration, business continuity, and disaster recovery, customizable workflow, encryption at transit, 2 GB storage, and community support.
  2. Standard: The pricing is 7 USD/user/month, and the minimum number of users required is ten, so the effective pricing is 70 USD/month. The maximum user count can be 10,000. This plan has everything from the Free plan plus project roles, 250 GB file storage, audit log, anonymous access, and local business hours support.
  3. Premium: The pricing is 14 USD/user/month, and the minimum number of users required is ten, so the effective pricing is 140 USD/month; the maximum user count can be 10,000. This plan has all the features from the Standard plan plus advanced roadmaps, admin insights, IP allows listing, release tracks, unlimited storage, 24×7 premium support, sandbox, etc.
  4. Enterprise: Pricing for this plan is not mentioned on their pricing page, and you need to contact Jira customer support for a custom quote. This plan has all the features of the Premium plan plus support for unlimited sites and enterprise-level support.

#11. Redmine

redmine

Redmine issue tracking tool is a free and open-source web domain-based project management tool. It was developed by Jean-Philippe Lang. It is flexible and written using the Ruby on Rails framework; it is a cross-platform and cross-database platform.

Key Features of Redmine

  • Manages projects with one Redmine instance
  • Team members can have different roles for each project
  • A project can be declared as public or private

Redmine Pros

  • Free and open-source
  • Built-in Integration for GIT
  • Supports plugin installations
  • Visually appealing and has high usability

Redmine Cons

  • Some dashboard features are tough to figure out
  • It takes some training to become an expert

Redmine Pricing Plans

Redmine is an open source and free project management software platform.


#12. nTask

ntask homepage

nTask is a robust online project management platform used by medium and large enterprises to get more done efficiently. Developed and introduced in 2017, nTask is used by more than 200,000 users across the world. The platform offers several features that help teams of any size to manage projects from ideation to project close. Organizations such as Walmart, HP, Google, and Sony use their software solution.

The nTask modules include task management, project management, time tracking, issue tracking, and risk management.

It offers different views such as Gantt charts, Kanban boards, calendar timeline, list view, and grid view.

Key Features of nTask

  • Comprehensive project planning feature
  • Set pay rate for resource and choose currency
  • Real-time financial summary of project
  • Visualize through Gantt charts and Kanban Boards

nTask Pros

  • Easy to use and adopt for work
  • Most affordable paid packages
  • Mobile apps
  • Unlimited tasks for free

nTask Cons

  • Advanced reporting is not available
  • No invoicing features
  • No forms are available
  • nTask Pricing Plans

nTask Pricing Plans

ntask pricing plan

nTask has four pricing plans:

  1. Free: This plan includes unlimited tasks, 100 MB storage, 5 free members in the team, and unlimited workspaces.
  2. Premium: 2 free team members, 5GB storage, unlimited projects, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and Bulk actions.
  3. Business: Risk management, 10GB storage, Custom status, Custom fields, Kanban Board Templates.
  4. Enterprise: Unlimited storage, custom onboarding, dedicated account manager, and cloud.

Read my nTask Review.

Conclusion

The best project management software can improve your productivity and team morale. However, finding the right project management software can be a daunting task. You must prioritize your requirements and find the tool that matches your requirement and budget. I recommend you go for a trial before subscribing to any project management tool. It helps you ensure if it is the best fit for you.

What best project management software are you using in your organization? Please share it in the comments section.

Fahad Usmani, PMP

I am Mohammad Fahad Usmani, B.E. PMP, PMI-RMP. I have been blogging on project management topics since 2011. To date, thousands of professionals have passed the PMP exam using my resources.