Best Project Management Software Comparison Guide 2025 Leave a comment

I often find myself wishing for a simpler interface or at least a way to hide some of the less-used features. Another feature I found unexpectedly useful is the time-tracking column. I initially didn’t think I would need it, but it helped me track how long certain tasks take. This has improved my planning and productivity by giving me a clearer idea of where my time is going. I use it regularly to track progress and identify areas where I can be more efficient. I analyzed our tools, spoke with teammates to understand their experiences, and explored alternatives to see what the market offered.

• Collaboration tools help solve problems by making communication between team members as close to frictionless as possible.
• You can import reference materials, sketch rough ideas, and leverage AI to turn those ideas into diagrams.
• Using personalized dashboards, marketing teams can also monitor social channels, get a 360-degree view of all campaigns, and track results for each client.
• Plus, with direct messaging, I can quickly reach out to anyone for one-on-one chats or small group discussions.

We picked monday work management for its ultimate focus on flexibility, allowing users and their teams to take on and manage any type of work. The platform comes with customizable templates, unlimited boards, docs, automations, integrations, dashboards, and multiple views. These features make it ideal for handling diverse workflows, coordinating cross-functional teams, and driving project execution from start to finish. As a general-use project management tool that isn’t geared to a specific industry like Jira is, monday.com can be applied across industries and sectors. Teamwork.com also offers numerous budgeting and expense management tools, including invoices and billable time tracking. I believe its resource management and workload planners are superior to those found in monday.com and ClickUp.

Comprehensive Project Reporting & Custom Dashboards

Adobe Workfront is work management software that focuses on enterprise businesses. This project management software helps teams connect and collaborate on workflows. It streamlines intake, automates workflows and creates custom forms to help enterprises execute strategy. The tool has resource management, configurable dashboards and integrations to help with planning. Desktop project management applications offer advanced features, scalability, and security to support multiple users and groups over an internal network. Cloud-based project management tools have made it possible for vendors to offer sophisticated, subscription-based solutions to businesses of all sizes, making it so users can access the tool from any location.

Notion doesn’t offer telephone support, which means users will have to use email or chat or join a community group to get the answers they need. Trello offers email support, but only during normal business hours from Monday to Friday. Users do find the community forum helpful, though, especially if they have a problem during the weekends.

Verdict: Best Project Management Software for Scalability

Basecamp keeps both sides organized, everyone’s feedback on the record, and all decisions, approvals, files, tasks, deadlines, and communications safe and centralized. Basecamp is refreshingly straightforward, with a 21-year track record to back it up. You can integrate Wrike with your favorite apps like Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Google Sheets, Miro, QuickBooks, and more. A Swiss company founded in Singapore in 2003, Acronis has 15 offices worldwide and employees in 50+ countries. Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud is available in 26 languages in 150 countries and is used by over 21,000 service providers to protect over 750,000 businesses.

It works well for lightweight tasking, especially if your team already uses Google Workspace. Don’t go with what they offer, but what you need and if that is available. On top of the basic features, look for scalability, customer support and a user-friendly interface.

Trello’s simplification and representation of tasks and their priority are its biggest strength and what makes it one of the best project management software solutions on the market. These customizable boards represent different projects, with lists indicating workflow stages and cards representing individual tasks. Trello’s visual organization simplifies project management so teams can easily understand project status, track progress, and collaborate to get work done. Asana’s Personal plan offers an abundant set of features including unlimied tasks, projects, messages, and activity log.

How to evaluate and compare project management platforms

The left menu offers quick access to clients, projects, and time tracking, which makes managing multiple aspects of your workflow seamless. Custom tags like “Scope” and “Schedule” add flexibility for categorizing tasks based on your project’s unique needs. Teamwork provides options to save workflows and automate repetitive actions, while saving valuable time. Wrike’s task tracker dashboard shown in the above image is designed to keep you on top of your projects with features like a priority-based task list and a visually engaging status indicator. Whether it’s “Not Started” or “Pending Review,” the clear color-coded labels and customizable workflows ensure you can tweak the tool to fit your team’s vibe and workflow.

Time tracking: Can the tool help my team distribute their time better between tasks?

Monday work management is a cloud-based, highly customizable visual project management tool designed to support teams of all sizes and industries. It offers an intuitive, centralized workspace with drag-and-drop functionality, automations, and real-time collaboration features to streamline workflows and boost team efficiency. I have been using and reviewing project management software for many years, and I can honestly say that ClickUp is the best platform for most SMBs due to its versatility. No matter whether you use traditional project management methodologies, such as Critical Path, or Agile frameworks, such as Scrum and Kanban, ClickUp offers all the tools you need.

Teamwork: Best task management software for teams looking to get started quickly

A key feature of project portfolio management software is its ability to scale. These tools can manage unlimited projects with their own separate settings and workflows but have reporting tools that are powerful enough to give a top-level view. Microsoft Project, Jira, and Wrike all provide project portfolio management features. Teams with long-term projects or that regularly employ contractors may find a PM tool like this especially useful. What sets GanttPRO apart from almost every other project management tool is the way it combines Gantt charts with an interface that is simple and approachable.

First, the performance can be a bit sluggish, especially when working on bigger projects with lots of tasks. While it technically works, I often have to spend extra time cleaning up the exported data to create polished reports. It’s not a deal-breaker, but it’s definitely an area where I think Asana could improve. As much as I appreciate Smartsheet, there are a few areas where it could be better. For instance, setting up complex dependencies, like linking tasks with specific dates, felt confusing at first.

One weakness, though, is that it’s much less customizable at the space or department level than other tools. One of the standout aspects of Asana is how aesthetically pleasing it project management software is. This shouldn’t be underestimated in a platform that your teams will be spending a lot of time in. For instance, recurring tasks are more tricky to organize than on other platforms.

The best free project management software is ClickUp, providing a robust free plan that includes custom project templates and automations and a range of task management options for your team. More importantly, ClickUp’s free plan sets no limit on how many users can participate in your project. It’s not just about tracking tasks, it’s about boosting productivity, improving collaboration, and keeping projects on track. With so many options available, choosing the right tool comes down to how well it fits your team’s needs.

• ProjectManager has secure timesheets to track time on tasks, streamline payroll and tools to see team availability when making assignments.
• Jira is great for Agile teams that find Kanban boards the easiest way to visualize their project workflow.
• Also, while Power-Ups like the Calendar and Timeline views are incredibly useful, I sometimes feel like Trello leans too heavily on them.

Verdict: Best Project Management Software for Small Teams

From enterprise giants to remote startups, PM software is a must-have tool for driving productivity, accountability, and success in any project-driven environment. Other key features include advanced dashboard reporting, automated update requests, and robust collaboration tools. Smartsheet also excels in resource management, offering visibility into team availability to optimize workload distribution. We picked Teamwork.com because it’s a top cloud-based project management tool that adapts to your preferred working style. You can use List, Chart, or Board views to organize projects and tasks granularly.