The 5 Best Project Management Software in 2024

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The best project management software will give you an overview of each project and task that is handled by your company, from ideation to completion, and can and can have a tangible positive impact on efficiency for everything from startups to enterprise-sized businesses.

To help you find the right software for your business, I’ve tested and reviewed the top project management systems. I factored in whether they offer daily task automations, can create easy-to-use workflows, and allow you to allocate tasks for visibility and tracking. I’ve also covered their features, pricing, and pros and cons to ensure you find one that is the best for your business.

Best Project Management Software 2024

Top 5 Project Management Software Reviewed

Each project management tool has its on set of pros and cons, and various features, so I’ve reviewed the top tools to help you find the best one for your business.

1. Smartsheet — Best for Spreadsheet-Style Project Management

Starting Price $9/user/month
Free Version
Top Features Cross-sheet formulas, Automation, AI analytics
Project Views Grid, Kanban, Calendar, Gantt, Dashboard
Why We Chose It

Smartsheet’s cloud-based project management platform offers a collaborative and visually appealing alternative to traditional spreadsheets. It builds upon the familiar grid layout of spreadsheets but adds powerful features for managing projects, teams, and workflows.

With Smartsheet, you can set up Gantt charts and dashboards. You can also break down tasks into subtasks and track progress across timelines. If you want to collaborate with teammates on certain projects, you can easily tag them in the comments or on any cell where your task sits.

Teams managing projects with multiple parts will find Smartsheet versatile and highly scalable. It has data analysis tools that let you perform calculations with formulas and visualize the data with charts and graphs. These can, in turn, help teams arrive at data-driven decisions.

If you have established business systems, you can also automate routine tasks within Smartsheet. This saves time and improves efficiency, especially across growing teams handling complex projects.

Moreover, this online project management software stands out for its deep integration capabilities with enterprise tools like Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, and Jira, making it a seamless addition to existing business ecosystems.

Pricing

In addition to its free plan, Smartsheet has three paid. Below, I’ve broken down the features and pricing of each plan:

Plan Free Pro Business Enterprise
Monthly $0 $9/user/month $32/user/month Custom
Annual $0 $7/user/month $25/user/month Custom
  • Free — Up to 2 users, 2 sheets, Gantt, grid, card, and calendar views.
  • Pro — Everything in Free, plus 10 paid users, unlimited free viewers, sheets, forms, and reports, and 20GB storage.
  • Business — Everything in Pro, plus unlimited users and automations, timeline view, workload tracking, and 1TB storage.
  • Enterprise — Everything in Business, plus SAML-based SSO, AI features, Enterprise plan manager, and additional integrations and insights.
Who It's Best For

Because of its grid-based layout, Smartsheet is well-suited for project types requiring plenty of details to nail, such as marketing campaigns, product development roadmaps, and editorial calendars.

Smartsheet is also the ideal management software for large enterprises and mid-sized businesses with complex project needs. The initial setup can take time, though, especially for users who aren’t used to spreadsheets.

Small teams and startups that would like to start simple and use a more intuitive user interface often prefer tools like ClickUp, Asana, and Project.co.

Pros pros

  • Offers a high degree of customization
  • Powerful reporting and analytics
  • Highly scalable
  • Has a generous free plan

Cons cons

  • Has a bit of a learning curve
  • No time-tracking on the free plan
Smartsheet

2. ClickUp — Best All-in-One Project Management Software

Starting Price $7/user/month
Free Version
Top Features 15+ project views, Mind-mapping, Free time-tracking
Project Views List, Kanban, Board, Calendar, Gantt, Mind Map, Chat, Docs
Why We Chose It

Imagine a tool where task management, document sharing, goal setting, and time tracking converge into a single platform. That’s ClickUp—one of the most comprehensive project management solutions designed to cater to virtually any team’s needs.

ClickUp stands out for its remarkable customization options, allowing you to tailor the platform to fit your workflow perfectly. Whether you prefer organizing tasks in lists, boards, calendars, or Gantt charts, ClickUp has you covered.

The platform is also known for its “Spaces”, which enables users to separate different areas of work within the same workspace, ensuring that projects remain organized and focused. Within each Space, you can set up Kanban, Gantt, and Calendar views.

You may also opt for the simple list view, or use the mind maps feature for brainstorming, and then add the Chat view to discuss tasks with a team member. Aside from this, ClickUp offers real-time editing, commenting, and document embedding, which means you can always stay in sync on a project without leaving the platform.

If you still choose to link other productivity tools with it, you can do so with over 1,000 apps, including Slack, GitHub, and Google Drive. This extensive integration further enhances its versatility, making it a central hub for all project-related activities.

Pricing

Clickup has a free plan and three paid plans, one of which is custom and you will need to contact its sales team directly for a quote. Below, I’ve broken down the features and pricing of each plan:

Plan Free Unlimited Business Enterprise
Monthly $0 $10/user/month $19/user/month Custom
Annual $0 $7/user/month $12/user/month Custom
  • Free — 100MB of storage, unlimited tasks, unlimited free plan members, 2FA, collaborative documents, whiteboards, real-time chat, kanban boards, calendar view, 24/7 support
  • Unlimited — Everything in Free, plus unlimited storage, unlimited dashboards, guests with permissions, unlimited Gantt charts, resource management, agile reporting, AI compatible
  • Business — Everything in Unlimited, plus Google SSO, unlimited team, custom exporting, advanced public sharing, advanced automations, advanced time tracking, timesheets, goal folders
  • Enterprise — Everything in Business, plus white labelling, advanced permissions, conditional logic in forms, Enterprise API, unlimited customer roles, MSA and HIPAA available, default personal views, SSO, customer success manager, US, EU, and APAC data residency
Who It's Best For

ClickUp is an unmatched choice for teams looking for an all-in-one project management tool that can be customized to their needs. Its all-in-one approach ensures that you won’t need to juggle multiple apps to manage your projects effectively.

However, it’s important to note that ClickUp’s strength—its extensive range of features and customization options—can also be its weakness for some users. Newcomers might require more time for initial setup and familiarization with the platform.

In contrast, simpler tools like Project.co, Trello, and Basecamp offer a more straightforward, albeit less feature-rich project management experience. These alternatives offer fewer collaboration tools and limited customization.

Pros pros

  • Offers extensive customization
  • A broad range of built-in collaboration tools
  • Has a generous free plan with time tracking
  • Boasts 15+ project views

Cons cons

  • It has a steep learning curve
  • The mobile app doesn’t include all the features

3. Visor — Top Project Management Software for Real-time Visual Collaboration

Starting Price $9/editor/month
Free Version
Top Features Custom project views, Powerful integrations, Whiteboards
Project Views Whiteboard, Kanban, Mind Map
Why We Chose It

If you’re handling projects that often demand simultaneous input, you can rely on Visor’s real-time collaboration tools, such as interactive whiteboards, screen sharing, and integrated chat. Visor can transform online collaborative projects into a dynamic and visual experience, bridging the gap between meetings and asset approvals.

Fans of interactive whiteboards, drawing mind maps, and annotating find Visor appealing. Imagine having an online meeting and taking these collaborative notes in real-time, and then screen sharing for any additional info to help a project move forward.

Hence, Visor is ideal for both marketing and design teams. Marketing teams, for example, can brainstorm the next campaign ideas with visual ease. Design teams, on the other hand, can discuss design concepts, share prototypes, and compare mockups.

That said, FigJam would be a close competitor, especially when a project is design-heavy, as it’s more design-centric and has design workflows and component libraries, whereas Visor caters to a broader user base and provides file management for all other types of files.

Any other team across several disciplines can benefit from using Visor, especially when they create and edit plenty of files and would love to comment directly on those files within Visor. Moreover, Visor provides task management functions like Smartsheet and ClickUp.

Pricing

In addition to its free plan, Visor has two paid tiers. Below is the break down of the pricing and features of each plan:

Plan Free Pro Ultimate
Monthly $0 $12/editor/month $24/editor/month
Annual $0 $9/editor/month $18/editor/month
  • Free — Custom colours and filtering, up to 2 workbooks, 5 views per workbooks, 250 records per workbook, up to 2 integrations, owner and viewer rules, table, Gantt, timeline dashboard and board views
  • Professional — Everything in Free, plus unlimited workbooks, 15 views per workbooks, 500 records per workbook, advanced field protection, 250,000 monthly syncs, full Gantt PDF export, download 30 days of workbook history
  • Ultimate — Everything in Professional, plus unlimited integrations, unlimited workbook views, 1,000 records per workbook, download 180 days of workbook histroy, dedicated customer success advocate
Who It's Best For

Visor is a top choice in terms of ease of use, and I’d recommend it to startups that need to do a lot of brainstorming before streamlining all business processes in a more rigid and structured way.

It’s also extremely helpful for remote teams, project managers, and customer support teams that need to occasionally do real-time troubleshooting with teammates and clients.

However, it lacks advanced functions such as workload management, resource allocation, and project budgeting. Smartsheet also trumps Visor when it comes to in-depth data analysis and reporting.

Pros pros

  • Ample visual collaboration options
  • Incredibly easy to use
  • Manage a broad variety of file types

Cons cons

  • Lacks some advanced features

4. Project.co — Best Freemium Project Management Tool

Starting Price $10/seat/month
Free Version
Top Features AI assistant, Document proofing, Client collaboration
Project Views List, Kanban, Calendar, Gantt
Why We Chose It

Project.co offers a freemium solution that empowers individuals, freelancers, and small teams to streamline their workflow and collaborate effectively. It supports task management, time tracking, discussions, and file sharing, allowing users to manage projects efficiently without breaking the bank.

You can explore Project.co’s clean and intuitive interface easily without the technical expertise Smartsheet often requires. This makes it a great option for teams that prioritize user-friendliness to streamline task handling and don’t require overly complex functionalities.

Freelancers, agencies, small businesses, and startups will find Project.co helpful for client collaboration, especially when granting limited access to specific project aspects. For example, you can restrict views on confidential information like internal notes or team discussions.

This fosters transparency and collaboration while maintaining control over sensitive data. Furthermore, Project.co allows you to manage all aspects of client projects in one place, including tracking tasks, time spent, and file sharing.

Pricing

Project.co only offers two plans: Free and Pro. I have highlighted the features of each plan below:

Plan Free Pro
Monthly $0 $10/seat/month
Annual $0 $99/year
  • Free — Up to 3 team members, up to 10 clients, up to 10 active projects, and 3GB file storage
  • Professional — Use own branding, unlimited clients, unlimited projects, 50GB storage per seat, AI assistant, live project and task timer, recurring payments
Who It's Best For

Project.co offers a great starting point for teams with its free plan, but more established teams or those with complex project management needs might find more robust solutions in the paid plan, which includes things like dependencies, AI tools, and document proofing.

While tools like ClickUp and Smartsheet offer more advanced features and integrations, I found they have a higher learning curve when compared to Project.co’s simpler interface.

Pros pros

  • Intuitive user interface
  • Excellent client collaboration capabilities
  • Generous free plan for unlimited people

Cons cons

  • The free plan lacks key features like dependencies
  • It could use more integrations
Project.co

5. FigJam by Figma — Popular Project Management Software for Design Professionals

Starting Price $5/user/month
Free Version
Top Features Powerful annotations, Team libraries, Diagramming tools
Project Views Freehand, Whiteboard, Sticky Notes
Why We Chose It

FigJam is an online whiteboard tool designed by Figma specifically for design professionals. It facilitates brainstorming, ideation, and collaboration on design projects in real-time, providing a space for teams to create and share ideas visually.

FigJam’s integration with Figma’s design platform enhances its utility, making it a seamless extension for design workflows, especially for those who are already Figma users.

If you want to know what others are working on, FigJam’s cursor chat feature shows exactly that. You can also create and share component libraries for a consistent design throughout your projects.

Moreover, FigJam’s commenting and annotation features can streamline creative approval processes and allow real-time feedback on designs. Thus, FigJam is best for design teams, UX/UI professionals, and creative agencies.

That said, product managers can also benefit from using FigJam, especially when they visualize product ideas and gather user feedback. Meanwhile, front-end developers often use FigJam to hand off designs to developers and keep communication on.

With FigJam, powerful features like sticky notes, drawing tools, and project templates allow simplified visual collaboration compared to more generic tools like Miro or Microsoft Whiteboard, which cater to a broader audience.

Pricing

FigJam offers a free plan and three paid tiers.: Professional, Organization, and Enterprise. I’ve broken down the features and pricing of each plan below:

Plan Starter Professional Organization Enterprise
Annual $0 $5/user/month $5/user/month $5/user/month
  • Starter — 3 collaborative FigJam files, unlimited personal drafts, basic file inspection, plugins and templates, mobile app, and access to ready-made templates
  • Professional — Everything in Starter, plus unlimited FigJam files, open sessions, sharing permissions, eam libraries, voting, and audio conversations
  • Organization — Everything in Professional, plus organization-wide libraries, centralised content manager, custom templated and colour palettes, unified admin and billing, private plugins and widgets, and SSO
  • Enterprise — Everything in Organization, plus dedicated workspaces, advanced design system, guest access controls, ole setting, voting, enforced password links, onboarding and account support, expiring public links

Figma Slides is now available as an add-on for $3 per month on the Starter plan, or an additional $5 per month on the paid plans.

Who It's Best For

FigJam is ideal for a variety of design professionals. Yet, for all its strengths in fostering creative collaboration, FigJam may not be the top project management software choice for teams in need of comprehensive project management features.

While FigJam excels in design-centric collaboration, teams outside of design might find Visor more useful. Its interactive whiteboards, screen sharing, and integrated file management cater to various disciplines and project needs.

Pros pros

  • Diagramming tools are available on the free plan
  • Team voting on ideas
  • Easy real-time collaboration
  • Great value for money

Cons cons

  • Not ideal for teams not using Figma
  • There’s a bit of a learning curve

The Best Project Management Tools Compared

Providers Smartsheet ClickUp Visor Project.co FigJam by Figma
Best For Spreadsheet-style project management Comprehensive software Real-time visual collaboration Free tools Design professionals
Starting Price $9/user/month $7/user/month $9/editor/month $10/seat/month $5/user/month
Free Version
Countries Covered United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, India, Australia, Germany, and more in Asia and globally United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, Japan, Australia, Germany, and more in Asia and globally United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, Singapore, plus more in Asia and globally United States, United Kingdom, Canada, India, Japan, Australia, and more in Asia and globally United States, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, Germany, and more in Asia and globally
Project Views Grid, Kanban, Calendar, Gantt, Dashboard List, Kanban, Board, Calendar, Gantt, Mind Map, Chat, Docs Whiteboard, Kanban, Mind Map List, Kanban, Calendar, Gantt Freehand, Whiteboard, Sticky Notes
Integrations Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Jira, Slack, Dropbox, Box, Zoom, Webhooks, Zapier Google Drive, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, Zoom, Webhooks, Zapier, Asana, Jira, Todoist Google Drive, Dropbox, Figma, Miro, InVision, Webhooks, Zapier, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webhooks, Zapier Figma, Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webhooks
Methodology

How We Review And Test Project Management Software

We base our recommendations on first-hand testing. All the project management software products we feature, have been tested based on the following criteria:

  • Features: We ensure the provider offers the basic functionality we’d expect, like task management and scheduling, resource management, built-in communication and collaboration capabilities, and reporting.
  • Integrations: We check what platforms the software supports for integration, looking for common business tools like CRM software, email marketing platforms, and document management tools.
  • Collaboration Capabilities: We assess and test the extent of collaboration on offer, including built-in chat, comment threads, mind mapping, and whiteboard capabilities.
  • Pricing and Scalability: We evaluate the value for money on offer based on the functionality, and we factor in the ease and price of scaling.
  • Customization: We check whether the platform offers things like custom fields, customizable dashboards, reports, and templates to check how easily the platform can be tailored to different businesses.
  • Security: During testing, we note what security measures are in place, including authentication protocols, access controls, data encryption, data backups, and compliance with regulations like GDPR.
  • Ease of Use: We assess how easy the platform is to navigate (across mobile and desktop), and we look for things like easy drag-and-drop functionality.
  • Reputation: To add to our own analysis of the tools we review, we also factor in feedback from other users to ensure we offer our readers a complete overview.
  • Support and Training: Some of the best project management tools do have learning curves. As such, we assess the level and quality of support on offer, including any online documentation.

What is Project Management Software?

Project management software helps you manage your projects, from inception to completion. The software category spans applications, tools, and platforms that help you visualize and streamline your workflow, facilitate team communication and collaboration, and optimize resource allocation.

Simply, project managing software provides a complete overview of your business, including all the projects, tasks, and processes. This allows you to see what everyone in your team is working on, monitor the status of each task, and see how much time and manpower you're spending to complete specific projects.

Project management systems also provide complete transparency as everyone in the organization knows what's going on at any given moment with. This can save you a lot of time you'd otherwise waste on meetings, lengthy email threads, or sorting out misunderstandings regarding task priorities and due dates.

Key Features of Top Project Management Solutions

Here are the main project management features you'll find with all the tools:

Task ManagementResource Management ToolsCollaboration ToolsTime TrackingReportingIntegrations

Project management apps offer an array of key features that help project managers and their teams manage tasks. You can create, assign, prioritize, and track individual tasks within a project using a view that works best for you—whether it's a Kanban board, a timeline view to see task dependencies, or otherwise—all with drag-and-drop functionality for easy planning.

The best online project management software offers resource planning capabilities that let you manage things like personnel, equipment, materials, time, budget, etc., related to your projects.

Resource management is vital to identifying and reducing project risks. From allocation and scheduling to capacity planning, forecasting, and reporting, project management tools offer the key features needed to ensure project success.

Built-in chat, @mention functions, comments, and live document editing are all popular. However, other project management software, like ClickUp, also offers whiteboards and mind mapping.

All the best project management platforms have the functionality you need for internal and external collaboration. Project manager software often integrates with other collaboration tools, such as Slack.

Many of the best team management apps offer built-in time tracking tools or the option to integrate with dedicated time trackers. Besides being excellent for managing remote teams and for client billing, time tracking can offer project managers accurate project tracking and allow them to better allocate their resources based on how long similar projects have taken in the past.

A project management system offers detailed analytics and reports to help project managers track project progress. From resource utilization to workload distribution, you'll have the data you need to monitor project performance metrics, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions.

Many of the best online project planning tools also offer customizable dashboards, so you can track the metrics most important to your team, department, or company.

The best project manager software offers integration with popular business management tools such as email clients, calendars, CRM platforms, and others. This allows businesses to centralize all their company and project data, and streamline their processes, minimizing the need to work across multiple tools.

Key Benefits of Project Management Software

Even small teams can be difficult to manage without project planning software. Without the right platform, keeping everyone on the same page, managing projects and task dependencies, having efficient team collaboration, and even making decisions are all incredibly difficult.

Businesses that don't use project management platforms find themselves failing to meet deadlines, going over project budgets, getting complaints from stakeholders or clients, and in a never-ending cycle of fixing costly mistakes.

The top project management tools will efficiently solve these issues, saving you valuable time, helping you efficiently use your resources, and helping you forecast and plan future projects. In short, it should remove a lot of the friction from your business.

Here are the key benefits of project managing software, so you can clearly see why it's essential to have one if you want to grow and expand your business processes.

Better Project Planning and ExecutionEnhanced Team CollaborationSimplified Remote WorkImproved Budget ManagementRisk Management

Robust project and team management apps will help you track projects, get a big-picture overview, and zoom in on the progress of individual tasks.

This will enable you to see how your team or teams are working towards their objectives in real-time and identify where barriers and bottlenecks are emerging in your workflows.

During project execution, you can also monitor the actual time spent and compare it to your estimates, which will give you a better idea of the ETAs for specific tasks in future projects.

With this information, you can plan projects ahead of time with greater precision, allocate resources more effectively, and ensure you're delivering on budget and ahead of schedule.

If your team relies on a chat app, spreadsheets, lengthy email threads, and virtual meetings to share information on tasks and project progress, it can become nearly impossible to ensure everyone's on the same page when executing complex projects.

With project management software, you have everything you need to execute the tasks in a single dashboard. Everyone can clearly see task owners, due dates, related documents, task dependencies, and comments left by managers and other team members.

This eliminates confusion and facilitates asynchronous work since everyone has quick and easy access to all the information they need to progress on their tasks.

There are many remote work challenges. This is especially true if you have a team spread across multiple time zones, ensuring everyone's on the same page can be challenging. This is especially true with task dependencies because everyone will have to log all their work and send countless emails with daily updates.

Project management tools act as a centralized place for all project data, where everyone can access and see the status and progress of each task in real-time.

This saves a ton of valuable time, eliminates the possibility of misinformation, and allows every team member to work more efficiently in an asynchronous work environment since their task progress isn't dependent on other people being online at the specific time of day.

To ensure your business stays profitable, it's critical to manage your project budget effectively. With a project management tool, you can see resource allocation in real-time, generate reports on estimated vs. actual cost, and monitor your team's productivity.

Instead of guessing and making rough estimates, you can leverage an online project planning tool to generate easy-to-understand reports and glean actionable insights.

You'll also be able to clearly see where your budget is going, so you can confidently reorganize and prioritize work or make necessary budget cuts without compromising work quality.

Project management tools allow you to clearly see how your different processes, workflows, documents, and information come together to form the bigger picture.

With proper planning and efficient resource management and allocation, you can accurately identify opportunities and proactively mitigate the risks to ensure your projects transition smoothly from ideation to execution.

What is the Best Free Project Management Software?

The best free project management app will really depend on your specific needs. Some, like Project.co, offer all the basics small teams would need, including some advanced features like time tracking—but you'll miss out on resource management and in-depth reporting, for example.

Other popular free options include ClickUp and Wrike, both of which offer a free plan that doesn't limit the number of users you can onboard. That said, free tools are quite limited, even compared to paid, cheap project management tools.

However, this all really depends on your specific needs. Always factor in the limitations of the plan and provider, and note how scalable the platform is. A cheap or free plan may suffice now, but this will probably change in the future.

What Project Management System is Easiest to Use?

Ease of use can be a personal matter, too. Some find one platform easy, whereas others would find it has a high learning curve. One good example of this is ClickUp—many find it amazing and intuitive, while others find it has a high learning curve.

Using various project management tools, I've found that Smartsheet, monday.com, and Project.co are among the easiest platforms to navigate.

How to Choose the Best Project Management Software

While all the best project management solutions on our list are great for optimizing workflows, streamlining team collaboration, and facilitating project planning and execution, some tools might be a better fit for your organization than others.

This largely depends on the field of work your company is in, the types of projects you're running, the tools you're already using, and the unique needs of your business. Here are the key factors to consider when choosing the right project management tool for your business:

FunctionalityEase of UseScalabilityIntegrationsCustomization

Depending on the complexity of your workflows and program management, you might value certain features more than others. Consider if you need workflow visualization, resource management, time tracking, budget tracking and forecasting, and other features, and find the tool that meets your organization's needs.

If you plan to implement the project management platform across your entire organization, ease of use might be one of the most important factors to consider. While complex tools offer more functionality, you'd have to spend months training everyone on the team to use them efficiently.

As your company grows, the tools you use should scale up with you and provide the features your growing organization needs. If you're planning on expanding your team in the near future, as a minimum, it's best to choose project management software that can easily be scaled to add new members to your account and to do so without excessive additional costs.

It's crucial to integrate your new project management tool with the existing software stack, so you can have all the information you need in one place. Otherwise, having to tab back and forth between half a dozen applications kind of defeats the purpose of the project management tool.

Customization is another key consideration when choosing a project management solution—custom fields, reports, dashboards, and similar are vital considerations, as often one or more of these factors can be reserved for specific plans and limited with free project management tools.

FAQs

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Kirsten Lamb
Technology Expert
Kirsten Lamb
Technology Expert

Kirsten Lamb is a freelance conversion copywriter and content marketer with a specialist focus in technology. She previously studied at Keele University and The University of Edinburgh. She has over 7 years of experience in the marketing industry and has worked with brands like Hotjar and WooCommerce, plus on the tech side of Booking.com.