Project management software works brilliantly for businesses as well as for planning kind of group activity, including social activities, charity work and so on. Research shows that poor project management can incur a loss of as much as $99 million against every $1 billion invested. That’s a lot.
Project management is not just for professional project managers; these tools are designed for anyone looking to effectively organize their work and manage projects and tasks.
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Benefits of Using Project Management Software
Project management is all about organizing multiple projects and collaborating with your teams. There are ample reasons why you must use project management apps. Here are a few to get started:
- Tracking and assigning: Most project management software come with the feature to assign tasks and projects, and track the progress of the same. This helps in being more productive and completing tasks on time.
- Allocating and managing resources: Resource management is easier with project management apps because you have a central location for everything you and your team need to access.
- Breaking down large projects: All project management apps let you break down your large projects into sub-projects and sub-tasks so that it easy to pinpoint the progress status of each section of the project.
- Collaboration and sharing: Add your entire team to your project management app and collaborate with them seamlessly. From sharing documents to planning a workflow, assigning individual tasks, and working towards a common goal together – Project management software makes teamwork easy and productive.
Now, let’s take a look at the best project management apps to use in 2021 (Free and paid).
Best Free Project Management Tools
Check out our list of 12 best and free project management software along with 5 more noteworthy ones below, and choose the one that is best suited to your requirements.
1. Trello
The best project management tool for Kanban boards
Trello is a popular and highly visual task management app based around Kanban boards. Its interface is highly visual and well-ordered, making it easy to learn and use.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Easy drag-and-drop editing: Trello allows team members to edit task lists using a drag-and-drop mechanism that’s simple to use and very intuitive.
- Power-Ups: Trello Power-Ups help you put your Trello board on steroids. As the name says it, power up your boards with additional features of automation, data-sync, design, and much more. Automate.io‘s Trello Power-Up helps you automate tasks & get more done.
- Submit multiple cards and checklist items: You can add multiple cards or checklist items all at once. Copy and paste from a spreadsheet column or list to create a new card or checklist for each line in the list.
- Custom fields: Trello’s Custom fields feature provides additional input boxes so you can add more structure and context to a Trello card, such as contact information, status updates, and additional due dates. You can format them as drop-down options, text fields, checkboxes, or calendar dates.
Other defining features:
- Kanban boards
- Group meetings and one-to-one chat
- Progress meter checklist
If you have a list of card titles, for example in an Excel spreadsheet, you can simply copy the title from one column and each cell from the sheet will become a card in a Trello list.
Platform: Web, Android, iOS, macOS, Windows
Most suitable for: For personal use and small teams
Supported methodologies: Kanban
2. Asana
Best project management software for group communication
Asana is a task management tool with strong communication and customization features.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Focus Mode: Focus Mode allows you to see one task at a time, without feeling tempted or overwhelmed by all the other tasks in your window.
- Smart Inbox: Asana’s Inbox provides a unified place for everyone involved in a project to communicate and share files. Filters help you focus on the notifications that matter the most to you.
- Advanced Search: The Advanced Search feature lets you search your project archive based on criteria such as completion date, assignee, custom fields, and task creator.
Other defining features:
- Customizable Dashboards
- Has multiple view options like timeline view, calendar view, and list view
- Email integration
- Project permissions allow your freelancers, clients, and any external party to view project progress.
Platform: Web, Android, iOS
Most suitable for: Someone who manages multiple teams
Supported methodologies: Agile, Scrum, Kanban
3. MeisterTask
The best project management tool for customizing Kanban boards
MeisterTask is a task management app based around Kanban boards and aimed at Agile project teams. MeisterTask is based on Kanban boards in a similar way to Trello.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Time-tracking: A time-tracking widget allows you to record the time spent on a particular task. It enables you to track the amount of time spent on tasks, generate reports, and view statistics on your team’s productivity.
- Customization: MeisterTask offers lots of customization options that let you adjust the appearance of your dashboard and project boards.
- Relationships feature: Using the task relationships feature, you can add relations to your tasks to indicate dependencies or blockages.
- Automations: The Automations feature allows you to automate recurring steps in your task management workflow. Once you’ve configured specific automation for a section in your project, it will automatically be applied to all tasks moved to or created in this section.
Other defining features:
- Kanban boards
Platform: Web, Android, iOS
Most suitable for: Small businesses with agile projects
Supported methodologies: Kanban
4. Wrike
Best project management app for complex projects
Wrike is a project management software geared towards business use due to its powerful reporting feature. Gantt Chart is one of the main views of your projects offered by Wrike.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Variety of views: Every business is different, so Wrike allows a high degree of customization over how your projects are presented. Available views include List, Board, Stream, Timelog, Gantt Chart, Table, and Workload.
- Three-pane interface: Similar to the interface of many popular email clients, Wrike’s three-pane setup makes it easy to navigate between the live overview of project updates, details of a particular task, and the project structure.
- Wrike Reports: Wrike Reports are customizable reports which you can build to quickly gather specific data. Each time you open or refresh your report, it automatically updates to include the most up-to-date data which meets your report’s criteria.
Other defining features:
- Workload management
- Document collaboration
- Time tracking
Platform: Web, Android, iOS, macOS, Windows
Most suitable for: Medium-size businesses
Supported methodologies: Agile, SCRUM, Kanban (Gantt Chart is one of the views of your projects offered by Wrike
5. Podio
Highly-customizable Project Management Software
Podio is a task management app that is highly customizable via Podio Apps, and with special features for sales and marketing professionals.
In Podio, everything is organized around Workspaces, within which you can create and assign tasks and deadlines.
Unique and distinctive features:
- IM and chat: Podio has advanced collaboration tools, including instant messaging and audio or video calling with anyone you’re connected to on Podio. This makes it a great tool for diverse, large, and/or geographically spread teams.
- Podio Apps: Team members choose how to organize and track their work by creating their own “Podio apps” – which are basically project templates – using a simple drag and drop interface.
- Formula calculations: Calculation fields can be used to easily manipulate the data added to your apps. This lets you perform mathematical calculations on the numbers in your app, and concatenate the values in certain fields together. Values are added to a calculation field using variables. Use the “@” symbol to search for variables in your app
Other defining features:
- Meeting scheduling
- Customer relationship management
- Data visualization
Platform: Web, Android, iOS
Most suitable for: Large and diverse teams
Supported methodologies: Agile
6. monday.com (free trial only)
Best project management app for large remote teams
monday.com is a popular communication and collaboration app for teams. Please note that there is no free plan for this app, but a free trial is available.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Gather ideas via Forms: This feature helps streamline the process of gathering ideas, suggestions, or requests onto a single board. Once a new idea has been added via the form, it will automatically be added to the
- Add extra columns: To each task or group of tasks, you can add multiple columns, containing details such as who the task is assigned to, its status and due dates, as well as more glandular information such as phone numbers, email addresses, a map or a world clock.
- Add or remove weekends: You can now configure your timeline to either display weekends or not. If you only work weekdays, the latter makes it easier to track the actual dates and duration of your work.
Defining features:
- Virtual whiteboards
- Customizable templates
- Table, Kanban, Chart & Map views
Platform: Web, Android, iOS, macOS, Windows
Most suitable for: Large businesses
Supported methodologies: Agile, SCRUM, Kanban
7. Basecamp 3
The best project management app for web design projects
Basecamp is project management for distributed and global teams that are popular within the web design community.
In Basecamp 3, your schedule is designed to keep all the milestones, deadlines, and stuff with dates neatly organized and tidy.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Hills Charts: Hills Charts are an original way to view project progress that has been originated by Basecamp. They’re based on the idea that every project reaches a point where there aren’t any more unsolved problems (the ‘top of the hill’).
- Automatic check-in questions: Automatic check-in questions such as “what are you working on this week?” and “what did you work on today?” give managers a quick, easy way how everyone is progressing.
- Decide what clients see: Everything is private to your team by default and clearly labeled as such until you choose to share it with a client.
Other defining features:
- Project templates
- Document management
- Real-time chat
Platform: Web, Android, iOS, macOS, Windows
Most suitable for: Web design and development teams
Supported methodologies: Agile, SCRUM
8. KanbanFlow
The best project management app for lean teams
KanbanFlow is, as the name suggests, a task management app based on Kanban cards. It is a purposely lean and minimal project management app.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Work-in-progress limits: To avoid project bottlenecks, you can limit how many tasks you are allowed to have in a specific column. Like in the below image, you can only choose to view the tasks marked in blue.
- Swimlanes: Swimlanes means you can split your board horizontally into teams, products, business areas, or something else that will help you manage your tasks.
- See the completed tasks by date: When you move tasks to Done, they are grouped by the date that they were completed. This makes it easy to, for example, keep track of how much work you finished last week.
Other defining features:
- Kanban boards
- Easy filtering of information
- Real-time collaboration
Platform: Web, Android, iOS, Windows Phone
Most suitable for: Startups
Supported methodologies: Kanban
9. ClickUp
Best project management app for marketing projects
ClickUp is an intuitive project management app with a strong appeal to marketing professionals.
Unique and distinctive features:
- ClickApps: ClickApps are programmable widgets that enable you to completely customize your team’s interface within each Workspace.
- Time estimates: Time Estimates is a ClickApp that uses machine learning to generate realistic estimates and timeframes for your activities.
- Me Mode: Me Mode allows you to drown out the noise and focus only on the tasks assigned to you, in one click.
Other defining features:
- Multiple views (List, Calendar, Board, Gantt, Wiki & Doc View, Conversation, Embed)
- Image mockups
- Collaboration Detection
Platform: Web, Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Chrome, Amazon Fire, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Notepad, Gmail, Outlook
Most suitable for: Marketing professionals
Supported methodologies: Agile
10. Teamwork Projects
Project Management Software with Billing & Time-Tracking
Teamwork Projects is a work and project management app that’s packed with features.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Customizable Kanban Boards: If you prefer the Kanban approach, you’re able to create Kanban boards in a way that’s much more customizable than most project management apps.
- Built-in time logging: There are many time tracking features, including an in-app timer that you can launch which doing particular tasks. Any time logged on a project can be viewed in the project’s Time tab.
- Billing tools: Built-in expenses and invoicing tools help you keep track of the financial side of projects, and generate client invoices automatically.
Other defining features:
- Simple structure
- Bird’s eye view of all projects
- Interactive Gantt Chart
Platform: Web, Android, iOS, Chrome
Most suitable for: Complex projects
Supported methodologies: Agile, SCRUM, Kanban
11. JIRA
Project Management Software for IT & Scrum
JIRA is a bug tracking and project management app geared towards technical staff.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Scrum Boards: Scrum Boards enable software teams to manage complex projects by creating a culture of collaboration. (Kanban Boards are available as an alternative). Jira’s Scrum boards unite teams around a single goal and promote iterative, incremental delivery.
- Issue tracking: Bug and issue tracking features help software teams find, record and track bugs in their software.
- Integrates with Github: Linking your GitHub account to Jira gives your team the ability to see their branches, commit messages, and pull requests right in the context of the Jira tickets they’re working on.
Other defining features:
- Service desk
- Code integration
- Agile, Scrum, or Kanban
Platform: Web, Android, iOS
Most suitable for: IT departments, software developers, web developers, open-source projects
Supported methodologies: Agile, SCRUM, Kanban
12. Toggl Plan
Best Project Management App for Toggl Users
Toggl Plan (formerly Teamweek) is an easy-to-use, highly visual project management app.
Unique and distinctive features:
- Quick setup: Compared to other project management apps, Toggl Plan offers a lightweight and minimal feature set that’s easy to set up and use. Instead of being forgotten, you can also add the tasks to the “Icebox” tab, so they can be completed in the future
- Highly visual interface: The interface offers a quick visual overview of who’s doing what and when based on clear and customizable color-coding. Toggl Plan makes great use of color to help aid comprehension.
- Shortcuts: Toggl Plan has a wide range of shortcuts to make it faster to use. For example, you can switch to the weekly view by typing W, monthly view with M, and annual view with A.
Other defining features:
- Drag & drop interface
- Kanban boards or Timeline view.
- Job scheduling
Platform: Web, Android, iOS
Most suitable for: IT, design, marketing, and financial departments/companies
Supported methodologies: Agile, Kanban
Other Noteworthy Project Management Tools
13. Notion
Notion is a collaborative note-taking app that is based around a wide variety of project management-based templates.
14. nTask
nTask is a cloud-based free task management app that’s geared towards small businesses and individuals.
15. Freedcamp
Freedcamp is a user-friendly and low-cost project management software with good collaboration features.
16. ZenTao
ZenTao is an open-source project management software for users of both the Scrum and Agile methodologies.
17. Outlook Spaces
Coming Soon, Outlook Spaces, is a new workspace tool from Microsoft Outlook, aimed at helping teams to collaborate over meetings, documents, and notes.
Final thoughts on choosing a Project Management Software
That’s a wrap on the free project management software & tools available to cater to a wide range of teams. Understand what your team goals and style of working is, what kind of projects you typically work on and who all will be utilizing the project management app. We’ve listed down the best options for individual, agile, lean & large teams. From this list, you can select your team’s next favourite project management software based on the criteria your team falls into.
