Project Management Softwares That Every Manager Must Know

Project management is the term used to collectively refer to a set of activities that are carried out throughout the stages of the project. These involve setting the deadlines, estimating costs, managing resources, coordinating between teams, risk analysis and so on. 

There used to be a time when some or all of these activities used to be carried out manually. Maintaining ledgers, tracking schedules by hand were common. However, today, there is no need to take the trouble of manually carrying out tasks in project management. 

We have plenty of tools, both free and paid to help project managers with all their duties. With such a large number of choices, choosing the right project management software for a company may seem like a daunting task. 

To help project managers, we have compiled some of the best project management tools available today.

Top Project Management Softwares

1. Zoho Projects

Zoho projects is a powerful project management tool from Zoho. It offers all the key functionalities required by a project manager. Its top features include document management, Gantt chart, reporting tools, resource utilization charts, critical path and much more. 

The tool offers a high level of customization. Everything from the colour, positioning and visibility of modules can be set according to the user’s preferences. The tool is suitable for both traditional and agile teams.

Its free plan offers 1 project with 10MB storage. The tool has a range of paid plans that managers can choose from, based on the number of projects and the required storage.

2. Trello

Trello is a smart collaboration and project management tool. It is highly popular among project managers. 

It offers a long list of extensive features that include a well-organized board and card system, progress meter checklist, deadline alerts, mobile-friendly views and activity logs. Its drag and drop editing feature makes editing tasks easier. 

There are two paid plans – Trello Gold and Trello Business Class. There is also a free plan that offers limited storage and a limited number of boards per team.

3. Jira

Jira is one of the top project management tools that teams prefer. The tool has an intuitive interface which helps in optimizing work processes.

Creation and manipulation of queries and adding custom filters is very easy as the tool has its own query language – Jira Query Language.

It is the perfect tool for agile project management. It offers integration with REST APIs. Its top features include customizable workflows, on-demand deployment, advanced reporting tools, mobile interface, scrum and Kanban boards. 

Apart from the free trial, Jira offers a wide range of paid plans with and without cloud storage.

4. Smartsheet

Smartsheet is a web-based tool for collaboration and project management. It can be seen as a customizable and more powerful version of a spreadsheet.

Smartsheet offers a variety of features – file sharing, Gantt charts, interactive dashboards, activity log, reporting tools, custom branding, mobile view and so on.

Smartsheet has a free trial and three different paid plans – for individuals, businesses, and enterprises.

5. Hive

Hive is a powerful project management software suitable for any organization aiming for better productivity.

Google, Starbucks, Uber and IBM are some of the popular companies that implement Hive. In-app email integration helps in smooth communication and coordination. Flexible project views make process management more transparent.

It offers two different pricing options – professional and enterprise.

6. Wrike

Wrike is a popular project management tool that offers powerful features. Some of its special features are organized file management, tracking of billable hours, report generation from real-time data and customizable workflows.

For small teams of up to five members, Wrike’s free plan would suffice. For medium and large teams, there are three different paid plans that teams can choose from.

7. Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management tool that guarantees better organization and productivity among teams. A project can be broken down into smaller modules. Each module contains all the tools that a team member would need to accomplish their tasks.

The tools include to-do lists, scheduling, file storage, real-time chat and much more. The features allow integration with other third-party applications as well.

Basecamp’s automatic check-in question feature and the activity views help keeping all the team members informed without having a meeting. Thus, it saves a lot of time. 

While the application is free for teachers and students, it also has paid plans with advanced features for businesses

8. Monday.com

Monday.com is a leading tool in project management. It offers some unique features such as getting only relevant updates for each user, easy collaboration, live comments on visuals and visualization of progress.

The Board in Monday.com offers the best insights on schedules, task completion and performance. The highlight feature of the tool is that all users get round-the-clock support, irrespective of whether they are paid or free users. 

The analysis and reporting tools available on Monday.com are unmatched. The tool offers integration with a long list of popularly used third-party applications and other project management tools. 

The tool is available under four different subscription plans – basic, standard, pro and enterprise. All first-time users are eligible for a free trial.

9. Backlog

Backlog is an award-winning online project management tool, especially among software developers. 

Gantt charts, boards, burndown charts and other such features help in establishing transparency in the project. The tool offers bug and issue tracking features as well. These help in fixing bugs faster. The tool offers security with IP address control.

Backlog offers a 30-day free-trial. There are three plans – starter, standard and premium.

10. Clarizen

Clarizen is an online project management software suitable for teams aiming to simplify their work. 

It offers workflow automation and easy collaboration. The tool comes with preloaded dashboards and reports. However, the user can customize these to suit their preferences. With centralized monitoring of all tasks, the team members become more accountable.

The resource management feature helps in adding resources when required. The timesheet feature tracks the billable hours of all the team members. 

After a 30-day trial period, users can choose between the enterprise and unlimited editions. The unlimited edition offers advanced capabilities and better tools for customization. 

11. Asana

Asana is an effective tool that has numerous satisfied clients worldwide. Asana’s board is visually appealing. It helps in easily tracking the progress of each task.

Generally, a lot of time is spent on switching between different applications. Asana does a good job of saving this precious time by supporting 100+ integrations with email, file and other third-party applications.

Commonly used processes can be transformed into templates so that members can reuse it. Sensitive projects can be made private. With this feature, classified information cannot reach unauthorized members. 

Asana offers a free plan, a premium plan and an enterprise plan. 

12. Celoxis

Celoxis is a powerful project management tool. It supports integration with 300+ third-party applications.

From keeping track of the project’s progress up to maintaining the resources and budget, all the tasks can be accomplished with this tool. With its vacation time and shift-tracking feature, managers can plan ahead for an optimized workforce. 

With powerful project accounting features, one can even forecast revenue. The tool has a 30-day free trial. Post that, the client can either choose the cloud subscription or the on-premise one. 

13. Kanban Tool

Kanban Tool has more than 25,000 satisfied customers which includes some big names like Cisco, Expedia and Siemens. 

The Kanban Board provides real-time visualization of work status and helps collaboration among clients and team members. The tool’s analytics and metric help in smooth workflow. Insights gained from these features have proven to improve business efficiency. 

The tool comes with a 14-day free trial following which the user can select the team plan or the enterprise plan. 

14. LiquidPlanner

The last tool on the list is LiquidPlanner. It is a fitting tool for both small and large businesses. The best part about using the tool is that it supports integration with all the major cloud storage tools. 

The tool has features to assess risks and estimate the worst case scenarios for situations. The software easily adapts to changing priorities. When task priorities change, the schedules automatically get updated.

The tool offers three different subscription plans for teams of various sizes. 

Summary

While selecting a project management tool, one must always decide the features that the team/organization is looking for.

Then, project managers can match their preferred features with those offered by various tools. Finally, one can select the tool that provides all or most of the desired features. Other factors to consider include customer support and pricing.