The simplest project management software you can currently purchase is monday.com which scored 4.5/5 on our recent ease of use tests, the highest out of 10 major project management software providers we tested. monday.com has a minimalistic, tidy interface that will instantly make you feel more organized, and provides a detailed setup process on all of its plans.
What’s more, monday.com’s 24/7 live support means that if you do end up getting stuck, help is on hand right away – an assuring feature that isn’t offered by ClickUp and Asana. However, if you’ve already tried monday.com and decided it wasn’t for you, we also found Teamwork really straightforward and intuitive – creating automations was surprisingly quick and easy. Plus, it only costs $5.99 per user, per month.
There’s nothing more frustrating than purchasing project management software designed to make you more organized and bring clarity to your work, only to find out that it’s going to take you hours to set up – and that half your team thinks it’s too complicated to use anyway. So, in this guide, we’ll show you how straightforward a variety of different platforms are – and none of them beat monday.com.
- The Best Simple Project Management Software: Table
- Tech.co Fall 2023 Ease of Use Test Summary
- The Best Simple Project Management Software Reviews
- How to Choose the Best, Simple Project Management Software
- About Our Project Management Research
- Verdict: Why monday.com is the simplest Project Management tool
- Frequently Asked Questions
The Best Simple Project Management Software: A Table
The best simple project management software is monday.com. It scored 4.5/5 on our ease of use tests area and was quicker to set up than the 10 other providers we tested. The ease at which you can navigate around the interface and find what you need is impressive.
Trello is probably the most “basic” platform included on this list, but it’s so basic that some project management tasks become quite difficult (and even impossible) to complete – which doesn’t make things very simple. Overall, the best project management software tools are:
monday.com – the easiest-to-use project management software
Teamwork – the best value, simple project management software
Asana– Best for tracking budgets and displaying project data
Wrike – The best for large businesses and integrations
Trello – The best for customer support options
If you’re in a rush, you can check out the table below for a quick look at how these five simple project management programs compare. Alternatively, scroll down for more detailed insights gained from our user testing.
Note: All the images used in this article were taken during Tech.co’s project management user testing series. For more information on how we test project management tools, as well as other products, visit our product research page.
| Price From All prices listed as per user, per month (billed annually) | Score The overall score obtained from our most recent round of project management software user testing. | Free Version | Verdict | Ease of Use | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |  | ||
| 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.4 | 4.3 | ||
| | | | | | ||
| A great task management system due to strong customizability and support team, with a generous free trial. | A great user experience all round, with an easy-to-use automation builder and great budget tracking capabilities. | A simple task-list-based project management platform with an acceptable free tier. | A feature-rich service with a plain interface that’s easy to learn, and has a free tier option to try. | A fairly-priced, stripped-down option best for small teams who need a central location for basic task management. | ||
| 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.1 |
Test Summary (Fall 2023)
I’ve tested 10 general-use project management software tools, and monday.com’s is the simplest one you can currently get your hands on. I found the layout so much less cluttered than Jira and Smartsheet and editing aspects of the interface usually just requires a click of a button. Data you input into one project view is automatically inserted into your other project views.
I enjoyed monday.com’s guided setup process where you input answers to a number of different questions, which helps monday.com understand the kind of experience you wanted. But the most impressive thing about monday.com is that you don’t actually need your hand held that much once you’re past this initial phase. Building automations, for example, is really easy with monday.com’s text-based builder.
However, we’ve known for a number of years how easy monday.com is to use – I was personally most impressed with Teamwork, our second-simplest project management software. The interface is quite similar to Wrike’s but it just felt like it had been built a little better – there seemed to be a button, field, or column for everything I needed, and I didn’t have to consult any online resources with instructions.
The Simplest Project Management Software: Reviews
Here, we’ve dug down a little deeper into monday.com, Teamwork, and other easy-to-use platforms. Although monday.com is the best, they all have their merits – Trello might suit you if you’re looking for something more basic, although you may also find it a little limiting when it comes to things like collaborating with your teammates.
monday.com
Price from: $8 per user, per month
Best project management software: Overall
Ease of Use score: 4.5/5
monday.com is definitely the simplest project management software tool we’ve
Pros
- No-nonsense, robust feature catalog
- Lots of customizability
- Strong task management and data tools
- Huge integrations library
Cons
- Not entirely easy to use
- Difficult to use automation builder
- Not the best for collaboration
Commenting on a task in monday.com. Image: Tech.co’s Testing Process.
monday.com pricing
monday.com has five plans, which is one more than both Wrike and ClickUp. There’s a free plan that has a decent range of task management tools but a user limit of two, so it won’t be suitable for your team if it’s larger than that.
The Basic projects plan is available for $8 per user, per month, but in terms of task management tools, it’s just as limited as the free plan – there’s a Kanban board but no Gantt chart, calendar view, or task dependencies.
The Standard Projects plan is just $2 more expensive, retailing at $10 per user, per month, and for that little bit extra you’ll have access to a calendar view, a milestones function, and a Gantt chart.
The Pro Projects plan ($19 per user, per month) adds in a task dependencies function and a time-tracking feature so you can plan better with regard to how long tasks may actually take.
monday.com also has an Enterprise plan (custom pricing) which is the only plan with onboarding assistance available.
Using monday.com’s Kanban board. Image: Tech.co’s Testing Process.
Teamwork
Price From: $5.99 per user, per month
Best for: building automations, great free plan
Ease of Use score: 4.3/5
Teamwork came second overall in our last round of project management testing, and joint third when it comes to task management, scoring the same as Asana.
Pros
- Lots of collaboration tools
- Kanban-style boards and Gantt charts available
- Affordable pricing and solid free option
- Great security options
Cons
- Limited built-in integrations
- Data visualization isn't the easiest
Teamwork’s Table view. Image: Tech.co’s Testing Process.
Teamwork pricing
Teamwork is the best value provider on this list, with a highly capable free plan with a 3-person limit. Despite this low user cap, it offers more task management tools than any other free plan other than ClickUp’s – including a Gantt chart and custom fields.
The aforementioned Starter plan is available for just $5.99 per user, per month, and has an impressive range of task management features considering it’s the cheapest first paid plan on this list.
The Deliver ($9.99 per user, per month) and the Grow ($19.99 per user, per month) plans might have similar offerings when it comes to task management.
Asana
Price from: $10.99 per user, per month
Best for: tracking budgets and displaying project data
Ease of Use score: 4.2/5
Asana is one of the most widely task management tools in the world, with at least 139,000 paying customers.
Pros
- Unlimited storage
- Plenty of third-party integrations
- Incredible clean and intuitive interface
- Easy to use dashboards and chart builder
Cons
- Most key features require a Premium plan
- Very high prices for larger teams
- No phone-based support
Creating a custom field in Asana. Image: Tech.co’s testing process.
Asana pricing
Asana has four plans, including a basic free plan, but as we’ve covered, it doesn’t have many features – milestones, task dependencies, a Gantt chart and custom fields aren’t included. It also has a user limit of 15 so it definitely isn’t suitable for teams larger than that.
The paid plans offered by Asana are quite expensive – the first paid plan costs $10.99 per user, per month, almost double the price of Teamwork’s first paid plan. However, it does add the features listed above missing from the free plan.
The Business plan costs $24.99 per user, per month, and this is the first plan with time-tracking and resource management features.
There’s an Enterprise plan with no public pricing, but it offers virtually the same collection of task management features as the Business plan. For more information, visit our Asana pricing page.
Wrike
Price From: $9.80 per user, per month
Best for: Large businesses
Ease of Use score: 4.1/5
Wrike scores the same as ClickUp for task management – but it’s not quite as good in other areas and doesn’t offer that many task management features on its free and first-paid plan, so comes in second place on this list. However, it does have a great range of integrations and two plans geared towards large businesses.
Pros
- Highly customizable platform
- Custom fields feature available on all plans (including the free plan)
- Rule-based automation can be used to complete simple tasks, like archiving items
Cons
- Free plan has 2-person user limit
- Limited third party integrations
- Higher tiers required for basic features
Wrike’s Table view. Image: Tech.co’s Testing Process.
Wrike pricing
Like ClickUp, Wrike has a free plan, but it’s quite limited and doesn’t include task management features like a Gantt chart task dependencies, or a calendar view.
The Team plan is available for $9.80 per user, per month, which is more expensive than monday.com’s and ClickUp’s first paid plans. Strangely, although the free plan is unlimited, there’s a user limit of 25 on this plan.
Wrike Business plan costs $24.80 per user, per month and includes the provider’s full suite of task management tools. Wrike has two plans without public pricing – the Enterprise plan and the Pinnacle plan – which have advanced security features geared toward large businesses such as “Locked spaces”. Head over to our Wrike pricing page for more information.
Trello
Price From: $5 per user, per month
Best for: Customer support
Ease of Use score: 4.1/5
Wrike scores the same as ClickUp for task management – but it’s not quite as good in other areas and doesn’t offer that many task management features on its free and first-paid plan, so comes in second place on this list. However, it does have a great range of integrations and two plans geared towards large businesses.
Pros
- Kanban-dominant approach
- Automation is available on the free plan
- Cheaper than most competitors
- Live chat support on all paid plans
Cons
- Very simple project templates
- Basic functionality, not updated regularly
- Sparse collaboration tools
Trello pricing
Trello comes with a free plan, and considering Trello’s paid software is relatively limited, you may expect the free plan to be even more restrictive.
There’s also a Premium plan available for $5 per user, per month, which makes it the cheapest paid plan featured on this list, narrowly beating Teamwork’s $5.99 per user, per month Starter plan. Trello’s offering is nowhere near as feature-rich, however.
About Our Research
At Tech.co, we spend a lot of our time researching and testing software and services before we review them – it’s the only way we can say with confidence whether a product is worth recommending to you. This involves hours of market research and interviews with businesses that read our content, plus rigorous user testing using criteria we’ve created ourselves.
A big part of our project management software research is the ease of use tests we perform, which involve a group of up to eight test participants using mock data to set up a project in each of the 10 major providers that we’re looking at in 2023. We looked at how long it took to import project data and set up our projects, and how easy it was to utilize different functions of the software.
Along with Ease of Use testing During the testing series, we focused on five other areas of inquiry: Security, Integrations, Pricing, Customer Support, and Functionality. “functionality” is broken down into four sub-areas: task management, data visualization, workflow creation, and collaboration.
Although we maintain commercial partnerships with some of the manufacturers of the products we write about, this does not – and will never influence how we order products in our ranked lists, or the conclusions we draw in comparative head-to-heads. In fact, it’s our independent research that allows us to remain editorially independent.