Best Project Management Software – 2023 Reviews

According to the results from our tests, the best project management software you can buy in 2023 is monday.com. It achieved the highest ease-of-use score out of the ten providers we recently tested (4.5/5) and scored well for security (5/5) and customer support (4.5/5).

However, while you won’t find monday.com as feature-rich as ClickUp or as good value for money as Teamwork, features like Gantt charts, task dependencies, time-tracking, an AI assistant, and 24/7 live support on all plans mean you’ll have everything you need to take your project from A-Z with monday.com.

Our top five picks are:

1. monday.com – best overall, and the easiest to use
2. Teamwork – best automation builder and good value for money
3. ClickUp – best for task management and collaboration
4. Asana  – best for displaying project data and tracking budgets
5. Wrike – best for integrations and large businesses

To find the best project management software for your business, take a look at our shortlist below, or skip straight to our free project management comparison tool to view free trials and highlights side by side.

What Is Project Management Software?

Project management software is a category of software programs designed to help businesses and individuals plan, organize, and deliver projects.

Project management software programs include features for tracking tasks and budgets, visualizing project data, communicating with teammates, and managing the workflows of those involved in the project. Robust reporting features, time-tracking, and resource management tools are also commonplace in 2023.

Project management software allows project managers to get a high-level overview of the progress of their project, as well as what everyone who’s taking part is working on. Most modern project management software tools also give users the opportunity to automate mundane or repetitive tasks, such as notifying team members when certain tasks are completed.

Best Project Management Software Reviewed

Every year at Tech.co, we test the top project management software tools on the market, putting them through their paces with our custom testing criteria built around the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. We’ve looked at the interface, infrastructure, standout features, user experience, pricing and plan tiers, and more in order to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each tool.

This year, we narrowed our pool down to 10 providers that all provide general-use software that’ll suit the vast majority of businesses – which is why neither Celoxis nor Favro made the cut this time around. Here’s our full list of the best project management software for 2023:

1. monday.com – Best Overall, Easiest to Use
2. Teamwork– Best for Building Automations and Great Value
3. ClickUp – Best for Task Management
4. Asana – Best for Displaying Project Data and Tracking Budgets
5. Wrike – Best for Integrations, Great for Large Businesses
6. Trello – Great for Customer Support
7. Smartsheet – Great Customer Support & Security Options
8. Jira – Best Value for Money
9. Zoho Projects – Great Value, cheapest first paid plan available
10. Basecamp – good for basic task tracking and collaboration

Below, you can also find:

• Methodology: How We Test Project Management Tools
• How to Choose the Right Tool for Your Needs
• Project Management Software FAQs

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.

1. monday.com – Best Overall, Easiest to Use

Pricing from: $8 per user, per month

Perhaps the most famous name on the list, monday.com provides a flexible project management tool that’s incredibly easy to get to grips with thanks to a drag-and-drop functionality, editable columns, and a simple, board-based default layout.

In fact, monday.com scored 4.2/5 for functionality on our last round of testing, meaning it was only narrowly beaten in this category by last year’s top-rated tool ClickUp (4.6/5). However, its impressive 4.5/5 score for ease of use and excellent customer support options means it overtakes ClickUp, our top-rated provider last year, as our best project management software tool for 2023.

monday.com’s simple, modern interface makes it a much easier-to-use software tool than many of its competitors – some of our testing team found both Jira and ClickUp a little overwhelming due to their raft of features.

“I think the user experience is very intuitive. I just guessed where I thought things would be and they ended up being there, which was great.” – Stephanie Lennox, Tech.co ease of use testing participant.

You’ll be able to master monday.com quickly, even if you’re an inexperienced beginner – you’ll be able to get your whole team on board without too much trouble. If you do need some help though, monday.com offers live chat and email support across all tiers, as well as live chat support.

When I was using monday.com, I found that the information in my main table wasn’t automatically saved in the Gantt chart view when I switched between them. This was due to the fact that I hadn’t selected the information I wanted to include in my Gantt chart, so I used this as an opportunity to test the software’s live chat function and ask for help. Impressively, monday.com’s support team sent me a video recording showing me where I was going wrong, shortly after I reported I was having difficulties. It took just minutes to resolve the issue.

There are some downsides though. You might miss some third-party integrations – monday.com only scores 4/5 in this regard, compared to Wrike’s 4.9/5 and Asana’s 4.8/5, which both have a larger library of apps that they connect to. What’s more, you’ll need at least the Standard plan to integrate with any software at all.

But you’re less likely to need to call on the functions and features of other software simply because monday.com’s program has so much of the stuff that businesses need to carry out projects successfully.

The Kanban board view in monday.com. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

monday.com pricing

monday’s pricing plans come in five tiers: Individual (which is free), Basic, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise. Here’s some more detail on the provider’s paid plans:

Basic: $8 per user, per month. monday.com removes its user limit for this plan and increases storage to 5GB. Feature-wise, however, there’s actually not a whole lot of difference between this plan and monday.com’s Individual plan, aside from the fact you can actually create data dashboards and add widgets.

Standard: $10 per user, per month. This is the first plan monday.com offers with pre-built and custom automation. It includes everything available in the Basic plan, but some handy extra features like Guest Access. Importantly, this is the first plan with a Gantt chart, so if you’re looking for Gantt Chart Software, this is the plan for you.

Pro: $16 per user, per month. On this plan, you can create more actions and with the “Formula Column” feature, you’ll be able to manage budgets and build custom charts. Along with the rest of the task management features monday.com offers, you’ll be able to draw dependencies between tasks, which is super useful for planning.

Enterprise: Custom Pricing. The Enterprise plan is, naturally, aimed at the largest businesses and has 1000GB of storage and onboarding assistance to help with setup.

Read our full monday.com pricing page to find out just how customizable each plan is, or check out our monday.com review for more information on features.

2. Teamwork – Best for Building Automation, and Great Value

Pricing from: $5.99 per user, per month

Teamwork offers a great service and, like monday.com, is particularly strong when it comes to ease of use (4.3/5) and security (5/5), with two-factor authentication available on all plans aside from its free plan. Teamwork also scores an impressive 4.4/5 for pricing, which means it has plans that can compete with the likes of Wrike, Smartsheet and Asana available for less money.

Teamwork’s range of easily accessible tools helps it to a 4.3/5 score for task management and a 4.2/5 score for workflow creation. Automation is now offered on all Teamwork plans, as well as a time-tracking function – two features that weren’t provided when we first tested the software way back in 2021. In fact, it’s automation builder is among the best we’ve tried.

Managing complex tasks is where you’ll find Teamwork particularly useful, regardless of the plan you choose. Task dependencies and sub-tasks are available on plans and will bring some clarity to the most complicated tasks present in your project, while Gantt charts, calendars, and Kanban boards can be used to track project progress.

I (along with others in our testing group) was really impressed by how easy it was to access different features and views in Teamwork. It’s very intuitive, at least compared to a program like Jira. This led to its ease of use score improvement; it felt like there was a button for pretty much anything.

During testing, we found managing budgets – which can be assigned to projects on all plans and to individual tasks on the higher tiers – much easier with Teamwork than some competitors, many of which seemed to make adding budgets strangely hard. What’s more, Teamwork also integrates with finance platforms like Quickbooks, Freshbooks, Blinksale, and Harvest.

In 2023, Teamwork now offers some sort of automation capability on all of its plans, including its free plan. There’s a total of 10 categories of automation overall. Personally, I love the automation builder. There were so many good examples for inspiration, but actually just building one yourself by following the instructions, which is what I ended up doing, was pretty straightforward.

Adding team members in Teamwork. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

Teamwork pricing

A free tier is available, though it caps teams at five users, 100MB of file storage, and two active projects at a time. However, it does have a wide range of tools for a plan that won’t cost you a cent, including a Gantt Chart and Kanban board.

Starter: $5.99 per user, per month. This plan is for businesses that just need basic software that will help a small team complete projects efficiently. The Starter plan has a project limit of 100 and limits the number of automations you can make to 1,000 per month. You’ll also be able to add your own company’s logo and branding to your Teamwork software, and you’ll be able to request phone, email, and live chat support if you get stuck, a privilege that isn’t available on Teamwork’s free plan.

Deliver: $9.99 per user, per month. Teamwork’s Deliver plan has a team instant messenger, preset project templates, and a spreadsheet-type view for the Excel lovers out there. There’s a big increase to 300 projects and no limit to how many users can be involved with them. Other highlights include Slack and MS Team integrations and guest access.

Grow: $19.99 per user, per month. This package is the first Teamwork plan with budget management features – a crucial aspect of most projects – and unlimited custom fields, one of the more useful functions found in project management software. The project limit is doubled to 600 but there’s no limit to how many users can be involved. There’s also 250GB of storage on this plan, great for data-heavy projects. 

Scale: Custom pricing. This is the only plan teamwork offers that puts no limit on the number of projects you can make and also provides onboarding assistance, so would be best suited to large businesses that need a limitless program.

3. ClickUp – Best for Task Management and Collaboration

Pricing from: $7 per user, per month

Created in 2016, ClickUp is a relative newcomer to the world of project management. ClickUp sees its platform as being far more than a task management dashboard. The company is leaning into the concept of a “Work OS“, which lets all employees organize their work around a central point rather than use multiple apps fulfilling specific, narrower functions.

This means ClickUp is packed full of features (more on this below). ClickUp is our third-best-rated project management software tool, finishing with an overall score of 4.5/5 after our 2023 testing series.

ClickUp’s interface hierarchy starts with teams, and includes spaces, projects, lists, and finally, tasks. You’ll find this structure keeps different projects siloed from each other, reducing confusion while staying flexible enough to work in a range of different contexts. I think ClickUp’s setup options are really clear and during testing, this meant I got going quite quickly compared to competitors like Smartsheet.

ClickUp has more features on offer than any provider on this list, scoring a test-high of 4.6/5 for overall functionality. ClickUp excelled when it came to task management (4.7/5) and has everything you’ll need to track the progress of both your projects and the tasks within it. Task dependencies can be used to ensure your project’s critical path is preserved, and sub-tasks are a great way of distinguishing between smaller tasks existing within larger ones.

ClickUp’s Template Center – which includes a vast range of templates for different industries and businesses – contributed to its 4.3/5 for workflow creation, the highest current score out of the 10 major providers we test regularly.

The provider also got the highest score (4.7/5) out of the ten providers we tested for collaboration, providing an advanced online whiteboard and a useful document editing function. There’s also an AI assistant which costs $5 per month per workspace, and it’s available on all of ClickUp’s paid plans.

ClickUp also scores highly for data visualization (4.8/5), with a chart builder included on all plans. ClickUp proved capable of handling the demands of complex projects during testing, but some members of our testing group experienced long loading times and screen freezes, while others thought the interface was a little noisy – meaning it only achieved 3.9/5 for ease of use. This is slightly down on the 4/5 it achieved during our 2022 testing.

Building custom automations in ClickUp. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

ClickUp pricing

All in all, ClickUp scores 4.4/5 for pricing, not far off our best value provider, Jira. when we tested ClickUp’s Paid Plans, it scored particularly highly when it came to task management, customer support, workflow creation, and data visualization – it’s an archetypal all-rounder. While ClickUp’s free version isn’t perfect, the Unlimited plan is an excellent option for just a few extra dollars.

Unlimited: $7 per user, per month. On the Unlimited Access plan, you get a calendar thrown and you can also build ten times as many automations as the free plan, which is great for any business that wants to sculpt the software to its needs.

Business: $12 per user, per month. This plan has advanced automation, granular time estimates, goal folders, custom reports that you can export, Google single sign-on, and an advanced dashboard that will let you see who’s overloaded with work and who isn’t. There’s also a range of collaboration features like team sharing, and custom role creation, and there’s also a priority support option available so you’ll be able to jump the queue if you get stuck.

Enterprise: Custom pricing. The only real aspect of note in the Enterprise plan is ClickUp’s onboarding assistance – which bigger companies that have lots of team members working on projects would benefit from.

Read our full ClickUp Pricing Guide for more information.

4. Asana – Best for Displaying Project Data

Pricing from: $10.99 per user, per month

Asana delivers an easily navigable software solution and plenty of essential features. These include customizable task fields, task dependencies, and a timeline view for a broad look at projects’ histories and projected performance. This helped the provider achieve an overall score of 4.5/5, the same score that it achieved during our 2022 testing series.

Like Teamwork, our testing group was particularly impressed by how easy and useful Asana’s automation builder was – a stark contrast to ClickUp’s, which we found a little clunky. However, custom automation is only available on the business plan and upwards, which retails at a very pricey $24.99 per user, per month. Expensive plans mean Asana only achieved a 3.7/5 for pricing, behind ClickUp, monday.com, Zoho Projects, and Jira.

Asana scores close to full marks (4.8/5) for data visualization – although it’s important to note that data tools and the automation feature are only available on the provider’s paid plans. It also has a strong app marketplace for integrations, scoring 4.8/5 in this assessment area – there are over 35 reporting integrations, 18 finance apps, and 50+ communications tools that can connect up to Asana.

When we tested Asana in 2022, we found Asana was lacking in some instances – we struggled with some aspects of budget tracking, for example. But now, you can track budgets for individual tasks on all plans, which Teamwork will only let you do on its priciest plans.

Although Asana achieved a very commendable 4.2/5 for ease of use, it doesn’t deploy a minimalistic design like monday.com does. “It kind of felt a little bit cramped to me because there’s a lot of data in there. I didn’t have that much space to scroll” commented Ollie Simpson, one of the Tech.co software researchers who participated in our 2023 testing series.

The List view in Asana. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

Asana pricing

Asana Basic is Asana’s no-fee plan, although as mentioned above, it lacks a number of important features such as data visualization tools. The paid plans the provider offers are:

Premium: $10.99 per user, per month. Asana’s first paid plan is full of data tools that aren’t included in the Basic plan as well as significantly more task management features. This is also the first plan with automations and no user limit.

Business: $24.99 per user, per month. This plan is quite similar to the Premium plan in terms of features, although you will get the opportunity to build custom automations and there’s a handy resource management tool included that isn’t present in the previous plan.

Enterprise: Custom pricing. Again, although feature-wise, the Enterprise plan is pretty similar to the Business Plan – in fact, they’re practically identical on this front. Asana’s Enterprise plan does, however, offer advanced security features including an audit log API, as well as data deletion and encryption capabilities.

See our full Asana Pricing guide for more information

5. Wrike – Best for Integrations, Great for Large Businesses

Pricing from: $9.80 per user, per month

Wrike scores 4.4/5 overall and an impressive 4.9/5 for integrations, higher than any other project management tool we’ve tested. If you’re wedded to the apps you currently use, you’re more likely to find Wrike seamlessly fits into your existing tech stack than the likes of ClickUp, which only scores 3.4/5 for integration.

Large businesses in particular will enjoy the fact that Wrike integrates with big names like Tableau, Quickbooks, Teams, Zoom, Slack, RingCentral, Salesforce, HubSpot, Oracle, Xero, MailChimp, Sage, LinkedIn, and many more. Wrike also has two enterprise-focused plans to choose from, whereas most providers offer one.

Wrike scores higher than monday.com, Smartsheet, and Asana for task management (4.7/5). Features in Wrike’s plans include task dependencies, Gantt charts, customizable calendars, and a Document Editor that tracks edit histories. Plus, at higher-paying tiers, a time-tracking feature. This is perfect for managing the complex, multi-stage tasks usually present in projects being delivered by big teams or companies.

It might not be quite as versatile as some of the other software on this list, but it’s straightforward and won’t take you too long to get to grips with, even if your goals are complex. For example, Wrike users can use the spreadsheet-style view called a ‘Table’ to make project amendments easily. Users just have to update the spreadsheet and won’t need to dive into different menus to reallocate tasks or make timeframe changes.

Aside from achieving a solid ease-of-use score (4.1/5), Wrike scores particularly well for security (5/5), with single sign-on, two-factor authentication, and user permissions available on the Enterprise and Pinnacle plans. IP restriction is also included and can give businesses managing sensitive data piece of mind. Providers like ClickUp don’t offer this.

The Kanban board view in Wrike. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

Wrike pricing

Wrike offers a great free tier, though it doesn’t include key features like budget management tools, custom fields, or task dependencies. It’s still a good option for businesses that really don’t want to pay for project management software, but that ability to manage complex tasks is significantly quelled.

The Team Plan: $9.80 per user, per month. Wrike’s first paid plan has preset and custom widgets for data visualization as well as task commenting and dependency functions. There’s a Gantt Chart on this plan, but oddly, despite the free plan being unlimited, there’s a 25-user limit on the Team plan.

The Business Plan: $24.80 per user, per month. This is one of the more fully-featured plans we tested, with a full range of task management features (including custom fields), as well as the capacity to make charts. There’s a form builder for post-project feedback and a time-tracking feature too.

Enterprise: Custom pricing. Wrike’s Enterprise package has added security provisions, including two-factor authentication. There’s no user limit, however, unlike Wrike’s Business and Professional plans – but aside from that, functionally it’s much the same.

Pinnacle: Custom pricing. Not many project management software providers include a package above Enterprise, but Wrike does – and it includes the billing and invoicing function available on the Professional Services plan that isn’t included in the Enterprise plan.

Read our full Wrike pricing guide

6. Trello – Best for Customer Support

Pricing from: $5 per user, per month 

Trello offers a “category and task” approach, similar to the one Jira operates on. In fact, it was acquired by Jira’s parent company Atlassian in 2017 – but has been designed from the ground up for project management.

Trello scores 4.3/5 overall and is the best provider when it comes to customer support. Trello’s Enterprise plan, which costs just $17.50 per user, per month is cheaper than Asana, Wrike, and Smartsheet’s Business plans. On this plan, Trello offers phone, live chat, and 24/7 live support, helping it to a 5/5 for this category.

Each of the movable “cards” Trello uses to track tasks on its default Kanban board interface can be used to hold information, including the team members involved, subtasks, due dates, documentation, labels, and comments.

Trello is definitely one of the easiest to master project management software programs we’ve used – which helped it to an ease of use score of 4.1/5 – which is higher than Smartsheet, Jira, Zoho Projects, and ClickUp.

However, the out-of-the-box version of Trello doesn’t have nearly as many features as the likes of ClickUp or monday.com – which is part of the reason why it’s so easy to use and only achieved a 2.6/5 score for features. If you opt for Trello, you may have to rely on a catalog of extensions called Power-Ups for some functions, which activate common project management functions like timelines and calendars.

The Kanban board view in Trello. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

Trello pricing

Trello has a free tier, but when compared to ClickUp’s, it doesn’t really come close. Overall, it’s quite limited and is only suitable for teams that don’t have any budget to spend on project management software, and just want a basic task management system. Trello also has paid plans:

Standard: $5 per user, per month. Trello’s first paid plan is similarly not going to satisfy you if you need anything beyond simple, straightforward task management. But if that is what you need – this plan could be a cheap alternative that will save you from signing up for a pricier provider.

Premium: $10 per user, per month. Trello’s Premium plan is, in Trello’s words, for teams that need to visualize more than one project in various ways. This is why a calendar, dashboard, table, and map view are available on this plan. You’ll also get unlimited automations, whereas the Standard has a 1,000-action cap.

Enterprise: $17.50 per user, per month. This plan has large business-focused features such as multi-board guests, organization-wide permissions, and free Single sign-on capabilities. The price listed is for 50 users, but the price-per-user will decrease as you add more.

Read our full Trello pricing guide and review or our Trello vs Jira comparison

7. Smartsheet – Great Security and Customer Support Options

Pricing from: $7 per user, per month

You know how sooner or later, everything ends up in a spreadsheet anyway? Well, why not begin your project management with the best spreadsheet possible, instead?

Smartsheet lets you take Excel or Google Sheet-based tracking to the next level – it relies on a spreadsheet-like interface combined with a wealth of handy project management tools that are very easy to use.

Smartsheet has a lot of advantages. For example, it scores above average for customer support (4.5/5), with onboarding assistance and 24/7 live support available as an add-on on both the Business and Enterprise tiers. It also achieved a 4.4/5 for security, with a wide range of compliance certifications and two-factor authentication on its Enterprise plan.

Smartsheet is therefore one of the better options for larger businesses that can’t afford long periods of downtime and store a lot of sensitive data. What’s more, the interface shares a few abilities with other services well-known to web natives, too. For example, users can be tagged in the comments with the same “@mentions” feature used by Twitter and Slack and can highlight essential bits of text just like in a Word or Google doc.

Smartsheet didn’t perform as well on our 2023 testing as it did in 2022, with its score decreasing from 4.6/5 to 4.2/5. This was largely down to an underwhelming ease of use test score (3.6/5). “It seems like you have to spend a lot of time actually setting up this platform for a team to then use” James Macey, our lead researcher, said during testing. “Other platforms are a bit more straight out the box ready to go”.

In terms of features, Smartsheet’s task management score was among the best we tested (4.1/5), thanks to custom fields on all paid plans and features like sub-tasks and task dependencies available to bring clarity to complex tasks. All in all, Smartsheet is a decent all-rounder.

Editing in Smartsheet’s spreadsheet view. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

Smartsheet pricing

Smartsheet’s pricing used to be much higher than the project management software standard, and its first plan used to be exclusively for individuals. They’ve now changed those pricing plans, however – and they’re much more accessible for businesses.

Pro: $7 per user, per month. On Smartsheet’s first plan, you’ll have a large range of task management tools, pre-built and custom automation for streamlining workflows.

Business: $25 per user, per month. That’s pretty pricey, but considering Smartsheet is an intuitive, feature-rich software service that offers plenty of integrations, the return on investment is higher than you may get with providers further down this list. On this plan, you’ll have a huge range of task management tools plus the option for a phone support and onboarding assistance add-on.

Enterprise: Custom pricing. This plan has a DocuSign integration, custom email domains, Single sign-on, and various other tools and functions necessary to running large business projects.

Read our guide to Smartsheet pricing for more information on specific plans.

8. Jira – Best for Value, Ideal for Tech and Dev Teams

Price from: $5 per user, per month

Initially developed by Atlassian as a tool for software development, Jira has become a popular general project management software service. If your IT department already uses it to report bugs, upgrading the rest of your team to its project management services is tempting – but it’s not quite as well suited to industries beyond engineering, software development, and ticket-based work more generally.

The core Jira interface uses a category-based system: Users can easily drag and drop tasks into categories including “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done.” Jira also supports almost 2,000 third-party integrations, which help it address all the needs that its basic service can’t.

Jira, however, doesn’t provide the best experience possible for simple project management – for instance, it doesn’t provide a good experience when it comes to team collaboration, scoring just 2.1/5 compared to ClickUp’s 4.7/5. In Jira, there’s no online whiteboard, team instant messenger, or project message board.

Jira only scores 3.2/5 according to our ease-of-use testing framework – compared to the likes of monday.com, it performed poorly. “I found setting up budgets really complex,” says James Macey, Tech.co’s head researcher. “I managed to do it but I had to really quite a lot of help articles and you have to set up a custom field. So I think even once you set up the budgets, they’re not even that really usable.”

I’ve used Jira in a previous role, so didn’t find it as difficult to get to grips with as some others in our testing group. If you’re a newbie, however, it’s a much steeper learning curve than the likes of Wrike and Teamwork. It’s not that Jira is a nightmare to use, it just hasn’t been completely optimized for the general user in the same way.

Timeline view in Jira. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

Jira pricing

All of Jira’s pricing plans can accommodate an unlimited number of users and you can build an unlimited number of projects too. This helped the provider score a test-high 4.8/5 for pricing. Jira’s free tier, for example, is one of the only free tiers with a full suite of task management tools. However, aside from task comments, there are very few ways of actually collaborating on the platform.

Standard: $5 per user, per month. Jira’s Standard plan is actually very similar to the free plan, aside from the storage limit being increased by 248GB, which is important if you’re going to store files in your project management portal.

Premium: $10 per user, per month. As well as everything in the standard plan, on Jira’s Premium offering you’ll have unlimited storage and all-important resource management tools. The automation limit is doubled too.

See our full guide to Jira Pricing or compare plans to other providers directly here.

9. Zoho Projects – Great Value, Good Security Features

Price from: $4 per user, per month

Zoho is a software giant, covering everything from CRM and accounting software to performance and project management software. It’s the latter we’re here to focus on, and if you’d like a more detailed review of the software package, check out our analysis of Zoho Projects features and pricing. Overall, we awarded Zoho a score of 4/5, and it did well when it came to managing tasks (4/5).

To get the very best out of Zoho Projects, you’ll need to step up to a paid plan. These paid plans include time-tracking, resource management, as well as robust automation builders. These automation builders allow for simple automations that can speed up basic processes, while also allowing for more complicated automated processes that can expedite complex workflows.

Zoho actually scored extremely highly for pricing on our last round of testing (4.6/5), making it the second-best value-for-money provider out of all of the project management software we tested, aside from Jira.

In terms of integrations, Zoho Projects integrates with the rest of Zoho’s business suite. So if you’re already using other Zoho products, it’ll have an advantage. But this also means it doesn’t have quite the range of integrations with third-party software that Wrike does.

The Gantt Chart View in Zoho Projects. Image: Tech.co’s testing process

Zoho Projects pricing

For the free tier, you’re limited to just 3 users, and 2 projects. That’s understandably limiting, which means its two other pricing plans are probably your best bet. There is a surprisingly vast feature list though, with quite a few collaboration and task management tools for a plan that doesn’t demand a fee. Zoho has two additional paid plans:

Premium: $4 per user, per month. Zoho’s first paid plan allows you to create sub-tasks on top of the task management features in the free plan, there are dedicated budget management tools and you can create custom templates and automation. There’s no user limit too, so this plan is suitable for a larger range of businesses.

Enterprise: $9 per user, per month. This plan is geared towards larger businesses so subsequently has no user limit. There’s more storage, no project limit and you can create custom fields for different aspects of your project, which you can’t do on the premium plan.

Try Zoho Projects today or find out more about the closest alternatives.

10. Basecamp – Good for Basic Task Tracking

Price from: $15 per user, per month

Basecamp rounds off our list and only scores 2.9/5 overall – a way away from even Zoho Projects in 9th place, which scores 4/5. This is because Basecamp is set up quite differently than the likes of Asana, Wrike, and Teamwork – it’s more like a fancy to-do list and message with some extra features attached, rather than a fully-fledged project management solution.

Basecamp performed poorly across the board, scoring just 1.7/5 for overall functionality, including a 0.3/5 for workflow creation. Basic features found in almost all other project management programs aren’t included, such as Gantt charts and custom fields.

During testing, we didn’t find Basecamp particularly easy to use, scoring just 2.5/5. While Trello’s basic feature set made the app easy to navigate, Basecamp was so lacking in features that it made it difficult to carry out many of the things we wanted to.

Basecamp’s interface. Image: Tech.co’s Testing Process

“There’s no task dependencies or automation” commented Alice Martin, who participated in our project management user testing series. “The kanban board isn’t really that useful and you can’t use the same tasks that are on your to-do list.”

All in all, Basecamp will suit businesses looking for a very rudimentary program to keep some notes about the tasks they’re completing, and somewhere to send reminders and messages. Teams managing even mildly complex projects will find Basecamp limiting and not fit for purpose.

Basecamp pricing

Basecamp only scores 2.8/5 for pricing. Its $299/month flat-rate plan will be useful for large teams of more than 30, as this works out as less than $10 per user, per month. However, as you can expect, teams this large may find Basecamp limiting.

Basecamp: $15 per user, per month. This is a very limited plan with very few task management features, no chart or widget builder, and only a solitary project template. There’s two-factor authentication and user permissions which will keep your data and work secure, and there’s a generous 500GB storage limit.

Basecamp Pro Unlimited: $299 per month. This plan is similarly limited when it comes to Every feature we offer, but you will get access to a 1:1 onboarding tour with Basecamp’s team and 5TB of storage and 24/7/365 priority support.

Methodology: How We Test Project Management Tools

At Tech.co we don’t write about products and services without conducting thorough research, and hands-on testing where applicable. While this process can be time-consuming, it’s time well spent if it means we’re providing better, more useful information for your business.

Project management testing criteria

When it comes to project management software, we focus on five key criteria in our testing, based on the factors companies and project managers have told us are most important to their everyday usage. These five criteria are:

• Ease of Use: We assess how easy it is to set up a project, how clear the interface is, and how easy it is to navigate.
• Pricing: We look at all plan costs. Providers offering lots of features for lower costs will have better pricing scores than those that lock them away on higher-tier plans.
• Customer Support: We assess the ways you can contact your project management software provider if something goes wrong. Providers offering 24/7 live support, as well as phone-based support and onboarding assistance, get the best scores.
• Security: For this area, we assess the security options offered by each provider. This includes user-level security features like 2-factor authentication as well as more administrative security measures like user permissions and IP restriction that will be relevant to enterprises. Available compliance certificates are also reviewed.
• Integrations: Lastly, we assess the quantity – and the quality – of the applications each project management software provider integrates with. Some project management apps have entire libraries full of native integrations, such as Jira, whereas other programs rely less on their connectivity to other apps.
• Functionality: This part of our research involves assessing the full feature set that each product provides. We look at 4 function-based sub-categories as part of this, to arrive at an overall functionality score (more on this below).

Functionality analysis

• Task Management: Providers are awarded points for including features that are helpful for viewing task progress, like Gantt charts and Kanban boards, as well as features like sub-tasks and custom fields that allow for better intra-task organization. Generally, the more functional task management features are provided, the more complex tasks a project management tool can handle.
• Project & Workflow Creation: Providers are awarded points for including features that help users streamline workflows, such as automation builders. We assess the quality and quantity of preset project templates, as well as the capacity to create custom project templates.
• Data Visualization: Providers are awarded points for including data display options, such as charts and report widgets, as well as a dashboard to put them all on. Providers that offer more options on cheaper plans, as well as the capacity for customization, score more highly.
• Collaboration: Providers are awarded points based on the range and usability of their collaboration tools. Some providers offer team instant messengers for seamless communication, while the highest-quality solutions on the market now include online whiteboards for virtual brainstorms

It’s important to note that not all of these criteria hold equal weight in our testing methodology. This is best practice, and based on what businesses have told us is essential, compared to what’s simply “nice to have”. Because of their central importance to project management, how easy each tool is to use, how much it costs, and features for project & workflow creation and task management had more of an impact on the overall than other criteria.

How To Choose Project Management Software for Your Business

Choosing a new software to install at your business can be daunting. The added costs, training, and the over-arching feeling of dreaded “change” is enough to induce sweat on the spot. Fortunately, we can help you make the right decision when it comes to project management software, to ensure a certain return on your investment and happier, more efficient staff.

Technology has seriously improved project management over the last few years, and many of the top options now are far quicker and easier to implement than you might expect, plus many can be customized to suit your own unique way of working.

Below, we’ll go over some criteria you should consider when it comes to choosing the right project management software for your business. Once you’ve chosen, you might want to take a glance at our general project management tips, too.

Company size

One of the easiest ways to narrow down your search for the right project management software is by the size of your company. Many tools cater to smaller businesses without a lot of team members, while others a tailor-made for enterprise-level organizations.

Small businesses

If you’re a small business looking for project management software, there are a few things you should definitely look out for before making a decision.

First off, you can likely avoid the more expensive plans and providers right out of the gate. Most of the pricier options are geared toward enterprise-level organizations that need robust analytics, vast customizability, and a whole lot of users. Small teams can typically get by with the free or entry-level plans, as long as you don’t require those advanced features for something specific.

Additionally, smaller teams should avoid some of the more complicated providers, like Jira, as they can be difficult to figure out due to the massive feature catalogs that you likely won’t even end up using. Stick to the easy-to-use options, like monday.com and ClickUp, so your whole team can enjoy improved productivity without learning a confusing new platform.

Mid-sized businesses

Finding the right project management software for mid-sized businesses is a bit more difficult than for small or large businesses because the needs can vary dramatically from company to company. Still, there are some guidelines to follow to make sure you end up with a solid platform for your business.

For project management software at a mid-sized business, it all comes down to what you want to use it for. If you just need a simple progress tracking platform, aim for ease of use, which you’ll find in ClickUp or Smartsheet. If you’re looking for more core features like collaboration and discussion, tools like monday.com, Asana, and Basecamp are a great fit. And finally, if you’re looking for a robust, analytics machine that can handle the unique requirements of your business, platforms like Teamwork, Jira, and Zoho will get you there.

Enterprise-level businesses

Not to be blunt, but enterprise-level businesses really do need project management software to keep track of everything going on. Fortunately, there are some options geared towards these larger businesses to help you monitor the wide range of metrics you likely want to keep track of.

For one, you’ll almost certainly be looking at the more expensive tiers, if not the enterprise-level solutions, provided by each platform. They typically allow for more users, more metrics, and more support, so you can be sure everyone is on the same page.

You’ll find enterprise-level solutions available through basically every provider on this list, but there are some that will truly improve your productivity. Jira and Wrike have features that will attract larger businesses, but other mid-tier solutions like monday.com and Asana offer enterprise plans that are great if you need the spaces for users, but don’t require all those advanced functions.

Budget

As with any decision in the business world, cost plays a pivotal role in which project management software will be a good fit. Obviously, measuring return on investment isn’t easy with this kind of software, but spending a lot versus spending a little can change what kind of platform you end up with and how well your team works together.

Small budget

If you don’t have a lot of room in the budget when it comes to adding new software, you’re in luck. As long as you don’t need robust analytics, advanced features, and a lot of users, many of these platforms offer free plans that can handle everything and then some.

If you’re looking for a bit more, entry-level plans are typically only a few dollars a month, and they offer great free trials that can let you test them out before you make a decision. monday.com, for instance, offers a great 14-day free trial of their easy-to-use platform to see if it fits your needs.

Big budget

If you’ve got a lot of flexibility in your budget for project management software, you’re all set. Project management software typically doesn’t cost too much compared to other business software, so it’ll be hard to go overboard when looking for the best fit.

That isn’t to say you should just throw money at the most expensive platform you can find. A big budget just means you get to focus on the important stuff, like user counts, feature sets, and support options, so you can get the perfect option for what you need.

The Best Project Management Software: FAQs