11 Best Project Management Software

After months of research, we’ve decided that monday.com is the best project management platform on the market. It’s highly usable, very affordable, and full of features that would make most project processes a breeze.

However, monday.com isn’t perfect. It falls short in a couple of areas that some users may consider to be absolutely crucial, like customer support. And since there is no shortage of other project management platforms on the market, you may want to assess your options and come away with something else.

If you’re looking for a project management platform, but haven’t made up your mind yet, this is the page for you. Here we’ll go over the pros, cons, features (including template offerings like Gantt charts), and verdict for eleven project management providers. Without further ado, here is our list.

monday.com

Best overall platform

What Are monday.com’s Key Features?

monday.com’s key features are:

• GANTT chart (Standard plan and above)
• Preset and custom project templates (Basic plan and above)
• Sub-tasks (all plans), milestones (Standard plan and above), and dependencies (Pro plan and above)

How Is monday.com Doing Compared to its Competitors?

There’s a reason monday.com is at the top of this list – it beats its competitors in many ways. It has the best customer satisfaction score of any provider on this list, as well as having more features than its close competitors ClickUp and Smartsheet. It also does fairly well on pricing, scoring 4.0/5, being only significantly beaten by ClickUp (4.4/5) and Zoho Projects (4.7/5).

However, monday.com doesn’t win in every regard. Its unsatisfactory customer service score (2.8/5) allows ClickUp, Teamwork, Jira, and Favro to get a leg up on monday.com.

ClickUp

Best runner-up

What Are ClickUp’s Key Features?

ClickUp’s key features are:

• Great task management features (GANTT chart, Kanban board, spreadsheet view, sub-tasks, milestones, and dependencies) (all plans)
• Preset and custom templates and automations (all plans)
• 24/7 live chat and email support (all plans)

How Is ClickUp Doing Compared to its Competitors?

It’s hard to stress just how close the running is between monday.com and ClickUp. They really are neck and neck, with ClickUp being substantially better than monday.com when it comes to customer support (3.8/5 vs 2.8/5) and affordability (4.4/5 vs 4.0/5). However, monday.com beats ClickUp in customer score, features, and usability, which carry a bit more weight.

When compared to everyone else, ClickUp falls to Zoho Projects when it comes to pricing (4.7/5 vs 4.4/5). Asana also beats ClickUp when it comes to features (4.0/5 vs 3.9/5), and Smartsheet is more usable than ClickUp (4.1/50 vs 4.0/5). However, those are really its only defeats, proving ClickUp to be an absolute leviathan in the project management world.

Smartsheet

Best for spreadsheet fans

What Are Smartsheet’s Key Features?

Smartsheet’s key features are:

• Easy adaptation from Excel or Google Sheets (all plans)
• GANTT chart, sub-tasks, milestones, and dependencies (all plans)
• Preset and custom templates and customisations (all plans)

How Is Smartsheet Doing Compared to its Competitors?

Smartsheet has the best usability score of every platform on this list, pulling in a commendable 4.3/5. It’s more usable than monday.com or ClickUp, mostly due to its spreadsheet-esque interface, which means most users are familiar with it before they even start using it.

It generally matches features and customer satisfaction scores with its competitors, but where it starts to fall short is in its pricing and customer service. While its pricing isn’t egregious, it’s more expensive than monday.com, ClickUp, and Asana, while also having the lowest customer service score of the bunch (2.5/5).

Asana

Best for integrations

What Are Asana’s Key Features?

Asana’s key features are:

• An impressive amount of integrations (all plans)
• Pre-built (Premium plan) and custom (Business plan) automations
• Robust form builder (Premium plan)

How Is Asana Doing Compared to its Competitors?

Just falling shy of the top three, Asana still puts up a good fight. Its pricing is among the more affordable options (4.1/5), and its usability is just below the top three (3.9/5). However, Asana has more features than both ClickUp and Smartsheet, scoring a 4.0/5, and its customer score of 3.9/5 is pretty solid too.

Its main downfall is its customer service score of 2.8/5. However, Smartsheet and monday.com don’t do much better (2.5 and 2.8, respectively. If Asana were to bolster its customer service offerings to include 24/7 live chat and phone services, this might be the boost it needs to be in the top three.

Wrike

Best for user satisfaction

What Are Wrike’s Key Features?

• GANTT chart, milestones, dependencies, and sub-tasks (Professional plan)
• Unlimited projects and users on the free plan
• Automation builder

How Is Wrike Doing Compared to its Competitors?

Wrike is a solid platform for anyone not looking for anything too fancy. It has the base features you’d want from a project management platform, but not too much beyond that. Its usability score of 4.0/5 is a pretty good sign, and its customer satisfaction score of 4.1 is an even better omen.

Wrike really only comes up short in its customer service offerings, scoring a 1.8/5, which is tied with Zoho and Trello for the lowest score on this list. However, while Wrike is a perfectly serviceable platform, it’s worth knowing that it doesn’t outscore ClickUp or monday.com in any categories.

Teamwork

Best for collaboration

What Are Teamwork’s Key Features?

• Great collaboration features on every plan
• Comprehensive task management features
• Solid customer support on every plan

How Is Teamwork Doing Compared to its Competitors?

Teamwork does particularly well in its customer service, as every tier promises phone lines, live chat, and email, meaning Teamwork gets a lovely 3.8/5. This ties it with ClickUp, and puts it beneath only Favro and Jira.

While Teamwork comes with good task management and collaboration features, there are other features, like automation, that are sorely lacking, which means Teamwork only pulls in a features score of 3.2/5. This puts Teamwork behind monday.com (4.2/5) and Asana (4.0/5)

Favro

Best for customer service

What Are Favro’s Key Features?

Faro’s key features are:

• Very accessible price point
• Comprehensive task management features on all plans
• Solid customer service on all plans

How Is Favro Doing Compared to its Competitors?

Favro scores a 4.3/5 in both pricing and customer service. This is the best customer service score on this entire list, backed up by live chat, phone lines, email, and onboarding assistance (when you have over 100 users). It’s also the third best price tag, coming in just under Zoho Projects (4.7/5) and ClickUp (4.4/5).

Favro’s usability score of 3.7/5 is fine, but the real shortcoming is its features score of 3.2/5. This is due to its lack of collaboration features, form builder, and integrations. This score means that Favro is significantly below Asana, Wrike, ClickUp, monday.com, and Smartsheet.

Jira Software

Best for software development

What Are Jira’s Key Features?

Jira’s key features are:

• Time-tracking and turndown charts
• Best support for Agile project management
• Custom and preset templates and automations

How Is Jira Doing Compared to its Competitors?

Jira’s best assets are its pricing (scoring a 4.2/5 for cost) and customer service (4.0/5). In fact, this customer service score puts Jira above ClickUp, Teamwork, and every other platform on this list aside from Favro (who scores a 4.3/5).

Where Jira falters is in its customer score. While a 3.6/5 doesn’t sound too bad, it’s the lowest customer score on this list. This is probably reinforced by its usability score of 3.5/5, which, again, doesn’t sound terrible, but when it’s up against Smartsheet’s score of 4.3/5 or Celoxis’ score of 4.2/5, there is obvious room for improvement.

Zoho Projects

Best for affordability

What Are Zoho Projects’ Key Features?

Zoho Projects’ key features are:

• Its unparalleled low cost
• Its great collaboration features, including a resource management tool (Premium tier)
• The ability to tie in with other Zoho products

How Is Zoho Doing Compared to its Competitors?

As mentioned Zoho takes home the gold medal for affordability, with a score of 4.7/5 for cost. The silver medal goes to ClickUp, at a distant 4.4/5, showing just how much of a solid deal Zoho is offering. Its customer satisfaction score of 4.2 also puts it near the top of the pack, brushing up against ClickUp, Trello, and Celoxis.

Unfortunately, as seems to be the case with a lot of its competitors, Zoho Projects offers very skint customer service options. Email only – no phone or live chat to be seen, which puts it at a dismal 1.8. Zoho Projects has a lot fewer customer service options than ClickUp, Smartsheet, Wrike, and even monday.com, which itself only has a 2.8/5.

Trello

Best for automation

What Are Trello’s Key Features?

Trello’s key features are:

• Robust automation builder (Unlimited on Premium plan)
• Nice, customisable interface
• Easy-to-tweak systems

How Is Trello Doing Compared to its Competitors?

Score-wise, Trello’s best asset is its customer satisfaction. It pulls in a very nice 4.3/5, meaning that customers are as happy with Trello as they are with ClickUp (also 4.3/5), and that they’re more satisfied with Trello than they are with Smartsheet, Asana, and Wrike.

Trello does score one of the lowest customer service scores, however (1.8/5), as they only offer email service. There is no phone calling or live chat, which puts it comfortably below Jira, Teamwork, and ClickUp.

Celoxis

Best for user-friendliness

What Are Celoxis’ Key Features?

Celoxis’ key features are:

• GANTT chart, sub-tasks, milestones, and dependencies
• Integrations with a lot of popular software (Salesforce, Mailchimp, QuickBooks, Slack)
• Preset and custom project templates

How Is Celoxis Doing Compared to its Competitors?

As mentioned, Celoxis trumps most of the titans when it comes to usability. With its score of 4.2/5, Celoxis is more usable than ClickUp, monday.com, Wrike, and every other competitor on this list (aside from Smartsheet). Its customer score of 4.2 reflects this, too.

However, Celoxis is far more expensive than every other platform on this list, with its price of £22.50 per user per month giving it an affordability score of 2.9/5, without the customer service or features to back this up. Compared to monday.com, ClickUp, or Asana, all of whom price in the single digits, this is a tough pill to swallow.

What’s the Best Project Management Software for Your Business?

I Need a Project Management App for a Small Business

While no project management software is going to break the bank, it’s a good idea to opt for a provider with a free plan, especially if your business is doing all it can to stay in the black. Our favourite platforms that offer free plans include monday.com and ClickUp.

If you do feel inclined to pay for a platform, however, Zoho Projects is the cheapest platform that we’ve encountered. That doesn’t mean it skimps out on features, however, as it still has everything you’d want from a baseline project management platform.

If you’d like in-depth looks at all the project management free plans on the market, here’s our list of the 7 Best Free Project Management Software.

I Need a Project Management App for a Medium-Size Business

A medium-sized business likely doesn’t need to worry about pricing, but also wouldn’t have a reason to push for the top-of-the-line features. In this case, a fairly-priced and easy-to-use platform is going to be the priority.

Jira comes to mind, as it offers the most comprehensive selection of task management features for a fair price. However, Jira leans toward software development, so some more wide-reaching analogs would be Wrike or Teamwork, both of which offer great task management tools.

I Need a Project Management App for a Large Business

The main thing a larger business is going to need from a project management platform is collaboration features. A team of three or four will have no problem communicating as the project goes on, but a team of 15 to 20 will need some structure to keep everything on track.

As far as collaboration features go, the best platforms are Teamwork (as the name would suggest), and ClickUp, both offer a calendar, resource management, task comments, and document editing. ClickUp also offers an instant messenger, while Teamwork offers a project message board.

How Did We Find the Best Project Management Software?