7 Best Project Management Software Tools to Use

Project managers wear lots of hats. They often spread themselves thin juggling multiple aspects of a project. But they don’t have to if they use the right project management software.

Project management software tools were traditionally exclusive to your deep-pocketed businesses. Well, not anymore.

You can now get best-in-class project management software without spending a fortune. There’s just one problem. There are way too many project management tools out there. 

Which one should you pick? 🤔

We put together a list of the best project management tools to help you choose the one. If you’re a small business, a solopreneur, or a freelancer, here’s where you’ll find your project management solution.

7 Best Project Management Tools

We picked 7 of the best project management tools based on their feature set, popularity, and pricing. Here’s what we found:

1. Assembly

‍

Pros

• Easy to get started
• No version history on the free plan
• Intuitive interface
• Huge library of customizable workflow templates
• Cost-effective
• 5GB of storage on the free plan

Cons

• Doesn’t have Kanban or other views
  

Assembly helps manage projects by breaking them into workflows. Each workflow is composed of bite-sized steps that help you get things done without overwhelming the team members. 

The best part? You can pick from a massive library of ready-to-use templates for every leg of your project. 

For instance, here are some Assembly workflows for project management:

• Project Kickoff: You probably need insights from stakeholders before you kick off a project. Instead of emailing everyone individually, use the Project Kickoff template on Assembly. With this template, you can ask for opinions, ideas, and suggestions from stakeholders and discuss the potential payoff and risks of the project.‍
• Daily/Weekly Agenda: Need to assign project tasks daily or weekly? Use the daily/weekly agenda template to keep your team on the same page. Track the progress of daily/weekly tasks from within Assembly in real-time.‍
• Weekly Updates: When you’ve assigned tasks and responsibilities for a longer duration, you’ll need to monitor how things are moving along. The Weekly Updates template makes tracking progress and problems more manageable by obtaining a weekly summary from your team. ‍
• Meeting Notes: Dreading having to take notes during hurdles and meetings? The Meeting Notes template makes things easier. With the Meeting Notes template, you can record meeting minutes, track the progress of action items, and collaborate with stakeholders from within Assembly.‍
• Project Feed: It’s vital to keep everyone on the same page about the project’s progress. The Project Feed template gives team members and stakeholders complete visibility over projects and allows them to collaborate by asking questions or making suggestions.‍
• Standup Meeting: Standup meetings are a great way to take inventory of what your team did over the past week and set agenda items for the coming week. With Assembly’s Standup Meeting template, you can share important updates right from your dashboard. It also creates a lasting record of the meeting that you can refer back to later should the need arise.‍
• Team Retrospective: Once a project ends, you should take a peek at what worked best and what didn’t. The Team Retrospective template helps you create a written record of feedback from the team for each completed project. You can refer to the team’s comments and suggestions later for insights when you’re about to start a new project. 

Here’s how you can get actionable data from Team Retrospective:

Assembly streamlines projects through workflows to put a major chunk of project management on autopilot. Whether you’re an individual or a business with a large team, Assembly’s got your back when you need to manage projects and collaborate with team members.

Don’t take our word for it:

If you’re looking for a project management tool, try Assembly!

2. Asana

‍Pros

• Feature-rich
• Suitable for complex projects
• Multiple views: Kanban, lists, calendar, etc.

Cons

• Steep learning curve
• Restrictive free plan
• Expensive

Asana is a popular project management tool with an aesthetic interface. It’s loaded with features and views, including Kanban, lists, and calendar. It’s commonly used by businesses that work on complex projects because it provides the flexibility required to create complex tasks.

For instance, you can create subtasks within subtasks and assign them to different team members. Essentially, you can break a single task down into unlimited tasks. The flexibility comes in handy but gives Asana a steep learning curve. If you’re a beginner, there’s a good chance you’ll struggle with wrapping your head around the interface.

The free version is fairly restrictive, though. It gives you access to a basic dashboard and lets you create unlimited tasks. But if you want to use features Asana is popular for, you’ll need to pay.

3. Trello

Pros

• Intuitive interface
• Beginner-friendly
• Unlimited boards on the free plan
  

Cons

• Free plan offers basic features only
• Only three views: Kanban, table, and calendar

Trello is a popular Kanban-based project management tool. If you’re looking for something beginner-friendly and with a generous free plan, Trello’s it. Using Trello is even easier if you’re already comfortable with the Agile project management methodology. You can create Trello cards and visually track the progress of each task as it moves through your workflow.

Trello’s interface is easy to navigate, but most features on the free version are basic. While you can create unlimited boards and tasks, you can only have one integration per board. Also, you can only upload files smaller than 10MB.

4. ClickUp

Pros

• 11 types of views
• All views are accessible with the free plan
• Pocket-friendly pricing
  

Cons

• Steep learning curve with using several features
• Poor information architecture

If you want a project management tool that offers almost all types of views you can think of, ClickUp can be a good choice. It offers 11 types of views including Kanban, calendar, timeline, and Scrum. The best part is that while most project management tools reserve some views only for paid users, you get access to all views on ClickUp’s free plan. But ClickUp has its fair share of downsides.

ClickUp is a hybrid tool that allows project management and organizing workflows. Things can quickly get complicated when you try to use everything ClickUp offers. It has modification options, but those come with a fairly steep learning curve. 

ClickUp’s Getting Started guide also admits that there’s a learning curve to using the tool:

5. Wrike

‍Pros

• Easy to set up
• Intuitive interface
• Access to many features on the free plan
  

Cons

• Expensive

Wrike is an ideal tool for small teams. It’s easy to set up and has a user-friendly interface. While it offers flexibility similar to Asana, it’s not as open-ended. Instead, it offers a more standardized layout where you can require specific fields to be input for each task. 

The free plan gives you access to all the basic task management features, a scheduling tool, access to cloud integrations, unlimited users, and 2GB of storage space. 

If you want sharable dashboards, real-time reports, more storage, or Gantt charts, you’ll need to pay for its rather expensive plan. The Professional plan (its cheapest) starts at $9.80 per user per month.

6. Nifty

Pros

• Simplicity
• Wide range of project management features
  

Cons

• Free plan’s restrictions make it unsuitable

Nifty is a simple project management tool. And when we say simple, we don’t mean it lacks essential features. It’s got everything you’d want in a project management tool — customizable views, a discussions board, and time tracking. You can even create a knowledge hub, wikis, and docs inside Nifty.

It’s Nifty’s design that makes using these features simpler than on other tools. While Nifty’s a great free tool that allows unlimited members (and clients), the free plan is severely restrictive. It allows only two projects and offers only 100MB of storage space.

7. Zoho Projects

‍Pros

• Value for money
• Appealing feature set that includes time tracking and integration for Zoho, Google, and Microsoft apps
• Free trial for paid plans
  

Cons

• Free plan is unusable

Zoho Projects is a value for money project management tool. It comes with all the standard project management features, including Kanban views and task dependencies. It’s also got some bells and whistles like built-in time tracking and integrations for Zoho’s own apps as well as Google and Microsoft apps. 

There’s also a free plan, but it’s restrictive to the point where it’s downright unusable. For instance, the free plan only allows three users and 10MB of storage space. 

Choose an Intuitive but Powerful Project Management Tool

Your business needs a project management solution that’s not just confined to Kanban boards.

You need more control. So why not give Assembly a try?

Assembly allows creating and customizing workflows for every phase of your project. It combines the power of an intranet with project management to give you a holistic platform. A platform where you can assign tasks, customize workflows, collaborate, and automate parts of your workflow.

Like the sound of that? Sign up for an account on Assembly and get the power you need to manage your projects.