The Best Task Management Software List
Here’s the list of the best task management apps that I’ll cover in this article, with detailed tool summaries below:
- 8. Profit.co — Best task management software with links to company-wide OKRs to promote high performance
Task management software is a powerful and modern tool for aligning your team. It can help improve productivity, individual accountability, and team transparency. It can also help you meet your team goals on time by staying focused and avoiding distracting tasks.
Task management software can help anyone, or any team, stay organized and level up their game. As someone who lives their life off of an ever-evolving to-do list, this was a perfect assignment for me. Any type of software that keeps me on track and helps me stay focused gets gold stars in my books.
In this review, I'll walk you through the best task management systems on the market today. Below you'll find short descriptions of each tool, plus a comparison chart to help you find the best fit.
How I Selected the Best Task Management Software
Wondering how I selected the best task management software for this list? I'm happy to share my methodology. First, I scoured the web to create a long list of the most popular task management software systems with positive user ratings. Next, I reviewed each software website in detail and assessed each system within the bounds of my selection criteria below.
If you have general questions about how task management systems work, I recommend reading our People Also Ask section below. Otherwise, feel free to jump right into my detailed software summaries, if that's what you need the most.
Selection Criteria
Here’s a summary of the selection criteria I used to develop my shortlist of the best task management software for this article:
Usability:
Since task tracking is a central aspect of managing any high-performing team, it's essential to pick a system with strong usability features. This means the system should be user-friendly for employees at all levels following a short training or onboarding period. You'll also want to make sure you select a system that creates a positive and engaging user experience (UX), which will help your employees get on board with using the new system faster.
To assess a software system's usability, I look at the organization of its user interface (UI). This includes the layout of the product, how its menus are organized, and how easy it is to find the features you need. You shouldn't have to waste time going through multiple taps, windows, or menus to find what you're looking for. Instead, simplicity is key.
Productivity features:
Since increasing productivity is the driving force behind task management software, I spent the most time assessing these features when creating this top 10 list.
Important productivity features I like to see included are task lists with sub-tasks and dependencies, prioritization tools (priority levels, deadlines, custom tags, color-coding, etc.), task assignments (including multiple assignees), file sharing, automation, and multiple view options.
Communication tools:
Whether your team is office-based, hybrid, or fully remote, communication features that work in tandem with your task tracking are crucial. If any key task hits a roadblock, you shouldn't have to switch apps to have a chat about it. Instead, you'll be more productive keeping everything in one place. That's why I paid close attention to assessing each software system's communication and collaboration features, including live chats, notes, comments, @ tagging, and individual or group messaging abilities.
Software integrations:
Increasing productivity is the name of the game, and software integrations will only help you tackle more ground. For task management software specifically, logical integrations you'll want to take advantage of include connections to popular email and calendar programs, timesheet or time-tracking software, goal or OKR-tracking software, and performance management systems.
To help you save some time, I've included a list of each system's key integrations in my summaries below.
Price:
Sometimes it all comes down to cost. That's why I recommend getting a sense of your realistic budget before you go too far down the rabbit hole into sourcing the best task management software for you.
Depending on the size of your team, you may be able to get away with a free task-tracking solution. However, paid or premium plans will often give you a better return on your investment if you can afford one.
Sometimes pricing details are only available upon request. Luckily, I was able to source pricing details for most of the task management platforms in this list. On top of that, most of the software in this list does offer a free trial! This is a great place to start before you commit to signing a contract.
Overviews of the 10 Best Task Management Platforms
Here’s a brief description of each task management software solution to showcase each tool’s best use case and some noteworthy features. I've also included screenshots to give you a snapshot of their user interface too.
Wrike
Best task management software for real-time team collaboration
Wrike is an award-winning, easy-to-use task management software trusted by 20,000+ organizations worldwide. It's suitable for teams of any size, including unlimited users with multiple projects. It's also a configurable workflow management system that allows you to customize workflows, dashboards, reports, request forms, and more.
Wrike's simple interface enables users to switch between Kanban boards, one-click Gantt charts, calendar or dashboard views, and traditional workload views to easily assign tasks and manage your teams activities. The tool also offers many pre-built templates, and boasts easy-to-use navigation with distinct spaces, folders, and tasks. You can quickly toggle between the home screen and timesheets, dashboards, calendars, reports, and the notification stream with ease.
Why I picked Wrike: Not only can Wrike’s features be configured for each individual team member’s needs, the tool also offers a variety of specific solutions depending on the type of team or organization — including marketing teams and professional service teams. Wrike also has a dedicated help center with interactive training, videos, a ‘Getting Started’ guide, and a thriving community.
Wrike Standout Features & Integrations:
Features include task scheduling and tracking, task lists, subtasks, schedules, shared workflows, file sharing, and real-time collaboration. Beyond task management functions, Wrike also features project management and resource management tools, expense tracking, an API, budgeting tools, Gantt charts, marketing automations, collaboration support, and reporting.
Integrations include 400+ pre-built native integrations with popular software systems including Airtable, Basecamp 2, Dropbox, Github, Google systems, Intercom, Marketo, Okta, Salesforce, Slack, Smartsheet, and many others.
Connecteam
Best for its mobile solution to follow-up tasks.
Connecteam is an employee platform designed to deliver a simple yet well-structured environment for employee communication. It helps with improving day-to-day operations and developing the professional skills of every employee within the organization.
Why I picked Connecteam: The platform offers a more holistic approach to employee management by providing features that focus not just on HR and task management but also on personal and professional development. While the platform does allow you to create and schedule single and team shifts, keep track of employee work hours, and even send automatic reminders, its employee task management application has a few useful functions that will benefit your delegation of tasks.
Connecteam ensures a quicker and easier task delegation process. The app supports recurring tasks, custom digital forms, checklists, task automation, and task-specific communication. The Connecteam task management app enables users to create and assign project-specific tasks in just a few clicks. A newly created task can go live and await completion within a few seconds. A task created with Connecteam will include more detailed descriptions, subtasks, due dates, and even attached files and images.
The software also provides real-time execution updates as well as team notifications and reminders, giving managers complete oversight on the day-to-day tasks and workflows of their employees. The employee task management app provides clear visibility on every ongoing task pending completion. The app offers navigational and organizational tools like tagging and advanced filtering capabilities to view individual tasks.
Connecteam Standout Features & Integrations
Features include shift management, real-time reporting, time clock with GPS capabilities, in-app chat, surveys, employee recognition and rewards, recurring tasks, custom digital forms, checklists, task automation, and task-specific communication.
Integrations include Quickbooks, Gusto, Dropbox, Google Drive, and NextBee.
Connecteam offers three modules: Operations, Communications, and HR & Skills module. All modules are completely free for small businesses with less than 10 users.
monday.com
Best task management software for visual task management
monday.com is a great task management software because of its simple, visually intuitive layouts that help clarify the sequence of work for multiple tasks within a project sequence. This task management software won the 2019 Webby Award for productivity platform. It offers a customizable interface that resembles a spreadsheet, but it includes a ton of additional features that make it much more interactive and visually appealing than a simple spreadsheet for tracking task progress.
monday.com includes message boards, task management boards (for recurring tasks, task dependencies, and task progress), and some easy-to-read visualizations that allow you to display your project data and quickly get an idea of your progress. Members can collaborate by uploading and attaching files, and assigning deadlines and tagging members on tasks. @Mentions of team and individuals are available as well.
Why I picked monday.com: Because it's so customizable, it's easy to configure monday.com to plan your project timelines and organize schedules, and you can also keep all of your team conversations, briefs, and files in a single shared space, encouraging team collaboration.
monday.com Standout Features & Integrations:
Features include project management, task scheduling and tracking, resource management, scheduling, budgeting, API, calendar management, Gantt charts, file sharing, time management, email integration, third party plugins, and notifications.
Integrations are available natively with productivity apps like Dropbox, Jira, GitHub, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Slack, Trello, Typeform. You can also access more integrations through a paid Zapier account too.
Asana
Best task management software for increasing team productivity
Asana is a popular task management and productivity platform that's often used to ensure team alignment in terms of task tracking and achieving company-wide goals.
Why I picked Asana: Asana’s platform allows teams to create top-level company goals, with contributing sub-tasks that feed into the larger objective. You can assign individual team members to specific sub-tasks, and visualize their progress using their dynamic task-tracking progress bars. This helps to keep team members on track, and provides a visual representation of each individual component of a company-wide goal, helping to flag any issues early if one sub-task is falling short.
Asana Standout Features & Integrations:
Features include task management and project resource management tools, automations, reporting, a workflow builder, and several different views to organize task and goal-based information, including kanban boards, Gantt charts, a shared calendar view, and a list view. From any one of their views, you can update and visualize information on your projects or tasks, including subtasks, task assignees, milestones, sections, custom fields, and more.
Integrations are available with 280+ applications, including Azure Active Directory, Chrome, DropBox, GitLab, Google Workspace, Loom, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Outlook, Okta, Slack, Trello, Zapier, Zoho Desk, and many others. Additionally, users can connect Asana to Zapier, Automate.io, and others to integrate with hundreds of other apps too.
Hive
Best task management software for improving cross-department collaboration
Hive is a flexible project management platform that enables team leaders to tick tasks off their daily to-do lists. With adaptable project templates, in-app messaging, and resource management features, Hive helps managers keep all their employees on the same page. It acts as a centralized space where team leaders can view and track multiple projects at once. It also has a well-laid-out and clean interface with comprehensive features that are scalable.
Why I picked Hive: I added Hive to this list because I appreciate how it supports company-wide task management and cross-department collaboration. Managers can assign tasks to different departments, and create check-off lists to make sure that every task is completed in the correct order, whether the items need to be completed by members of their own team or someone else.
Hive Standout Features & Integrations:
Features include unlimited projects and tasks, team or individual assignments, multiple assignees, dependencies, task prioritization and numbering, collaboration tools for external users (i.e., contractors or freelancers), a Kanban board view, notes, video chat, flexible project views, templates, analytics, and more. To increase productivity and improve accountability, users can break large projects down into separate tasks, set timelines, and assign them to individual team members to complete.
Integrations are available natively with a handful of popular programs like Box, Dropbox, GitHub, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Jira, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Outlook Calendar, and Slack. For additional integrations, you can connect Hive to a paid Zapier account, or take advantage of their REST API.
Hello Ivy
Best task management software with built-in communication
Hello Ivy is a work management software with project and task management features as well as built-in internal communication tools.
Why I picked Hello Ivy: This software was designed with simplicity in mind and is easy to navigate and quick to learn. Users can create tasks, delegate responsibilities, track progress, and communicate with team members from inside the platform. The drag-and-drop Kanban board allows teams to track task and project progress, and personal homepages give users an overview of their assigned tasks and upcoming deadlines.
Project-related discussions can be managed within the platform to avoid unnecessary meetings. Live chat is also available in the software, and users can tag one another for urgent communications. Keeping team communications within the project management system helps reduce app-switching and promote transparency.
Hello Ivy Standout Features & Integrations
Features include daily to-do lists, deadline tracker, Kanban boards, tasks and subtasks, document management, template builder, doc collaboration, calendar view, personal homepages, live chat, discussion boards, Gantt charts, and team member profiles.
Integrations are not currently listed by the software.
ClickUp
Best task management software for team-based daily task management
ClickUp is a flexible productivity and project management tool that helps managers oversee every aspect of the task management process. Team leaders can create tasks, set milestones and due dates, add or remove team members, and provide feedback to task assignees in real time. You can also create custom triggers for their automations, which can help speed up your team’s work.
Why I picked ClickUp: ClickUp calls itself 'one app to replace them all' and has an expansive feature set to back up that claim. It's an excellent task management platform for teams who want a little bit of everything and don't mind the learning curve and training required to master it all in one interface. For complex projects, you can also break tasks down into smaller subtasks, with individual or multiple assignees to improve productivity. Their mind map view can help you visualize the relationship between all your moving parts, and identify any roadblocks your team may encounter.
ClickUp Standout Features & Integrations:
Features include task scheduling and tracking, subtasks, reminders, priority levels, task templates, color-coding, budgeting, contact management, data visualizations, an employee database, team collaboration features, expense tracking, file sharing, a template library, timesheets, chat, email integrations, feedback management, and process reporting. You can also easily filter, sort, search for, reorder, and view tasks in whatever format is most convenient for your team. In addition, ClickUp includes tools to create Gantt charts, calendars, Kanban boards, and timelines to visualize tasks.
You can restrict team members or freelancer access so they’ll only be able to access their individual tasks, or you can make the project and its dependencies more transparent. Their click-and-drag dashboards are also very customizable, with a long list of custom fields, statuses, tags and more to choose from. Reporting features include the ability to create custom dashboards, as well as six built-in report types for team reporting.
Integrations are available natively with over 1,000+ popular applications, including Calendly, Clockify, Dropbox, Google Calendar, Google Chrome, GitHub, GitLab, HubSpot, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Slack, TimeDoctor, Zendesk, and many others. You can also access additional integrations by connecting ClickUp to a paid Zapier account as well.
Profit.co
Best task management software with links to company-wide OKRs to promote high performance
Profit.co’s is a Results Management Platform with a focus on task management, objectives and key results (OKRs), performance management, and employee engagement.
Why I picked Profit.co: Their platform offers a holistic suite of tools that work together to ensure optimal team alignment at all levels. Beyond managing tasks, you can use Profit.co's platform to conduct regular check-ins, manage OKRs, promote transparency, recognize employees, and review team and individual performance.
Profit.co Standout Features & Integrations:
Features include task-tracking tools to help you prioritize and set deadlines, the ability to break major tasks up into minor sub-tasks, and a kanban style view for tracking progress. You can also set up links between tasks and key results, so your progress dashboards update automatically as items are completed. Their platform also includes team collaboration features like # tagged conversations, task reminders, and action checklists with full team visibility.
Integrations are available natively with 40+ popular software applications including Chrome, Gmail, Google Calendar, HubSpot, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce, Slack, Snowflake, Wrike, Zapier, Zendesk and many others.
Smartsheet
Best task management software for a spreadsheet-like user interface
Smartsheet is a modern work management platform with strong task management and team collaboration features. Their platform helps team leaders and managers assign and track tasks, and share important documents easily with multiple departments or stakeholders.
Why I picked Smartsheet: Their spreadsheet-like task management software is a great choice if you’re comfortable working in Excel but want a break from complicated formulas. Instead, Smartsheet performs all the calculations for you across multiple sheets. They've also won a few awards for quickly becoming a favorite business app too.
Smartsheet Standout Features & Integrations:
Features include task scheduling and tracking, subtasks, activities, project management, calendar management, timesheets, time management, expense tracking, file sharing, Gantt charts, budgeting, email integration, and lead management. Team members get notified of critical changes in real-time, and can easily access shared views, detailed history, activity logs, automated alerts, reminders, and status reports to ensure everyone's equally aligned and informed. You can also add customized brand logos and set color themes for individual projects too.
Integrations are available natively with 80+ apps, including Box, DocuSign, Google Forms, Microsoft Teams, ServiceNow, Salesforce, Slack, Tableau, and others. You can set up additional custom integrations using their REST API and webhooks, or by connecting Smartsheet to an Automate.io or Zapier account too.
7shifts
Best task management software for hospitality professionals
7Shifts is a team management platform that's purpose-built for hospitality professionals, including those working in hotels, restaurants, and other customer service-oriented establishments. Their platform includes dedicated modules for hiring, training, scheduling, paying, and retaining staff, and includes task management and team communication features.
Why I picked 7Shifts: This platform makes it easy for hospitality workers to get a clear picture of what they should accomplish on a daily basis. The software’s mobile app highlights outstanding tasks and sends real-time notifications as your team completes them. I also appreciate that their system offers more than simple task management, including tools to improve employee engagement while also managing employee scheduling, all within the same platform.
7Shifts Standout Features & Integrations:
Features include task management tools like assigned and automatically recurring tasks, team communication functions, the ability to host training videos, hiring and onboarding checklists, document storage, employee scheduling including a time clock, payroll integrations, tip management and tip payout modules, and extra tools to engage with employees remotely. Their timesheets feature also helps managers monitor when employees check in and out of work, eliminating unnecessary paperwork.
Integrations are available with 60+ integrations partners, including ADP Workforce Now, Bounce, Ceridian Dayforce, Ceridian Powerpay, Clover, FuturePOS, GoTab, Gusto, Heartland, Lightspeed, Paychex, Paylocity, Restaurant Manager, RUN by ADP, SevenRooms, Toast, UKG Pro, and others.
Need Expert Help Selecting The Right Task Management Software?
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10 Best Task Management Software Comparison Chart
This comparison chart summarizes basic details about each of my top task management software selections. You can view pricing details and the availability of free trials or demos side-by-side to help you find the best system that works for your budget.
Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Wrike Best task management software for real-time team collaboration | Free plan available | From $9.80/user/month | Visit Website |
2 | Connecteam Best for its mobile solution to follow-up tasks. | Free plan available | From $29/month (30 users) | Visit Website |
3 | monday.com Best task management software for visual task management | 14-day free trial + freemium plan available | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Visit Website |
4 | Asana Best task management software for increasing team productivity | Free plan available | From $10.99/user/month | Visit Website |
5 | Hive Best task management software for improving cross-department collaboration | 14-day free trial | From $16/user/month | Visit Website |
6 | Hello Ivy Best task management software with built-in communication | Hello Ivy offers a 14-day fully featured free trial upon sign-up. | Pricing starts at $9 per user monthly. | Visit Website |
7 | ClickUp Best task management software for team-based daily task management | Freemium plan available | From $9/user/month | Visit Website |
8 | Profit.co Best task management software with links to company-wide OKRs to promote high performance | 30-day free trial + freemium plan available | From $7/user/month | Visit Website |
9 | Smartsheet Best task management software for a spreadsheet-like user interface | Freemium version available | From $7/user/month | Visit Website |
10 | 7shifts Best task management software for hospitality professionals | 14-day free trial + freemium plan available | From $24.99/month/location | Visit Website |
Other Options
Here are a few more worthwhile options that didn’t make the best task management software list:
- Teamwork
Best task tracking software for analyzing non-billable time to improve team efficiency
- Kantata
Best task management software for project managers
- Mosaic
Best task management software with advanced time management and forecasting features
- FunctionFox
Best task management software for creative teams or agencies
- Paymo
Best task management software for organizations that track billable time to invoice clients
- Basecamp
Best task management software for project-focused team collaboration tools
- Todoist
Best task management software with productivity goals and a smart scheduling feature
- GanttPRO
Best task management software for tracking multiple tasks using Gantt charts
- Sendtask
Best task management software that's free to use for unlimited tasks and unlimited users
- Yanado
Best task management software for assigning tasks directly from your Gmail account
People Also Ask:
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions you may have about task management software and how it can help you improve your team’s productivity:
What is task management software?
What is the best task management software?
What are the main benefits of using task management software?
What features are commonly included in task management software?
How can task management software support remote or hybrid teams?
Are there any free task management solutions?
Final Thoughts & Resources
Effective teams complete projects on time and within budget. And a simple way to increase your team’s effectiveness is to use task management software.
Earl K. Miller, a neuroscience professor at MIT, said “Multitasking is not humanly possible, [...] When you multitask, you tend to make more mistakes.” Assigning your team members specific daily tasks enables them to focus on what’s important and increases their productivity.
However, no need to stop here. There are other types of software that can help increase your own, or your team's productivity too. Here are a few of my top favorites to save you some time:
- Best Goal Setting Software for Keeping Teams on Track
- Best Note Taking Apps for Boosting Productivity
- Best OKR (objectives and key results) Software Compared
- Best Workforce Management Software
If you want to receive more tips on team productivity from top thinkers in the industry, subscribe to the People Managing People newsletter.
For even more help choosing the best HR software, check this out: The 10 Best HR Software Companies 2023