10 Best Online Project Management Tools Shortlist
Here's my pick of the 10 best software from the 20 tools reviewed.
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Project management tools live at the center of your project team operations. Therefore, choosing the right tool is crucial to support the execution of your project plan.
Further, you want to pick a tool that promotes team collaboration, helps you assign tasks, track progress in a project dashboard, and overall makes you look to your boss like you are Henry Gantt himself.
Every project management app on this list is an option you should consider as your next, and the comparison criteria below will help you understand what I'm looking for.
How I Picked The Best Project Management Tools
I’ve researched, reviewed and selected some of the most popular project management tools. To decide which tools to feature in this list, I weighed a variety of key factors, including the following criteria.
- User Interface (UI): I look at the tool's interface design and if it's easy on the eye. Some interfaces can become crowded as they increase the number of features.
- Usability: I analyze how easy it is to learn and navigate the app. Does the company offer good tech support, user support, tutorials, and training? Is it intuitive?
- Integrations: Is it easy to connect with other tools that can fill any gaps in the software, such as time tracking software, Gantt chart software, workflow management tools, and more? Any pre-built integrations?
- Value for $: I look at the pricing details, features it includes, and tiers (if any). In addition, I research the free trials or free versions of the software you can use to further support your decision-making.
The Best Project Management Tools Summary
Nothing like a nice table with summarized information on what we just discussed.
Tools | Price | |
---|---|---|
Celoxis | From $15/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
Hub Planner | From $7/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
Miro | From $8/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
FigJam | From $5/user/month | Website |
Rocketlane | From $19/user/month | Website |
Nifty | From $5/user/month (billed annually) + free plan available | Website |
Paymo | From $5.90/user/month (billed annually) | Website |
MeisterTask | From $8.25/user/month (billed annually) + free plan available | Website |
Forecast | Pricing upon request | Website |
Kintone | From $24/user/month | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareReviews Of The Best Project Management Tools
Here are overviews of the best tools on the market right now.
Celoxis is a project management tool that is adaptable for small, mid-sized, and large businesses.
Why I picked Celoxis: It allows you to plan and schedule projects with cross-project and interactive Gantt charts, as well as manage resources across a portfolio of projects. The tool also includes the ability to create multiple custom dashboards for monitoring project task progress and metrics, as well as add custom fields and formula fields.
Further, reporting capabilities include reports on custom fields and drill-down charts. You can export reports, as well as schedule them to be sent via email.
Celoxis Standout Features & Integrations
Features include a real-time project tracker, flexible portfolio management, task management, resource availabilities and utilization, timesheets, project finances, risks, issues and to-dos.
Integrations include pre-built connections with Google Drive, Outlook, Microsoft Project, Excel, Salesforce and hundreds of other tools like JIRA, Slack & Trello.
Hub Planner is an online project management and scheduling software that helps businesses manage their teams and projects with easy-to-use timelines and workflows.
Why I Picked Hub Planner: Hub Planner stands out as an excellent online project management tool thanks to its comprehensive resource management system, advanced scheduling capabilities, time tracking feature, collaboration tools, and customizability. Resource management in Hub Planner allows businesses to efficiently allocate resources, track availability, and schedule across multiple teams and projects.
Hub Planner's Gantt chart feature provides a visual representation of project tasks, dependencies, and milestones, making it easy to monitor progress and adjust schedules accordingly. Time tracking enables teams to record their hours and track progress more accurately, while collaboration features like team calendars, project messaging, and file sharing facilitate real-time collaboration and help teams stay up-to-date. Additionally, Hub Planner is highly customizable, allowing businesses to tailor the tool to their specific needs with custom fields, templates, and reports, among other features.
Hub Planner Standout Features & Integrations
Features include resource management, PTO planning, timesheets, reporting, skills matching, task management, templates, drag and drop scheduler, project budgets, approval flow, smart scheduler, and third-party integrations/add-ons.
Integrations include DIY options via their Hub Planner API and webhook. Or, open an account with Zapier for more options (may incur an additional cost).
Overall, Hub Planner's robust features and flexibility make it a great choice for businesses looking for an online project management tool that can handle complex projects and teams.
Miro serves as an online collaborative whiteboard platform, distinguished by its wide selection of over 1,000 templates suitable for various project management applications, including mind maps, Kanban boards, Gantt charts, and more.
Why I picked Miro: Miro's platform supports project management through features like built-in video conferencing, Agile workflows, and wireframing tools. Key functionalities include task visualization by sprint, status, and team, which simplifies project planning and execution.
The platform's integration with Jira also allows for direct project tracking within Miro, and its Dependencies App aids in identifying task dependencies across sprints, improving project flow and resource management. These features collectively support a comprehensive and visually interactive project management experience.
Miro Standout Features and Integrations
Features include real-time collaboration tools, such as sticky notes and comments, an infinite canvas, custom frames and shapes, presentation mode, TalkTrack to record process explanation videos, Miro Assist AI, document and image embedding, voting and polling features, mind mapping tools, screen sharing, timeline and roadmap planning, access control and permissions management.
Integrations include Zoom, Figma, Asana, Microsoft Teams, Jira, Slack, Monday.com, Confluence, Google Drive, Box, Airtable, Notion, Azure, and Webex. Some integrations are limited to paid plans only.
Miro is free to use for unlimited members with up to 3 editable boards. Paid plans start at $8/user/month (billed annually).
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Built-in communication features for streamlined collaboration
- Intuitive and easy setup
- Free forever plan available
Cons:
- Free version does not allow high-quality export to pdf
- Zooming can be jumpy on larger projects
- Visitor/guest accounts locked to paid plans only
FigJam by Figma is an online whiteboard tool designed to facilitate collaborative brainstorming and ideation among teams.
Why I picked FigJam: FigJam is an excellent tool to use either in conjunction with another project management tool or by itself to help remote teams brainstorm, plan, and organize project-related information, such as plans and workflows, both asynchronously and in real-time. It also allows users to create flowcharts, mind maps, and diagrams that can clarify project scopes, processes, and responsibilities.
The tool offers features such as sticky notes, shapes, connectors, and drawing tools to help teams map out ideas and processes. FigJam also supports real-time collaboration, enabling multiple participants to contribute to the board simultaneously. Users can add comments and reactions to provide feedback and express opinions, which can be particularly useful for ensuring that all team members can contribute to remote or distributed team meetings.
FigJam Standout Features & Integrations
Features include cursor chat, which displays short messages next to the user's cursor, widgets like timers, voting, and sorting, and built-in audio tools that allow for verbal discussion while collaborating on the whiteboard.
Integrations include Asana, Jira, Github, and Bitmoji.
FigJam costs from $3/user/month. A free plan is also available.
Rocketlane is an enterprise project management tool purpose-built to run customer-facing projects. It uniquely combines project management, document collaboration, and communication to help teams hit their project goals, accelerate time-to-value, and deliver a 5-star customer experience.
Rocketlane offers private and shared views for project plans and documents as well as a customer portal for stakeholder and client views. You can also codify your best practices with project and document templates to create them once and reuse them forever across projects.
With Rocketlane, you'll be able to keep your customers involved and make them accountable with reminders, notifications, and actionable emails. You can work together and create new or embed existing documents, collaborate on them synchronously and experience Slack-like chat inside Rocketlane.
Rocketlane costs from $19/user/month and offers a free 14-day trial.
Nifty is a project management software with roadmapping, task management, and reporting tools. It also has time tracking, live chat, forms, and file management to support collaboration and team management.
Why I picked Nifty: This platform offers comprehensive project management features. You can develop roadmaps, assign tasks, create dependencies, set deadlines, and automate repetitive tasks. It has various views so you can oversee your work in whatever way is most helpful to your context.
In addition to its project and task tracking tools, the software has live chat and file sharing to help team members collaborate on their work. Employees can track their time in the system, helping you get an accurate picture of how much time goes into various tasks and projects. You can also create reports to better understand team performance.
Nifty Standout Features and Integrations
Features include Gantt charts, Kanban boards, swimlane and calendar views, project homes, task management, document and file sharing, in-app messenger, time tracking, workflow automation, form builder, and portfolio management.
Integrations include Slack, Zoom, Harvest, Github, Miro, Typeform, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Microsoft Suite, and Webex. You can import existing project data from Jira, Asana, Basecamp, Clickup, Wrike, Trello, or a .CSV file. Additional integrations can be configured with Zapier.
Paymo is the best project management tool for small and medium teams, especially in digital, creative, and marketing ecosystems. It gives freelancers and teams all the needed features to lead a project from planning to payment.
Why I picked Paymo: It keeps your PM tools in one place to help you manage projects and tasks, track work time, and bill clients from one platform. Create workflows and templates for your tasks, assign multiple users, collaborate in real-time, and monitor the progress by switching between multiple views including Kanban. Track time spent on tasks and projects and turn those timesheets into reports and invoices.
You can manage everything on the go using the mobile app for both iOS and Android. Use the app for its native stopwatch, add time manually or in bulk and see who’s working on what through the ‘active timers’ view. You have all the tasks in place, which you can group by priority, progress, or due date.
Paymo Standout Features & Integrations
Features include file proofing, invoicing an estimates, a leave planner, in-app time tracking, multiple project views, and workload information using the team scheduler.
Integrations include Google, Slack, Jotform, Pabbly, Google Calendar and thousands more available through Zapier.
Free for freelancers and teams of up to 10 users. Paymo comes with a 15-day free trial.
MeisterTask is a task and project management tool designed primarily for agile teams. The tool has all the key task management features: the ability to assign users and task watchers, set due dates, track time, and more. Also included is a timelines feature, Kanban boards, custom dashboards, and the ability for team members to create personal agendas organized to fit their way of working. MeisterTask is intuitive and simple to use, with a clean interface
The tool also allows users to create custom fields and checklists for tasks, add attachments and share files, set task dependencies and relationships, and use tags to organize tasks. The timeline feature works similarly to a Gantt chart, displaying all tasks within a project according to due dates and the order in which they should be completed. Users can drag-and-drop to adjust deadlines and add tasks, as well as colour-code items on the timeline.
MeisterTask also offers a variety of automations, the ability to create recurring tasks, and Kanban boards. Users can also set up backlogs and manage tasks on them collaboratively. Real-time notifications keep both the project team and the product owner up to date about project progress, while detailed statistics and reports provide insight into the team’s performance. Communication features include comments, mentions, and email notifications.
MeisterTask integrates with sister software MindMeister as well as Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Microsoft Teams, GitHub, Zendesk, Google Drive, and more.
MeisterTask costs from $8.25/user/month. They also offer a freemium plan.
Forecast is a project management tool that unites your projects, resources, and financials in one AI-powered platform. Project managers can leverage Forecast’s workflow automation capabilities to create smart schedules, estimate timeframes and budgets, and populate timesheets instantly.
Why I picked Forecast: You can control the workflow by building out detailed task lists and flagging clear priorities. Task cards allow every team member to easily comment, share files, and register time spent. Everything related to the specific task appears in one place, including dependencies and subtasks. You can put together projects for any type of work: fixed price, time and material, or retainer.
Forecast’s AI learns from previous work and suggests the number of hours you normally register on similar tasks to help you log time faster. You can monitor time registrations from a team perspective and notify each member if they forget to enter something in. Time tracking utilization on a company-wide level is calculated for you for easy alerts, estimates, and reporting.
Forecast Standout Features & Integrations
Features include resource management, project accounting, business intelligence, retainer budget-type projects, auto-schedule, and AI-based recommendations.
Integrations include Slack, Microsoft Teams, iCloud Calendar, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Outlook, Harvest, Trello, Asana, GitLab, Github, and dozens more using a paid plan through Zapier. Higher-tier subscriptions include native integrations with Timelog, Xero, QuickBooks Online, JIRA, Azure DevOps, Salesforce, Okta, OneLogin, and Azure Active Directory.
Forecast cost from $29/user/month with a minimum of 10 users and offers a 14-day free trial.
Kintone
Best project management tool to build business apps for your workflows
Kintone is a customizable project planning platform used by teams at Volvo Trucks North America, Japan Airlines, Whole Foods, and over 23,000 organizations worldwide.
Why I picked Kintone: Their unique approach to project and task management lets you build a wide variety of customizable “apps” either from scratch, using templates or from your existing spreadsheets for data management, business processes, and workflows.
Kintone lets you build agile project management apps by dragging and dropping elements that you want to see onto the page: rich text fields, date fields, drop-down menus, and more. Your agile project management solution can look and work however you want it to. Moreover, what makes Kintone particularly great for agile project management is that it empowers project managers to track all facets of their project, from individual tasks and project data to workflows and communication—and then use their findings to rapidly improve their processes as they go.
Kintone Standout Features & Integrations
Features include a pre-built application library, enhanced process management, private messaging, real-time custom graphs and charts, and granular permission controls.
Integrations. Kintone lets you expand its capabilities with both free native plugins built by the Kintone team as well as integrations with other tools like Slack, Gmail, Google Calendar, Outlook, Tableau, Dropbox, Salesforce, HubSpot, Eventbrite, WordPress, QuickBooks, MailChimp, and many more through a paid plan with Zapier or via API integrations.
There are so many ways to customize Kintone that it can be hard to know where to start. Read the starter blog “What Can You Build with Kintone?” or watch Creating an App from Scratch for a quick look at how the drag-and-drop builder works.
Other Project Management Tool Options
Here are a few more tools that didn’t make the top list.
- Teamwork.com
For client work
- Hubstaff
Free online project management tool
- KeepSolid Goals
Project tracking tool with roadmap and goal map functionality.
- FunctionFox
Project management tool for creative teams and agencies
- Basecamp
For a simple, straightforward user interface
- ProWorkflow
Project planning and workflow platform that helps you assign staff, track time or reschedule projects, quote and invoice your clients.
- Nutcache
Project management tool with mobile time tracking functionality and capable of processing invoices.
- GoodDay
For detailed task and action tracking
- Ravetree
With resource and client management tools
- RAIDLOG.com
With a focus on risk management
Project Management Tools FAQs
Find answers to common questions around this topic.
What are project management tools?
What features should I look for when selecting project management tools?
What are the different types of project management tools?
Below, I’ve listed the software reviews I’ve written according to the type of tools they cover so you can check out the other project management platform lists on The Digital Project Manager site and find the best project management software for your needs
Agency Project Management Tools
Project Management Tools For Project And Resource Planning
Project Management Software For Small Orgs
Agile Project Management Tools
Collaboration And Communication Project Management Tools
Project Management Tools For Work Management
PM Tools For Software Development Projects
Alternatives To Popular Project Management Tools
What's Next?
If you are just getting started in project management, I recommend you read our article on how to become a digital PM. Otherwise, why not refresh your memory by reading the common types of project constraints and how to manage them?
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