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10 Best Online Project Management Tools Of 2023

Best Online Project Management Tools Shortlist

  1. monday.com

    Best for its capacity to be customized for almost any workflow.

  2. ClickUp

    Best project management tool for its comprehensive free plan to test features.

  3. Smartsheet

    Best for flexibility & customizability

  4. Wrike

    Best agile project management tool

  5. Zoho Projects

    Low price point pm software with a user friendly interface and mobile version of their tool.

  6. Height

    Best project management tool with advanced, calendar-based productivity features

  7. Celoxis

    Best project portfolio management and collaboration solution

  8. Kintone

    Best management platform for its 100+ workflow templates to help you start faster.

  9. Forecast

    Best for managing your projects, resources, and finances in one

  10. Paymo

    Best project management tool for small & medium teams

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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?
  3. 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?
  4. 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.

Overview Of The 10 Best Project Management Tools

1

monday.com

Best for its capacity to be customized for almost any workflow.

monday.com work management is one of the top project management platforms on the market.

Why I picked monday.com: Their tool is hyper-customizable, has loads of features, and offers colorful boards that will make your project plans easier to read. Although it is a visually complex tool, it has tons of videos and training tutorials to help you master its different features. Additionally, if you are looking for a more focused product, monday.com offers different options. These include a product for marketers, development teams, sales teams (CRM), and project teams. You can look at all of them by going to the products menu option on their website.

Finally, it's important to mention that the wide range of features and customization might make it challenging for you to set up the product and train your team at first. However, once you get over that hump, I promise you'll see the benefits of having this product and how efficient it can make you and your team.

monday.com Standout Features & Integrations

Features include resource and project management, time tracking, collaboration, file management, collaborative docs and reporting dashboards.

Integrations include project management apps like Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, Asana, Jira, GitHub, Trello, Dropbox, Typeform, and thousands more, accessible via Zapier.

You can use monday.com regardless of the size of your team. There's a free version that you can try for as long as you want.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 6745

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats)

2

ClickUp

Best project management tool for its comprehensive free plan to test features.

ClickUp is a project management tool with powerful features for managing and completing all your team's projects on one platform.

Why I picked ClickUp: You can plan projects, schedule tasks, and manage resources in a centralized workspace, as well as communicate and collaborate with team members and guests. The platform is visually easy on the eye despite the elevated number of features. However, I'll make it even easier for you to learn.

The content hierarchy for this platform is Workspace > Spaces > Folders > Lists > Tasks > Subtasks. Now, you can focus on learning about tasks and how to filter, sort, search for, easily reorder, and view tasks in the manner most convenient for the team.

ClickUp has close to a dozen different task views, including timeline, table, box, and board. In addition, their collaboration features focus on interactive chats, wiki-type collaborative documents, and whiteboards. Your project team can comment on documents and tasks, assign comments, and chat with other team members easily.

Finally, its reporting features allow you to create custom dashboards, as well as six built-in report types for team reporting.

ClickUp Standout Features & Integrations

Features include real-time reporting, whiteboards and shared documents for collaboration, task management with different views, goal tracking, and templates.

Integrations include native connections to Slack, G Suite, Jira software, Dropbox, and many more tools, as well as over 1,000+ integrations through Zapier.

Check out ClickUps free plan, which lets you use all features for a limited time and really know if it's the best solution for you and your team.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 4135

Freemium plan available

From $9/user/month

3

Smartsheet

Best for flexibility & customizability

Smartsheet is a spreadsheet-like project management tool that is a nice project management software if you’re comfortable working in Excel but want a break from complicated formulas.

Why I picked Smartsheet: It offers a white-label product where you can add customized brand logos and set color themes for individual projects. Smartsheet has useful project management features such as workflow automation and visualization of tasks in Gantt, calendar and card views.

Team members get notified of critical changes in real time, and the tool performs all the calculations for you across multiple sheets. The Critical Path feature highlights all the tasks which directly impact your project completion date to keep an eye on important milestones. Reporting is a strong feature of this tool, with editable summary reports that you can easily export to Excel.

Smartsheet Standout Features & Integrations

Features include detailed history logs, activity logs, automated alerts, reminders, status reports, resource management, multiple views, forms to collect information, and digital asset management using Brandfolder.

Integrations include Microsoft and Google apps, as well as development essentials like Jira, and useful business apps like Salesforce, ServiceNow, Slack, Box, and Tableau. The platform is extensible through a REST API and webhooks.

Check out our in-depth Smartsheet review if you want a deep dive into the tool or to watch our short tutorial video of some basic features.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.4 7399

Freemium version available

From $7/user/month

4

Wrike

Best agile project management tool

Wrike’s software features award-winning, easy-to-use project management tools that are suitable for teams of five or more. It’s a collection of the most configurable project management tools, so users can customize workflows, dashboards, reports, request forms, and more.

Why I picked Wrike: The tool enables you to switch between Kanban boards, interactive drag-and-drop Gantt charts, and traditional workload views to visualize priorities in the way that works best for you. For advanced insights, users can access performance reporting tools, resource management and allocation, and more.

Wrike has an easy-to-use, intuitive navigation with distinct spaces, folders, and tasks. You can toggle between the home screen and timesheets, dashboards, calendars, reports, and an activity stream for notifications and messages. It also offers access to a variety of templates for common organizational processes.

Wrike Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task lists, subtasks, schedules, shared workflows, file sharing, proofing, cross-tagging, approvals, and real-time communication and collaboration.

Integrations. Wrike has over 400 pre-built integrations, including integrations with most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, as well as with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.

Consider Wrike if you are interested in having control over resources and budget, as well as agile supporting features.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2 2544

Freemium version available

From $9.80/user/month

5

Zoho Projects

Low price point pm software with a user friendly interface and mobile version of their tool.

Zoho Projects is a low-cost project management software that comes with features such as Gantt charts to plan projects, Kanban boards to organize work items, resource utilization charts to allocate work, and numerous dashboards, reports and charts to analyze and track project metrics.

Why I picked Zoho Projects: It allows team members to virtually meet online, converse over chats, discuss in comments, or collaborate within documents. Zoho Projects also provides issue tracking, budgeting and portfolio management capabilities. Additionally, your team can track their time using the timer or the check in and check out button right within Zoho Projects.

Finally, the tool lets you automate routine work processes like assigning users to work items, updating fields or sending notifications with workflow rules and blueprints. These automations can save you a considerable amount of time in the long run.

Zoho Projects Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task management, task automation, blueprints, time and issue tracking, reporting, and forums for detailed discussions with your team.

Integrations include tools such as Google Drive, Google Calendar, Slack, Github, Bitbucket, and Dropbox. Access even more integrations through Zapier. Additionally, being part of the Zoho ecosystem allows you to connect to several of Zoho’s other services such as Zoho Books and Zoho’s finance suite.

Zoho Projects has a free plan that you can use for a limited number of projects and test if it's the right option for you.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.2 286

10-day free trial

From $5/user/month

6

Height

Best project management tool with advanced, calendar-based productivity features

Height is an online project management tool that allows teams to manage their projects in a collaborative environment. It provides a single platform where everyone can stay on top of their tasks, track progress and ensure their goals are met.

Why I picked Height: It makes collaboration amongst team members much simpler by assigning task labels and tags to categorize tasks under specific categories. Using their task attributes feature, you can create custom, repeatable tasks and easily track progress. You can also break down complex projects into smaller tasks, set deadlines, and assign them to different team members.

Additionally, Height's built-in calendar is an all-in-one productivity assistant. You can create calendars for specific projects and events, and add to-dos, notes, reminders, and contacts for quick referencing and improved organization. It also includes various filtering options that help users obtain a more accurate bird’s eye view of their workflow to see where they’re overbooked or running behind schedule.

Height Standout Features & Integrations

Features include task tracking, resource management, communication tools, analytics, and reporting.

Integrations include Discord, Figma, Fivetran, Git Hub & Git Lab, Notion, Sentry, Slab, Slack, and Zendesk. It uses industry-standard encryption protocols, ensuring that all user data and communications are protected.

Height has Windows and macOS apps to help you access the software from any device through native-built software. If you want to try it out, it has a free version with unlimited members and tasks.

30-day free trial

From $8.50/user/month

7

Celoxis

Best project portfolio management and collaboration solution

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.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.3 64

30-day free trial

From $25/user/month

8

Kintone

Best management platform for its 100+ workflow templates to help you start faster.

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.

30-day free trial

From $24/user/month

9

Forecast

Best for managing your projects, resources, and finances in one

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.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.7 225

14-day free trial

From $29/user/month

10

Paymo

Best project management tool for small & medium teams

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.

This is an aggregated rating for this tool including ratings from Crozdesk users and ratings from other sites.
4.6 561

Free plan available

From $5.95/user/month

Need expert help selecting the right Project Management Software?

We’ve joined up with Crozdesk.com to give all our readers (yes, you!) access to Crozdesk’s software advisors. Just use the form below to share your needs, and they will contact you at no cost or commitment. You will then be matched and connected to a shortlist of vendors that best fit your company, and you can access exclusive software discounts!

The Best Project Management Tools Comparison Chart

Nothing like a nice table with summarized information on what we just discussed.

Tool Free Option Price
1
monday.com

Best for its capacity to be customized for almost any workflow.

14-day free trial + freemium plan available

From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) Visit Website
2
ClickUp

Best project management tool for its comprehensive free plan to test features.

Freemium plan available

From $9/user/month Visit Website
3
Smartsheet

Best for flexibility & customizability

Freemium version available

From $7/user/month Visit Website
4
Wrike

Best agile project management tool

Freemium version available

From $9.80/user/month Visit Website
5
Zoho Projects

Low price point pm software with a user friendly interface and mobile version of their tool.

10-day free trial

From $5/user/month Visit Website
6
Height

Best project management tool with advanced, calendar-based productivity features

30-day free trial

From $8.50/user/month Visit Website
7
Celoxis

Best project portfolio management and collaboration solution

30-day free trial

From $25/user/month Visit Website
8
Kintone

Best management platform for its 100+ workflow templates to help you start faster.

30-day free trial

From $24/user/month Visit Website
9
Forecast

Best for managing your projects, resources, and finances in one

14-day free trial

From $29/user/month Visit Website
10
Paymo

Best project management tool for small & medium teams

Free plan available

From $5.95/user/month Visit Website

Other Project Management Tool Options

Here are a few more tools that didn’t make the top list.

  1. MeisterTask

    Best project management tool for agile teams

  2. KeepSolid Goals

    Best project tracking tool with roadmap and goal map functionality.

  3. Hubstaff

    Best free online project management tool

  4. Hive

    Best project management tool for team communication and collaboration

  5. FunctionFox

    Best project management tool for creative teams and agencies

  6. ProWorkflow

    Project planning and workflow platform that helps you assign staff, track time or reschedule projects, quote and invoice your clients.

  7. nutcache

    Project management tool with mobile time tracking functionality and capable of processing invoices.

  8. GoodDay

    Best for detailed task and action tracking

  9. TeamGantt

    Gantt chart maker software to manage complex projects.

  10. Miro

    Best for collaborative whiteboarding & visualization

Project Management Tools FAQs

Find answers to common questions around this topic.

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

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?

Stay updated with the latest tricks, tips, project management tools, and techniques that leading project managers are using today—subscribe to the DPM newsletter, or join our exclusive Membership program to get ongoing training, templates, and mentorship to grow your career.

By Ben Aston

I’m Ben Aston, a digital project manager and founder of thedpm.com. I've been in the industry for more than 15 years working in the UK at London’s top digital agencies including Dare, Wunderman, Lowe and DDB. I’ve delivered everything from film to CMS', games to advertising and eCRM to eCommerce sites. I’ve been fortunate enough to work across a wide range of great clients; automotive brands including Land Rover, Volkswagen and Honda; Utility brands including BT, British Gas and Exxon, FMCG brands such as Unilever, and consumer electronics brands including Sony.

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