Top 10 Project Management Software Applications For Project Managers
Top 10 Project Management Software Applications For Project Managers
[Updated 19th January, 2023]
Being a Project Manager isn’t an easy gig. You have a lot of balls in the air at once, many different competing priorities and on top of that you need to manage your team’s time and tasks to keep the project on track.
Once upon a time, all these details, schedules and plans would have been kept on paper, with physical files that could easily be misplaced.
These days Project Managers have a whole suite of different technological solutions that can help them keep their projects on track.
Here are our top 10 project management applications that Project Managers should be utilising.
ProofHub
Proofhub offers users an intuitive and easy to use project management system. It has boards, charts, chats and mentions to more effectively communicate with your team and track the progress of the project.
Pros: Proofhub has all the tools in one place. It has great planning features including assigning tasks and calendar view as well charts that show you progress of tasks and projects. It’s a very easy to use system, so perfect for those who haven’t had much experience with project management software. You can have unlimited users attached and the manager has full control to allocate tasks and roles and limit accessibility to certain features.
Cons: One irksome thing about Proofhub is you can’t create recurring tasks. This can be frustrating when you know you’ll need to be adding a repeating task weekly to your list. The other and probably the biggest con is that Proofhub doesn’t have a section for budgeting where you can manage the budget of the project and keep a running estimate to ensure you’re not going over budget.
Cost: Packages for this project management software start at $45 per month billed annually. There is no cost per user so you can have an unlimited number of team members attached to a project at this rate.
Asana
Asana is a web and mobile based project management application that is easy to use and navigate. It has a workflow builder, timelines, charts, mentions, goals, reporting and lots of possible app integrations.
Pros: Asana has so many opportunities for app integration. You can link it up with Google Drive, Microsoft Teams and Slack. It’s interface is very easy to navigate and it’s great for collaboration, informing team members of changes in tasks and allowing comments for easy communication.
Cons: One of Asana’s biggest cons is that there is no time tracking feature. In project management this is usually essential. It also doesn’t allow for multiple team members to be assigned to each task, which can be frustrating as there is often more than more person working on a project task.
Cost: There is a $0 option for Asana which can be helpful for a very small business looking to get started with project management. Paid options begin at $14 per user, per month billed annually.
Zoho Projects
For those who want flexibility when communicating with your project management team, Zoho could be the go for you. This software allows you to initiate chats within your projects to quickly communicate with team members for urgent tasks. It will record each chat so that you never have to search through your email to find the instructions or ask ‘Did I send that task to them?’.
Pros: Zoho is fantastic for communication, with a chat system that makes it easier to stay in touch during projects. It has tasks and subtasks, reporting capabilities, automation, time tracing and budgeting.
Cons: This can be big system to learn, and it will take team members a while to get to know the interface. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of customer support or learning tools available.
Cost: While they do a have a free option, it would mean you can only ever have two projects which, of course, is not workable. The first paid option starts at $7.75 per user, per month and you can have up to 50 users and unlimited projects.
Wrike
Wrike is a popular choice for project management software with the industry. it has customisable features and reporting options, with cross-tagging and automation opportunities. Wrike fits well within teams that are focused on creative outputs. In this platform, users can manage external and internal requests with built-in forms and automatically assign work to appropriate teams based on team schedules and availability.
Pros: The system has a good dashboard where you can view project progress and have a clean idea of the lifecycle of that project. The app integration capabilities are impressive, it can integrated with a variety of third part apps such as Google Drive, Gmail, Dropbox, OneDrive, MS Project, Office 365, Excel and Salesforce.
Cons: Wrike is a complicated system, and it can take new users a while to work it all out. The onboarding process when adding new users must be done manually and can be quite time consuming for the manager. The system also lacks that advanced filtering available with other project management systems which can make it harder to zero in on the dashboard to tasks within your team or focus.
Cost: There is a free option, but businesses will need the paid options to be able to bring in team members. the plans begin at $9.80 per user, per month.
monday.com
monday.com is a great project management tool for teams. It’s customisable to fit with your project and it includes boards, dashboards, templates and data driven insights and reports.
Pros: It has a variety of ready-made templates that can help to cut time spent on project prep and the automation feature is very helpful, generating alerts and notifications. It has 24/7 customer support if anything goes awry, and it includes charts for easy reporting.
Cons: A lot of these great features are not a part of the basic plan, you can use automation and integrations in the basic plan. Also, integration capabilities lack basic connections to Canvas, Active campaign, etc.
Cost: It does have a free plan for up to two users, which can suit a smaller business or an NFP, but there is also a standard plan at $10 per user per month but this doesn’t include all features.
Notion
Notion is an online system that combines note taking and project management, making it a popular option for more creative disciplines.
Pros: Notion has all the features you expect from project management systems; tasks, project timelines, spreadsheets, combined with document storage and their ability to upload images against tasks. You can assign multiple people across a project task and leave comments and tag people making it great for easy communication.
Cons: The ability to customise the system is a double-edged sword as it takes longer to set up. The navigation can be difficult when you’re starting out and there are some text formatting issues.
Cost: Notion does have a free option for individuals but to unite a team you’ll need to start with plus plan to have additional users, that one starts at $8 per user, per month billed annually.
Airtable
Airtable is another project management software that allows users to customise their platform, getting only relevant information about their role and choosing how they manage their workflows.
Pros: Airtable is a relatable database meaning your team members will be able to see updates and changes to the centralised data in real-time. The system has plenty of templates and ready-made views, as well as built in automation and integration.
Cons: Airtable does have limited features and might not have everything project managers are looking for such as budgeting, expense monitoring and critical path functions.
Cost: There is a free option where you have up to 5 creators and editors and unlimited bases. The paid version is a step up enabling three extensions per base and considerably more storage and functions. these paid options start at $10 per user, per month, billed annually,
Clickup
ClickUp is a fantastic work platform for project management. It includes process management, task management and time management solutions.
Pros: ClickUp has tasks and subtask dependencies making it easierto manage workflow. It has room for multiple team members and ease of communication. It also has great reporting abilities.
Cons: It’s a complex system and it can take a while to work it all out, it’s not ideal for first-time users. There are many setting options, it will take some time to get it sorted out and get it organised the way you want it.
Cost: They have a free option but that’s only for single user, their paid options start at $5 per user, per month.
Teamwork
Teamwork is a project management system platform that focuses on solutions for client work. It has a lot of the popular features that project managers look for in software such as reporting capabilities and task assignment.
Pros: Teamwork has tools for time tracking and workload management, the reporting capabilities are good with project data and metrics easily accessible. There are built-in apps and third party tools that can be easily integrated.
Cons: It can be a bit of a complicated system and may take some users a while to get the hang of it. The number of email notifications can get out of hand if you don’t edit your settings, and modifications and changes don’t show up in real-time for other users which can slow down workflow.
Cost: There is a $0 option that includes up to 5 user per month but most business will need the paid option to access the additional features, and this begins at $9.99 per user, per month billed annually.
Confluence
Confluence is a fantastic project management systems for those teams that have remote workers. It works as a whole management systems for teamwork, tasks, discussions and comment sharing.
Pros: It can integrate with Google Docs, Jira and Microsoft Teams, the interface is user-friendly and intuitive making it easy for team members to learn the system. It supports simultaneous document editing and there are lots of templates to try it out.
Cons: It lacks the capability to show in real-time as documents are edited, which can affect the workflow of projects, there are no chat capabilities so an outside app will need to utilised for staff communication.
Cost: There is a free plan that you can get with up to 10 users but there is limited storage, and some features are not available for most businesses they would need to look at paid pricing which begins at $5.75 per user per month.
At the end of the day, each project management team will require something slightly different in order to effectively get the job done and there is no one fits all application.
At Asset College, our experienced trainers will be able to guide you through the best way to manage your teams projects both manually and utilising software to assist. Find out more about our project management courses today!