Seeking your team's next project management software is no easy feat.
Choosing between what your line manager wants and the colleagues around you find beneficial is a political masterclass. This can all be made possible with good research into the best project management software and fact gathering before laying down the options.
Best Project Management Software: Summary
Our recommendations for project management software from our list below:
- Wrike - an all-round project management experience popular with marketing/sales.
- Asana - the most traditional project management with great integrations & structure.
- ClickUp - a wide array of views and abilities that can be designed for each user.
- Notion - a build-your-own workspace that is flexible for projects and team knowledge.
- monday.com - one of the leading project management tools for all-round use.
- Airtable - a powerful, no-code platform with API, integrations & growing base of users.
- Trello - popular with visual project management users and now built by Atlassian.
- Basecamp - a-sync and remote project management built by 37Signals.
- Coda - a Notion alternative with fantastic power abilities with AI and automations.
Commencing into our list, all of the project management software listed are not in order of quality, this list is ordered at random spanning the various types of best fits.
1. Wrike: A Marketing Team's Dream for Proofing
Best For
Marketing/Sales Teams
Availability
Pricing
Wrike is owned by Citrix and was acquired a few years back. With a traditional layout, Wrike offers a good all round experience for marketing teams. Let's explore some of the best features that Wrike can offer for managing your marketing team or sales team too.
As you can see by Wrike is looks more traditional but it packs features. For teams, you'll get a bit overwhelmed thanks to the amount of features offered by Wrike - for managing projects, you can organize them in table, board, gantt chart, calendar and resource management views for better experiencing each task.
Each task allow you to add notes, add duration, dates for managing, assignees and much more that give you the full remit of managing your project. Resource management (part of the Business Plan for Wrike) is actually quite extensive and popular with those who are looking to manage their team resource allocation (see below example).
Great for marketing and sales teams due the generic feel of the project management software. Helping more traditional knowledge workers to get up to speed fast. Wrike has many features that accent this like custom workflows, views like Gantt, boards and calendar. Proofing and approval is another hit with marketing teams who want to send feedback on imagery without leaving Wrike.
Whilst this an all-in-one collaboration tool for probably the most all-round use in teams. There are definitely some features that scream marketing, sales, HR and administration teams would thrive more with Wrike than others.
Key Takeaways: Should Our Team Get Wrike?
Let's expand on the key takeaways from a choice perspective:
- Wrike is probably better for teams that want function and form over design. Wrike's design isn't amazing but it powers a fair amount of features for team management.
- Pricing isn't crazy with Wrike and it offers a reasonable pricing in line with many of the other project management tools.
- Wrike is also backed by a much larger company which might give you some peace of mind when it comes to the future plans and growth of this application.
- If you're looking for better design then we'd recommend looking at ClickUp, monday.com or Asana as Wrike alternative.
Onto the next tool. Asana.
2. Asana: All-Round Project Abilities with Powerful Integrations
Best For
All-Round Project Manager
Availability
Pricing
If we ask anyone, what project management software do you know? The majority of the time, the reply is back "Asana, Trello & monday.com" (primarily due to their extensive marketing efforts). Asana is a staple project management software and built back in 2008 by one of the OG Facebook team, Dustin Moskovitz.
Asana is popular with teams in product management, IT and operations. The design of Asana is one of the best in the world and offers a clean feel to the application when using it. Timeline and board views make projects visual but not in a distracting way - with visual and collaborative folk in mind.
Asana are also well known for having over 200+ integrations that extend to popular tools like Microsoft Teams, Google Sheets & Zoom too.
Best For: Product, IT & Operations Project Management
3. ClickUp: A Powerful Set of Project Management Tools
Best For
Small Teams
Availability
Pricing
Type of Tool
ClickUp is another that gets talked about thanks to their extensive marketing efforts. Based in San Diego, USA - the team want ClickUp to be the all-in-one base for everything you do at work with the inclusion of ClickUp Docs, AI and many more ClickApps that extend use.
A lot of people like ClickUp's nature of having a range of features that people can turn on and off, but others find it overwhelming on entry to have so many tools at their fingertips something the ClickUp team has addressed much more in their ClickUp 3.0 release.
ClickUp as a project management software is very much like marmite (the UK spread). There are people who love it and cannot get enough. And others who don't get on with the feature heavy nature and high onboarding skills needed which ClickUp are addressing with features more recently like Search, Templates & a cleaner user interface in ClickUp 3.0.
Learning ClickUp might take a little longer, but Layla Pomper, ClickUp expert runs a fantastic course on ClickUp that breaks down the setups for teams & solo users.
Best For: Medium to Large Teams
4. Notion: A Flexible Canvas to Build Your Own Project Software
Best For
Passionate All-In-One
Availability
Pricing
Notion is new to project management, well sort of. You could have always built a project management experience in Notion with databases that live within Notion - but now, they have launched something called Notion Projects and want to be a legitimate enterprise contender in the project management software space.
Notion Projects are pre-built templates with databases that can be applied to a range of situations like sprint management, tasks, projects and internal wiki and knowledge management. Notion has long been known for wiki based management along with management of databases but now they want to cater with these pre-made places.
Notion Projects and Notion as a whole is super for those who want a custom-build to their project management experience so those who are more hands on. But if you find that person in your team, Notion becomes a super weapon for customising it to how you and your team use the experience.
Education with Notion is very helpful, so check out "Tiny Teams" by top Notion builder and team management expert Marie Poulin for unlocking Notion for your team.
Best For: Flexible Teams Below 150 People
5. monday.com: A Popular All-Rounder for the Masses
Best For
All Round Projects
Availability
Pricing
This next one you've likely seen in the form of a YouTube advert. monday.com is globally known as a leading project management software and designed in a similar nature to ClickUp offering an array of features. More recently monday.com have been making the software more comprehensive and out of the box for specific types of job roles.
For example, monday.com now comes for marketers, devs, CRM and a few more different types of work roles making it a more approachable option out of the box. monday.com has great views for kanban boards, tables, calendar and a complementary set of integrations to turn your workload into dashboards, maps and much more.
This project management software is good looking, and carries a sense of swiss army knife with situations and workspaces that need to be mapped for specific needs.
Best For: Medium to Large Teams
6. Airtable: No-Code, Build Your Own Project Management
Best For
Organising Information
Availability
Pricing
Airtable was one of the first in the no-code revolution which saw Notion and Coda quickly enter the battle and in their $1.4bn in funding to date, they continue on the path with newer AI abilities and API upgrades.
The key to Airtable's success is an open plan layout with a more approachable feel and look. Many people call Airtable the most advanced Microsoft Excel ever with comprehensives workflow management, views and layouts, APIs and endless templates to steal from their universe. Again, Airtable takes time to get to used to.
Best For: Teams with Lots of Integrations
7. Trello: Atlassian's Project Management Gem
Best For
Managing Projects
Availability
Pricing
Atlassian own Confluence, JIRA and now Trello. Since their acquisition, Trello has blossomed even further allowing more layouts and views to their setup than just the traditional kanban boards and calendar they were known well for.
Trello now has tables, more advanced power-ups for building better cards but most importantly the sense of approach that many people like about project management software like Asana and Trello.
Best For: General Use
8. Basecamp: Wildy Beneficial for A-Sync & Remote Teams
Best For
Project Management
Availability
Pricing
Type of Tool
Basecamp is on first glance the most expensive project management software, but it turns out to be one of the more cost effective options if you're a mid-large sized teams. Basecamp is developed by 37Signals and beautifully built at that with intention weaved into each feature ranging from messages to chat, to to-do list to schedules.
Things are much more about a-sync workloads than tools like ClickUp and Asana and this breathes into the product across the board. Many people like Basecamp for a-sync workloads but also for the chat function that aims to replace tools like Slack.
Basecamp also introduced new per user pricing, for those without the need to access Basecamp Pro Unlimited. This is a new addition and might make it more approachable.
Best For: Remote & Async Project Management
9. Coda: Google Docs Evolved into Project Management
Best For
Advanced No-Code Tool
Availability
Pricing
Coda is much like Airtable and Notion with a great reputation for many larger companies who want a Google Documents feel with the advanced automations, page doc templates, Coda packs, AI abilities and more custom database building tools.
Coda is a super option for those who want to dedicate time to build the perfect workspaces, but requires more education in our opinion than Airtable and Notion to fully optimise and fully embrace the skills to get Coda where you need it to be.
Coda does, if you're feeling more on the lazy side, a fantastic collection of packs, templates and recommendations to easy steal great setups into your workspace.
Best For: Flexible Team Management
Key Takeaways: Best Project Management Apps
Here's our most precise project management software recommendations folks:
Best Marketing & Sales Project Management Software
Our biggest recommendation is between Wrike and Asana, but here Wrike gives the edge with the abilities tailoring more of those sales and marketing teams.
Best No Code Project Management Software
No code is relatively new, but if you're bold enough to jump in, we'd recommend Notion. It is approachable and you can also use it for personal use too.
Best All Round Project Management Software
All rounder, we'd have to say Asana. It presents a great traditional, modern design layout for your teams projects. If you're looking for more pack in your punch, ClickUp or monday.
Best Remote Project Management Software
Finally, the one that is best designed for remote teams, Basecamp. Nice & easy.
Qualities for Best Project Management Software
Here are things to look for in a good project management app:
- Views - Seeing your projects in multiple views can be helpful. As timelines, kanban boards, lists, calendar and many more are all options. Views help teams to see information in a different way and picking one that maps to their own views is good for them. Wrike & monday.com all have good viewing options for teams.
- Integrations - Newer project management tool won't have a vast amount of integrations, tools like Trello, Asana and ClickUp have an array of them allowing you to connect tools that your team already use.
- Documents - A new trend in teams is having a "Wiki" nearby to help you capture team onboarding, data, resources to help the team and silo'd information that might be trapped in tools like Slack or Twist.
Here's a handy summary of this advice to take away with you.
Other Brilliant Project Management Tools: Explored
We've explored many more tools so here's a window into that world.
- Best Project Management Software: Summary
- 1. Wrike: A Marketing Team's Dream for Proofing
- Key Takeaways: Should Our Team Get Wrike?
- 2. Asana: All-Round Project Abilities with Powerful Integrations
- 3. ClickUp: A Powerful Set of Project Management Tools
- 4. Notion: A Flexible Canvas to Build Your Own Project Software
- 5. monday.com: A Popular All-Rounder for the Masses
- 6. Airtable: No-Code, Build Your Own Project Management
- 7. Trello: Atlassian's Project Management Gem
- 8. Basecamp: Wildy Beneficial for A-Sync & Remote Teams
- 9. Coda: Google Docs Evolved into Project Management
- Key Takeaways: Best Project Management Apps
- Qualities for Best Project Management Software
- Other Brilliant Project Management Tools: Explored
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