Project Management Software
We've helped thousands of businesses choose the right PM software so they can centralize project information and improve their project success rate.
Smartsheet is a project management application with a spreadsheet-like interface to help teams collaborate, plan projects and manage tasks. The software offers a suite of project management applications, such as document management,... Read more
Mavenlink offers services and solutions for project management, resource planning, collaboration and financial management. It was designed for professional services and it is suited businesses looking for team collaboration and project... Read more
Asana is a cloud-based project and task management solution that enables companies and ad agencies to manage and organize tasks and projects, communicate and collaborate. It is helpful for teams and companies that handle multiple projects... Read more
monday.com is a cloud-based project management solution that caters to small to midsize businesses across various industry verticals. The solution helps them manage different projects and facilitate knowledge-sharing among team members. monday.com... Read more
Workfront (formerly AtTask) is a cloud-based project management solution that helps teams to prioritize, route, manage and report on their work. It is suitable for businesses of any size and industry including IT, architecture and... Read more
FunctionFox is a cloud-based time tracking and project management application, offering timesheets and estimates, as well as scheduling, task assignment and reporting. FunctionFox’s capabilities are suited for the billing and... Read more
Workzone is a project management solution that offers document management, project collaboration, customizable reporting, resource and task management and time tracking. The software is cloud-based and offers automated emailed reports... Read more
inMotion is a cloud-based work management system designed to automate workflows for creative and marketing teams in different industries. The solution provides creative brief management, project management, online proofing and reporting. Key... Read more
Airtable is a cloud-based project management solution targeting small to midsize businesses as well as departments within larger companies. This system focuses primarily on data organization and collaboration. The system uses a spreadsheet... Read more
Resource Guru is a cloud-based resource scheduling application is suitable for organizations of all sizes. Resource Guru enables booking and rescheduling through the calendar feature and a drag-and-drop scheduling tool. The Availability... Read more
Accelo is a cloud-based Service Operations Automation (ServOps) solution that allows users to manage all client-related activities. This solution is suitable for businesses of all sizes across various industry verticals. Accelo automatically... Read more
Aha! is a cloud-based project management solution for small, midsize and large enterprises. It caters to industries including education, energy, finance, government, legal, IT services, marketing, medical, non-profit and others. Primary... Read more
Backlog is a cloud-based project management and issue tracking solution that caters to development teams working with design, marketing and IT teams. The key features of the solution include project and issue management, subtasking,... Read more
Project Insight is a project and portfolio management solution for project driven organizations. It provides visibility into the workloads of resources, project budget, and status, with real-time reports. Project Insight is a collaborative... Read more
WorkOtter is a cloud-based resource, program and project management solution that helps businesses centralize projects, balance supply and demand of resources and track project time and status. WorkOtter allows users to manage a portfolio... Read more
Teamwork Projects is a cloud-based project management solution that provides businesses functionalities to manage different operations of a project. Features include task lists, time tracking, file uploads and messages. Teamwork... Read more
Projectmanager.com is a project management software solution that offers applications including budgeting, time tracking, task management, document management and reporting. Projectmanager.com also offers Gantt chart functionality... Read more
Celoxis offers a comprehensive online project management solution for midsize to large businesses to help them plan and manage complex and diverse project portfolios. The collective suite includes modules for resource management, budgeting,... Read more
Zoho Projects is a cloud-based project management solution designed for small and midsize companies. It offers project scheduling and budgeting, which allows project managers to define project tasks, assign them to their teams, estimate... Read more
JIRA is an issue and project tracking tool designed for software development teams of all sizes, across all industries. JIRA combines workflow mapping and issue tracking with several Agile development capabilities. These capabilities... Read more
Project management software describes a range of solutions that allow individuals and teams to track the progress of complex projects from their conception to their completion and/or launch. Currently, there are hundreds of these programs on the market, ranging from basic free online programs all the way to highly complex products that allow the user to manage every aspect of the venture from lead generation all the way to final payment.
In order to help you navigate this complex market, we wrote this buyer’s guide in order to improve your understanding of the functions, features and buying decisions that need to be considered when you assess your options—and there are many. Here’s a brief overview of what we’ll cover:
What Is Project Management Software?
A Comparison of Top Project Management Solutions
Common Features
What Type of Buyer Are You?
Market Trends to Understand
Recent Events You Should Know About
What Is Project Management Software?
These systems are designed to track the development of projects that take weeks, months or years to complete, providing managers and other team members a single access point for all the relevant information. The best software on the market will include (but is not limited to):
- Planning
- Budgeting
- Invoicing
- Managing inventory
- Assigning human resources
- Managing tasks (including assigning and tracking tasks to completion)
- File sharing
- Bug reports
The primary goal is to increase company efficiency by making the entire project cycle visible to all team members. Team members are each given a unique login, allowing them to customize their view, report progress and monitor the progress of others.
Most employees find themselves to be more efficient in this environment; it allows people to identify problems before/as they arise, and it eliminates any question as to the current status of any outstanding tasks. It also provides a single access point for all company-related information, eliminating lost communication or documents.
Project status view in Workfront
Industries that commonly use project management and task tracking software include construction, large-scale manufacturing (e.g., aerospace), software, high tech, marketing, research and consulting/professional services. Help desk, quality control and customer relationship management are additional uses for certain types of project manager software.
A Comparison of Top Project Management Solutions
There are many popular accounting solutions on the market, and it can be hard to know what distinguishes one product from another and which is right for you. To help you better understand how the top accounting systems stack up against one another, we created a series of side-by-side product comparison pages that break down the details of what each solution offers in terms of pricing, applications, ease of use, support and more:
| Top Asana Comparisons | Top Basecamp Comparisons | Top Evernote Comparisons |
| Asana vs. JIRA Asana vs. Slack Smartsheet vs. Asana Wrike vs. Asana |
Evernote vs. Basecamp Slack vs. Basecamp Smartsheet vs. Basecamp Wrike vs. Basecamp |
Evernote vs. Basecamp Slack vs. Evernote Trello vs. Evernote |
| Top JIRA Comparisons | Top Pivotal Tracker Comparisons | Top Slack Comparisons |
| Asana vs. JIRA Pivotal Tracker vs. JIRA Wrike vs. JIRA |
Pivotal Tracker vs. JIRA Pivotal Tracker vs. Trello |
Asana vs. Slack Slack vs. Basecamp Slack vs. Evernote Trello vs. Slack Wrike vs. Slack |
| Top Smartsheet Comparisons | Top Trello Comparisons | |
| Smartsheet vs. Asana Smartsheet vs. Basecamp |
Trello vs. Evernote Pivotal Tracker vs. Trello Trello vs. Slack Wrike vs. Trello |
Common Features
| Project planning and task management | Most systems allow the user to define the scope of the project, establish deadlines and create, track and close essential tasks and deliverables. More complex systems include stronger planning software capabilities, described below. |
| Multi-user interface | Since the purpose is to allow multiple users to monitor their own and others’ progress, a system will have logins for each user with personalized functionality, different types of permission settings and ways to share and track relevant information between individuals. |
| Scheduling | Most systems include basic calendar functionality to allow users to schedule their projects out. More advanced industry-specific solutions build on this, providing specialized intelligent support based on the known phases associated with a typical project. |
| Document management | Another capability common to almost all solutions, this feature allows users to store documents in a central location, share them with the relevant parties, track changes and manage different versions of the documents. |
| Budgeting, time and expense tracking | For many companies, particularly those tracking large one-off projects (e.g., construction, large manufacturing or professional services), each project must be individually budgeted, with time and/or expenses tracked.These companies will likely require a solution that incorporates such functionality. Doing so allows bids, budgets, expenses and revenue to be directly connected to the projects they're associated with. |
| Billing and invoicing | The next level up from Budgeting and Expense Tracking, many products on the market also include full accounting functionality, allowing users the simplicity of using a single system for all functions related to the management and accounting of the project. |
| Resource allocation | Resource allocation allows managers to account for and assign all resources a project will require. Resources can include both inventory and personnel. |
| Risk management | Some of the more robust solutions provide the capability of identifying potential risks associated with projects or activities and raising flags to alert the relevant team members. |
| Customer management | For companies that consider each sale a task to be established, tracked and closed, customer management can be a valuable addition to the standard capabilities.This moves into the realm of CRM software, in which leads can be tracked and connected to product deliverables. This capability can help track and improve sales cycles. |
| Product management | Suited for companies looking to track the entire life cycle (growth, maturity and decline) of products including the planning, production, marketing and management. |
What Type of Buyer Are You?
Individuals. Since project management for an individual tends to be a far simpler endeavor, there are a number of low-cost solutions that provide very basic scheduling, task management and file-sharing capabilities.
Small businesses. Companies with more than a couple of employees will want a system that allows for collaboration, but usually don’t want the added expense of advanced budgeting, invoicing, resource allocation or other intelligent features.
Development-oriented companies. This includes any business for which a single project, once complete, results in multiple sales (e.g., software) as distinct from single-project-single-sale businesses (e.g., construction). These companies will want very strong collaborative capabilities—including very robust document sharing, version control and bug reports—possibly with resource allocation as well. These companies typically will not want invoicing, customer management or other advanced features.
Large/specialty buyers. Construction is the best example of an industry that uses highly specialized project management systems, incorporating budgeting, inventory management and many other features to manage the life cycle of an entire project, from lead generation all the way through to final payment. Similar needs extend to other industries (e.g., custom IT solutions and large scale manufacturing), each of which will have highly specialized solutions specific to that industry. Companies that manage concurrent, complex projects may want to explore project portfolio management (PPM) suites.
Market Trends to Understand
Cloud-based solutions. With the growth of the Internet, more and more Web-based software companies are cropping up offering low-cost solutions based entirely in the cloud. These typically offer subscription-based pricing, rather than forcing companies to purchase, install and maintain their own solutions. This makes it available to businesses that otherwise might not have afforded it, including to self-employed individuals who need something more powerful than the basic tools they started with. For a more in-depth review of cloud-based systems, review our buyer's guide for online project management software.
Mobile applications. Many project managers need access to their software in the field as well as the office. As a result, many companies have developed mobile apps to accommodate this growing trend. Make sure to take your mobile needs and the availability of a mobile app into consideration when evaluating different systems.
For information on products particularly suited to Mac devices, check out our Mac project management software guide.
Recent Events You Should Know About
PPM market estimated to reach nearly $5 billion by 2020. Research from MarketsandMarkets estimates that the project and portfolio management (PPM) market will reach $4.63 billion by 2020. Key areas of growth stem from the the rising bring your own device (BYOD) trend, an increasing demand for mobile and cloud technology and the rising complexities within projects that call for greater resource optimization.
Atlassian acquires Trello. In January 2017, Atlassian acquired Trello, a visual project management solution that uses a board or a card-wall to organize tasks. Atlassian offers similar visual management tools within its suite of JIRA products: JIRA Software, Core and Help Desk. However, while JIRA includes a comprehensive list of features and capabilities designed to serve an array of user needs, Trello rose in popularity due to it’s simplicity. It will be interesting to see how this acquisition impacts both products over time.
Microsoft releases visual PM tool: MS Planner. In June 2016, Microsoft officially launched Planner, a visual project management (PM) tool now part of the Office 365 suite. The work management solution is designed to allow teams to better organize tasks, track progress and collaborate on a shared board. Users organize tasks in columns or “buckets” based on status or who tasks are assigned to. Whereas MS Project is designed for advanced project and portfolio management needs, MS Planner will serve small teams who need a simple collaboration and task management tool.
FrontRunners® for Project Management, September 2018
- monday.com
- WorkOtter
- GanttPRO
- TIEMCHART
- Bric
- Cammsproject
- Teamwork Projects
- Wimi
- ClickUp
- RoboHead
- CaseCamp
- Targetprocess
- GoodDay
- Smartsheet
- Freedcamp
- Microsoft Project
- Airtable
- Podio
- Paymo
- Zoho Projects
- Avaza
- Workfront
- Mavenlink
- ONLYOFFICE
- Redmine
- Scoro
- Glasscubes
- Pivotal Tracker
- Todoist
- Wrike
Explore FrontRunners
Take this short survey so we can help you identify the products that best fit your needs.
What Is the FrontRunners Quadrant?
A Graphic of the Top-Rated Project Management Products
FrontRunners uses real reviews from real software users to highlight the top software products for North American small businesses.
Our goal is to help small businesses to make more informed decisions about what software is right for them. That’s why we engineered FrontRunners.
To create this report, we evaluated over 280 Project Management products. Only those with the top scores for Usability and User Recommended made the cut as FrontRunners.
Scores are based on reviews from real software users.
What’s the Difference Between the “Small Vendor” and “Enterprise Vendor” Views?
The Different Graphics Show Different Sizes of Vendors
Small and Enterprise refer to the size of the software vendor company—not necessarily the size of customers they serve.
We break vendors into two groups for two reasons: It’s a more equal comparison of products, and software buyers have told us it’s helpful.
To determine who’s Small and who’s Enterprise, we look at how many employees the vendors have. All products in FrontRunners, whether Enterprise or Small, are evaluated using the same process.
Each graphic shows the top 10-15 performers for each the Enterprise and Small vendor categories. You can switch views simply by clicking on the version you’d like to see (above the graphic). You can read more in the full FrontRunners methodology here.
How Are FrontRunners Products Selected?
Products Are Scored Based on User Reviews
The gist is that products are scored in two areas—Usability and User Recommended—based on actual user ratings.
To be considered at all, products must have at least 20 reviews published within the previous 18 months, and meet minimum user rating scores. They also have to offer a core set of functionality—for example, collaboration, task management, document management, project planning and project tracking.
From there, user reviews dictate the Usability and User Recommended scores. Usability is plotted on the x-axis and User Recommended on the y-axis.
You can download the full FrontRunners for Project Management Software report here. It contains individual scorecards for each product on the FrontRunners quadrant.
Got It. But What if I Have More Questions?
Check Out Our Additional Resources!
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For more information about FrontRunners, check out the following:
- The “FrontRunners FAQs for Technology Providers,” linked at the top of this page, for detailed answers to commonly-asked questions.
- The complete FrontRunners methodology to understand the scoring.
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FrontRunners constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Software Advice or its affiliates.