All ActiveCollab Reviews
1-25 of 391 Reviews
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Ricardo
Marketing and Advertising, 2 - 10 employees
Used less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
Reviewed September 2021
Palaciobox using ActiveCollab
Sinoun
Verified reviewer
Internet, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed December 2018
Great, but a lot of improvements can be made.
Overall, I like ActiveCollab, but I want to so bad love it more. There is a lot of potential with AC and room for improvement, and I really hope they listen to people's suggestions and needs! Either way, I do highly recommend ActiveCollab, especially if you're a web designer like me who manages hundreds of sites.
PROSBefore I decided to go with ActiveCollab a few years ago, I researched and tried all the project management softwares I could find. I ended up going with ActiveCollab for a number of reasons. One, their interface is simple, practical, and easy on the eye. I found other project management softwares trying to hard and it essentially complicated simple things. Also, I loved how my projects can be displayed and searched. I know this sounds trivial, but when you manage hundreds of projects (websites), I need an interface that works for me. Their interface works perfectly for someone with my needs. I constantly have to go back and forth on so many notes for projects and ActiveCollab has made it user-friendly for me to do this. Second, ActiveCollab had awesome customer service when I had any issues or questions. This was a big plus because I then knew I was in good hands. Third, they had some add-ons other softwares didn't have so it was nice to have features I wanted to use all in one place, like time tracking and invoicing. Fourth, it was reasonably priced.
CONSWhile I went with ActiveCollab, I am still frustrated with some of their features: One, I use notes A LOT. Their notes interface design looks like something from the 90's. Two, while they have the invoicing option available, it's sub-par. There are a lot of things they can improve with their invoicing. I wish I could use it, but it's just very limited. An example of a limitation is that you can't even enter or send an invoice without "inviting" the client to join ActiveCollab. I tried testing an invoice by putting an email manually because they claimed you could, but nothing gets sent, unless I "invite" someone into my account. This is silly. Another issue I have with the invoicing is that it shows "Active Collab" as the sender and you do NOT have the option to change this. Kinda stupid. Three, you only have a measly 3 ways to categorize or filter projects: Client, Category, and Label. This can be very limiting depending on what you're doing.
Anonymous
11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed July 2020
Simple and extensive
It was very good to us during 6 years.
PROSWeb used Active Collab during several years in our servers. The database structure is very simple and allow us to create dashboards with user data.
CONSLack of features like kanban and of user interface improvements during updates
Reason for choosing ActiveCollab
Price and simples maintenance
Reasons for switching to ActiveCollab
Jira was so complicated and hard do mantain. I'm talking about 2009
Anonymous
2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
2
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
2
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed April 2021
Good choice for a basic project management tool but lacking when compared to Basecamp
ActivaCollab is still at the initial stage in terms of features even though they have been in the market for a couple of years. It serves our initial purpose of tasking team mates and tracking task conversation and progress but not more than that. Based on that, our usage is limited to basic tasking and we are considering and exploring migrating to a different system.
PROSOnboarding is easy, interface is easy to use and understanding. It's also one of the cheapest option in the market. For features that are not available, the ActiveCollab team is keen to consider adding that feature though during our usage, we didn't really see the feature being rolled out.
CONSI used to use Basecamp and when compared, there are a lot of features that are lacking in ActiveCollab such as being able to create a Gantt timeline, quite messy grouping of projects on the main home page, not able to add vendors (only can add clients, yet we do not use ActiveCollab to collaborate with clients). As a project management tool, we also would like to see how we can gauge the workload of each team mate and if each team mate might be overload within the day or week, this function at the moment is not available. Completed tasked are being archived and under archived, the completed tasks are not organised according to task list. Some features such as invoicing and budget management cannot be adopted by finance team as they uses a more advanced thou legacy system which includes a whole lot of other functions on top of merely invoicing.
Vendor Response
Appreciate the detailed feedback shared! We would recommend you to reach to our support teams to schedule a Calendly meet as we might have some workaround options to share with you that might help organising your work.
Replied July 2021
Linda
Higher Education, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed November 2020
Flexible, easy to use system
We have been using AC for five years to manage projects in an in-house marketing and communications team. Overall, we've been able to adapt the system to our needs. AC makes it easy to stay out of email for day-to-day tasks like assigning work, reviewing work, checking on project status, etc.
PROSBeing able to: - upload images and files into task discussion threads to facilitate easy review of work - easily add and archive users - run reports at the task, project, client, and user levels
CONS- No integration with Microsoft Teams. - Limited ability to manage user groups or fine-tune user permissions. Most needed feature: - The ability to mark notifications "unread" or "priority".
Reasons for switching to ActiveCollab
Being able to share files within the system is a crucial feature for us.
Bappaditya
Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed October 2019
Best Project and task management software for SMEs
Simple UI, even a stupid person may understand after simple guidance
PROSI have tried multiple task management software for our company, But anyhow I was not satisfied with other product because of no option to manage workload or time and invoice calculation or somehow workflow is difficult for non technical user to use. Activ Collab has the most simple UI and Design. Only 1 or 2 days training will be sufficient for any users to understand it. Workload segment is really simple and most important functionality it have. And the support team is really great. Most importantly - it have self hosted options which is utmost priority for us for data security and privacy and also we can reduce cost for our users.
CONSAndroid app needs improvement. It doesn't comes anywhere near to desktop web version.
Reason for choosing ActiveCollab
Selfhosted options not available in Proofhub, Data security and privacy is a big concern for us. Design of Activ Collab is much more simple.
Anonymous
51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
2
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed June 2023
A very good tool
The native features are very adapted to our uses, and we were able to add the missing features.Especially, time and budget tracking are good to have and
CONSNot us directly, but our customers are sometimes disturbed by the UX, despite huge leap forward recently.We sometimes find it a bit slow in terms of performance - we host it so we may be to blame - and access to data (because we have a lot of projects and customers).
Reason for choosing ActiveCollab
It enabled us to manage our fixed price projects (not so easy with JIRA or Redmine).It had a lower cost.We could host it ourselves.
Ross
Verified reviewer
11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2018
Great Project Management Software
It organizes my life every day.
PROSSolid options for organization and streamlining processes that even clients can be taught to use. As a creative agency selling our time it's important to communicate quickly and efficiently with our clients. A big part of that happens at the beginning of every project when they fill out a creative brief. We've used ActiveCollab to set up standard brief templates so AC asks all the questions and they go down the list and fill it out. The time tracker works great and is a painless way to keep track of time. Email notifications are great, especially being able to respond to comments VIA email really speeds things up. Support staff is great. Always available and helpful.
CONSThe invoicing functionality is great but is missing major sorting and display capabilities. For example, if I wanted to show each time entry with its note about what that entry was for organized by project, I cannot do that. My wife has also complained about the App not having a lot of functionality, but I have not used it much personally. I also think the 'Notes' 'Files' and 'Discussions' tabs are kind of random. Haven't found a good place for those in our workflows and they're confusing for clients. I realize it's a big thing to ask, but I'd also like to see some way of incorporating something like Slack into Active Collab, so we can move away from Skype completely.
Marek
Financial Services, 2-10 employees
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed May 2023
ActiveCollab Review
Overall, my experience with ActiveCollab has been positive. The software proved to be a reliable and efficient project management tool. The intuitive interface and robust task management features helped in organizing and prioritizing work effectively. The ability to collaborate with team members, share files, and communicate within the platform streamlined the workflow and improved productivity. Despite the limited customization options, ActiveCollab offered a solid foundation for project management and facilitated seamless coordination among team members. In summary, my overall experience with ActiveCollab has been productive and satisfying.
PROSOne of the things I liked most about ActiveCollab was its user-friendly interface and intuitive project management features. The software provided a centralized platform for organizing tasks, collaborating with team members, and tracking project progress. The ability to create and assign tasks, set deadlines, and monitor the overall project timeline made it easy to keep everyone on the same page. Additionally, the interactive Gantt chart and visual overview of tasks and milestones allowed for effective project planning and resource allocation.
CONSWhile ActiveCollab had many positive aspects, one thing I liked least was the limited customization options in terms of design and layout. The software offered a clean and straightforward interface, but there were minimal options for personalizing the look and feel to match specific preferences or branding. Additionally, some users might find the reporting and analytics capabilities of ActiveCollab to be less advanced compared to other project management tools. However, these limitations did not significantly impact the overall functionality and usability of the software.
Matthias
Verified reviewer
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed February 2018
A sleek yet powerful project management software way above its competition
It helps me organize a great number of projects as one-man business without losing more time than necessary.
PROSIt's amazing how flexible AC can be depending on a project's needs. It can serve as a simple reminder list with great speed and simplicity but also get fully blown up for projects involving production teams and clients at once. Compared to its competition it never feels like its dictating you to use it in a certain way, it just hands you a great bunch of options and lets you use them without interference. I use other products like dropbox and dropbox paper too and it all goes together really nicely. One thing to note is a personal and genuinely helpful customer service, there have been issues and bugs here and there (not many) and in 90% of the cases they were solved within short time. I think AC is great for freelancers and small project groups working remotely I switched from Basecamp and it was one of a relief.
CONSI personally don't like the free limitations of users. I know there's a business model behind it but I hate to delete other clients/team members just to make room for someone else.
Ezéchiel
Verified reviewer
Construction, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed September 2023
Avis activecollab
Despite its lack of communication tools and the limited number of tasks, it is one of the best software for positive business performance.
PROSwow what software!!!. it allows me to increase my output and it motivates me and my team.
CONSUnfortunately the number of tasks is very limited and there is no communication tool
Sarah
Marketing and Advertising, 1 employee
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2018
Great Option for my Creative Business
ActiveCollab keeps us organized and on task. It's a great snapshot of our client work at any given point. We have many moving parts, and ActiveCollab allows us to really stay on target with our goals and on task with our clients.
PROSI own and operate a company that specializes in creative strategy and marketing/PR services and this is a good fit for us. I spent many months and went through quite a few trials researching a software that had as many features combined that we were looking for. We settled on ActiveCollab and we're very happy with them. It's a great option without the price tag and disorganization the later versions that Basecamp brings. I like the customization features as well as the billable categories for tracking and reports. We work with contractors in our business and we like the ability to assign tasks and hide back office items from the client. Their customer service has been very responsive and helpful throughout our set up and we're overall very happy with the product and functionality for our needs. Overall good UX / UI.
CONSWe're finding the reports options are a little bit limited, however it hasn't been a huge issue. We're getting most of the data we need. We really wish we could assign tasks to multiple people, but that seems to be a common theme among these software options. I don't understand why as we have many tasks that are worked on by multiple people. This carries over into the time tracking app. If you aren't assigned a task, it won't show up in the time tracking app for you to track against. However the work around is you can add a time report in the desktop version after the fact to any task regardless of who it assigned to. The budget feature per project is nice, however, we wish we could break it down further by task list. Their great customer service has passed this along to the management and dev team for consideration so fingers crossed it will be coming in an update at some point.
Djordje
Information Technology and Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed November 2022
Collaboration on the project and task level - ActiveCollab is the middle-of-the-road solution
Using ActiveCollab daily for over two years felt easy, but also like a chore sometimes. Doing things manually falls within one's job, and it offers good control over how things happen, but sometimes you just want to automate things exactly to your liking. The former describes using ActiveCollab better, but as mentioned, that is sometimes a good thing.
PROSFor all intents and purposes, ActiveCollab is awesome at doing what it advertises it's doing - project and task management, with easy-to-use, uncomplicated and effective tools. And really, especially on the task level, it is great and will save you a lot of time and brain power.
CONSOn the other hand, if you're the one to experiment with your software, look for ways to improve it in new and unexpected way, I hope you're not expecting a lot of success with ActiveCollab. It is a good piece of software, as long as you stay within its area of expertise. Otherwise, you're just stopped in tracks for the most of time, with little or no ways to go forward.
Joe
Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed January 2020
I can't say enough good things about ActiveCollab
ActiveCollab keeps our company organized, on task and on budget. From tracking work and projects to tracking the financials surround ing those projects, we couldn't live without ActiveCollab. I love how ease to use it is and how easy to navigate it is.
PROSActive collab is intuitive, easy to use and easy to navigate. There are MANY other project management tools out there and I've used a number of them. Active Collab is the best in my opinion in light of the integrations and ease of use.
CONSThere are a number of more in-depth features that are sometimes hard to find in ActiveCollab. Nothing a simple support ticket can't solve though.
Reason for choosing ActiveCollab
Price and ease of use.
CINZIA
Telecommunications, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2019
A life changing tool!
Overall ActiveCollab makes my life easier.
PROSActive Collaboration is super intuitive and affordable. Before switching to Active Collaboration a few years ago we used WorkFront and it was an absolute nightmare. After 10 months of getting templates set up and trying to learn how to use them our team was so frustrated that I knew that I wouldn't be renewing that tool for another year. Active Collaboration is so easy to use, it literally takes 10 minutes for me to walk a new team member through the tool when coming onboard. I've learned over the years of project managing that if someone doesn't understand how to use something or its too complicated to input a simple request or comment in, they aren't going use so it, they will default to email or drive-byes. I just don't have that problem with Active Collaboration. I highly recommend it.
CONSI wish there was a feature that if you change a task date there's an option to move out all the dates at one time.
Clay
Education Management, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed May 2021
ActiveCollab Review
Overall I cannot recommend ActiveCollab enough. The application is extremely user friendly and the support staff is extremely responsive and very helpful!
PROSI love how easy it was to implement across our IT team. We started using this for our project management and it has drastically increased our efficiency and communication.
CONSThe only thing I have found that I dislike about ActiveCollab is there is no due date for overall projects. You can create due dates for individual tasks, but it would be nice to set it for the project itself. In no way has this impacted our performance, it would just be a nice feature to add.
Anonymous
11-50 employees
Used weekly for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
2
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed July 2018
Cheap alternative of Basecamp for small team
Timelines.
CONSNot reactive interface. Terrible iOS app.
Anonymous
1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2019
Active Collab is helpful in keeping everyone on the same page and up to date on tasks
Overall, I really like ActiveCollab as a project management tool. We have been able to onboard folks to it quickly and again, I like to have one place that I can go and see all my active projects and current tasks. You are also able to see past projects and tasks.
PROSI like that I can go one place and see all my tasks for the projects I am a part of. It is easy to tag people and the software is pretty intuitive. It allows many people to be part of the big picture and stay up to date on the progress of projects. It also cuts down on the number of emails I need to send because I can follow up on items within the program and tag people.
CONSThe customer support often leaves something to be desired. When issues arise it is not usually a quick fix and when Active Collab is down, our project management comes to a halt because this is the key to our success. The everyday support for quick answers is fine, but when major issues arise the solutions are not always quick.
Anonymous
2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed August 2021
We wake up with ActiveCollab and close the work day with it :)
10000% happy camper
PROSIt's been more than 10 years using ActiveCollab since the day they had this 90s looking masterpiece of project scheduling platform. Today ActiveCollab grew sooo much and we love the minimalist style, the fact that they keep integrating and updating new features and functionalities making it every next day better and better.
CONSI've tried so many other Project planning and Teamwork platforms but this one is the best I've ever seen for what we need - combining teamwork, with project planing, milestones progress, resource scheduling and time tracking.
Reason for choosing ActiveCollab
Because of the features they offer, smoothness of the usability constant features updated and nice user interface
Anonymous
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
2
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2018
After extensive research, our team settled on AC for its simple interface and robust structure.
- Simple, clean UI - Easy to learn - Clear structure (teams, projects, categorized task lists) that works well for us - Ability to sort things in the My Work list, so I can arrange my priorities for the week and then easily reorder things as tasks are completed. - Integrates well with Dropbox - Powerful customizable reports (ex. can easily see what got done in the past week on project A, or can get a clear portrait of what employee B did for the last month) Also, when you're in the middle of writing something (ex. a comment or a note) and get interrupted, it *retains* what you wrote (even if you didn't submit it and no one else can see it). This has saved me so much effort, since it's hard to juggle doing things with documenting them.
CONS- The Asana importer didn't work for me. This resulted in a huge amount of effort migrating projects and tasks by hand. - AC emails you every time you're added to a project, and you need to be part of a project to see what's going on in it - we use this for workplace transparency, so there are a lot of projects and the notifications are irritating - Can't easily transform a task into a project - The My Work interface doesn't automatically refresh when there's an update on one of my projects, so I can be in AC all day and still miss some notifications (unless I enable email notifications, which I dislike).
Emma
Writing and Editing, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed February 2018
ActiveCollab is great for keeping in touch with colleagues around the world - makes it fast and easy
Ease and speed of use, ability to tag co-workers, review discussions easily and keep track of tasks.
PROSI love the fact that it's linked to my email account, so if there is a new post I know about it quickly! It's also great that I can reply to threads directly from my email, that feature is so helpful. I like that the threads within ActiveCollab are easy to keep track of, so no more wading through emails trying to find a reference to something! The interface is quick and easy to use, and it's great being able to tag co-workers in threads to grab their attention.
CONSThere isn't much to be honest, but I suppose I would like it if the software took me directly to recent activity, as when there are a lot of projects sometimes I find it hard to navigate my way to the thread I'm looking for. But that's a minor quibble! Other than that, I really enjoy using the software.
Aaron
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed January 2018
Very intuitive for our daily use. Our 4-person team is able to keep everything clear and organized.
Workflow efficiency. Team project management. Time-tracking for hourly clients.
PROSThe robust features that are at our disposal should we scale up or change the way we work. Discussions, notes, tasks, lists. Third-party app integration if needed. I like that we have room to grow. I also very much like the reports. As the business owner, it's key to see how efficiently my team is performing, and how to keep our workflow profitable.
CONSDay-to-day, the timer app is buggy. It's frustrating when I can't scroll through our long list of active jobs, or when the status doesn't appear in my toolbar for easy reference. We've also had issues with days going by with time records not being logged, having to take screencaps and re-enter by hand (if we're lucky enough to no re-start the app). A better timer app would be very welcomed.
Elizabeth
Verified reviewer
Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
2
EASE OF USE
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
2
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed October 2018
Great features when they work.
ActiveCollab has a lot of potential because it offers great features, but it's very buggy and doesn't work properly quite often.
PROSActiveCollab has a ton of great features - tasks, messages, time tracking, etc. I like that you can have both internal and external teams and choose what the clients can and cannot see.
CONSDifferent features break all the time. Time that you've tracked will be deleted with no warning, tasks will show up with the wrong due date, you won't be able to upload files to the message, etc. Customer Service is quick to *respond* to a support ticket but actually getting the problems fixed usually takes days or weeks.
Andreas
Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2019
Flexible project management tool with many features
The project management tool has many advantages and features. We've been using it for many years. A big advantage is the link with Slack and Google Drive. This gives us an optimal overview of every customer. In addition, our customers can create tasks independently and communicate with our entire team. Since the new version it is clearer and more intuitive. We can only recommend it and will continue to use it intensively.
CONSThe app itself is expandable and also the software for time recording is relatively unreliable. The recurring tasks should include more options.
Tomasz
Verified reviewer
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed February 2018
One of the best project management software
+ faaast + intuitive, easy to use + almost everything that small company need in one place (projects, tasks, time tracking, expenses) + invoicing + 3rd party integrations (stripe, xero) <3 + did I mention that is fast ;) Highly recommended, not only for software development. It's highly configurable and as most of the things that you have to work on is "like a project" - you can use it everywhere.
CONSAfter over two years, I see that lack of simple crm is probably only missing feature. You can use internal notes, but I don't feel it now.