Best Project Planning software of 2026: which is right for you?

Whether or not a project is successful largely depends on how well the project is planned. In fact, in a recent analysis of project management (PM) software buyers who contacted Software Advice in the past year, 66% requested systems with project scheduling and resource management capabilities.*

We've created this guide to help buyers better understand project planning solutions and how they factor into the larger PM software market.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is project planning software?

• Common features of project planning software

• Benefits of project planning software

What is project planning software?

Project planning software is a specialized tool that helps project managers and stakeholders map out and visualize a project plan, helping to optimize resource allocation across a complex project and/or multiple projects. The project planning management tool helps plan the sequence of activities and tasks required to complete a project and identify the best project team based on availability and skills set.

This high-level "roadmapping" process helps managers:

• Identify key resources

• Pinpoint project tasks’ dependencies and constraints

• Determine essential project milestones

• Set baselines for the project’s scope, budget, and timeline (the three benchmarks used to determine project success)

Businesses can purchase stand-alone project planning/project scheduling software or invest in an integrated PM suite. A comprehensive project management software solution typically contains project planning capabilities in addition to other core PM functionality, such as:

• Task management

• Budgeting and expense management

• Project tracking and reporting

Among the best project planning tools are Gantt charts, which are used to visualize a project's schedule and determine the critical path. These digital charts are vastly less labor-intensive to update than Gantt charts created using manual methods.

Now let's get into more detail on planning tool features.

Common features of project planning software

The following are some common capabilities of project planning tools:

Gantt chart in Zoho Projects (Source)

Project timeline planning in Microsoft Project (Source)

Project collaboration in Basecamp (Source)

Benefits of project planning software

There are many benefits of using project planning software as opposed to manual methods. These benefits include:

• Increased visibility: View, track, and manage individual and team workloads, their skill sets, and current and future availability. This benefit is best realized when using a comprehensive PM suite with both project planning and resource management capabilities.

• Improved communication and collaboration: Project planning tools act as a shared hub where managers, team members, and stakeholders can store all project-related communication. This provides a permanent record for important decisions and project changes.

• Early risk detection: Using visual planning tools, such as Gantt charts and timelines, project managers and stakeholders can plan risk management strategies ahead of time and mitigate any potential obstacles.

• Maintain historical archives: The information in project plans and status reports can influence future business decisions. Managers and stakeholders using planning software can look back on previous projects to see why decisions were made and to compare timeline and budgetary measures.

*Analysis was performed on software buyer calls asking about project management software from March 10, 2020 through March 9, 2021.

Note: The applications selected in this article are examples to show a feature in context and are not intended as endorsements or recommendations. They have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.